THE DUKE'S CURE FOR STARVATION.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 226, 4 July 1846, Page 71

THE DUKE'S CURE FOR STARVATION.

" I like it very much myself. If any gentleman will try and take a pinch and put it in hot water — I don't mean to say it wiU make good soup, but this I say, if a man comes home and has nothing better, it will make him go to bed comfortable I mean to try it among my labourers." — Duke of Korfolk at the late Arundel Agricultural Dinner. A labourer, lean and haggard and wet, Wtfo had worked all day for what he might get, Sweeping the snow in Arundel Park, Quitted his work when the day grew dark. Home through sleet and snow and sludge, Three weary miles has he to trudge — Th: cc weary miles through sleet and snow, Every inch has he to go — Tin cc weary miles to the common bleak, Wl iere three small children pine and squeak, And their mother, pale and squalid and sad, "With, sorrow enough to drive her mad, Is patching to hear his heavy tread, Anil hoping he brings them a loaf of bread. " Bread ! bread ! oh father dear, Yo>ur children small lie starving here — Bre! ad ! bread ! oh think of the need Of jthe mother who has two mouths to feedBread ! bread ! but to stay the tone Of these small babes that whine and moan ; If it be but a loaf to supper us five, And keep us another night alive." He i came at last, and down he Bate ; Two small sticks were in the grate ; The draught of wind through the broken pane Made them flicker and glimmer amain ; And two small children stretch their feet To catch as much as they can of the heat. With hungry voice the biggest said, " Father, father, where is the bread ? Ifsi a day and a night since we were fed." " Ho I ho! my starveling boy, Here is something to give you joy ; It b not meat and it is not bread, But: something the Duke has invented instead; Better than corn and stronger than beef, To cheer our hearts and quench our grief. Wife, set on the iron pot And blow them sticks to make it hot." They drank it up, those children small ; It warmed the insides of them, one and all ; Thsjy drank it up, that man and iiis wife ; It seemed to give them a spurt of life ; It syarmed them through from head to heel, This new invented ducal meal ; And to bed they went on trusses of straw Stretched along on the rough clay floor, To dream of rashers and savoury meat Which the poor oft dream of, but never eat. Col (I once more, at the dawn of day, On their pallets of straw they moaning lay ; All 'save the man — in every limb A fever hot was stirring him : The two small boys that lay together Clubbing their warmth against the weather, Fo ' bread cry out again, and louder, A" hungrier for the ducal powder. And the wife that had been so ducally fed, Sh»» hugged her lean babe, but, lo ! it was dead; For her breast was dry through the want of bread, And the fiery hot stuff she'd swallowed instead.

" Oor True Duty is to Prevent, and not to Punish." — Lord Denman, in his charge to the Worcestershire grand jury, made the following excellent remarks :—": — " It is not the punishment ot men for crime that is the most effectual means of preventing it. We ought to remove its cause, by attending to the wants of those in the humble ranks of life, and by providing them with a useful anu religious education, giving a higher moral tone and worthier aspirations to their minds and actions, thus elevating them from the degrading position in which unfortunately too many of them now are. Th 3 desire and endeavour to benefit the people, and thus to prevent crime, which has been too long neglected, ought to actuate those placed in affluence and authority, instead of a total carelessness about the cause, and an over-anxiety to punish the criminal, banish him from his family and friends, and consign him to the contaminating influences of a gaol. Out true duty is to prevent, and not to punish."