Now it will naturally be matter of wonder to you, friend Jack, that this small band of persons, and of debauched wretched persons too, any half dozen of whom you would be able to beat with one hand tied down; it will be matter of wonder to you that this contemptible band should have been able thus to subjugate, and hold in bondage so degrading, the whole of the English people. But, Jack, recollect that once a parcel of fat, lazy, drinking, and guttling monks and friars were able to make this same people to work and support them in their laziness and debaucheries, aye, and almost to adore them, too; to go to them, and kneel down and confess their sins to them, and to believe that it was in their power to absolve them of their sins. Now how was it that these fat, these b.a.s.t.a.r.d-propagating rascals succeeded in making the people do this? Why by fraud; by deception; by cheatery; by making them believe lies; by frightening them half out of their wits; by making them believe that they would go to h.e.l.l if they did not work for them. A ten-thousandth part of the people were able to knock the greasy vagabonds on the head; and they would have done it too; but they were afraid of going to h.e.l.l if they had no priest to pardon them.

Thus did these miscreants govern by fraud. The Boroughmongers, as I shall by and by show, have of late been compelled to resort to open force; but for a long while they governed by fraud alone. First they, by the artful and able agents which they have constantly kept in pay, frightened the people with the pretended dangers of a return of the old king"s family. The people were amused with this scarecrow, while the chains were silently forging to bind them with. But the great fraud, the cheat of all cheats, was what they call the national debt.

And now, Jack, pray attend to me; for I am going to explain the chief cause of all the disgraces and sufferings of the labourers in England; and am also going to explain the reasons or motives which the Boroughmongers have for setting on foot this new fraud of Savings Banks. I beg you, Jack, if you have no other leisure time, to stay at home instead of going to church, for one single Sunday. Shave yourself, put on a clean shirt, and sit down and read this letter ten times over, until you understand every word of it. And if you do that, you will laugh at the parson and tax-gatherer"s coaxings about Savings Banks. You will keep your odd pennies to yourself; or lay them out in bread or bacon.

You have heard, I daresay, a great deal about the national debt; and now I will tell you what this thing is, and how it came, and then you will see what an imposture it is, and how shamefully the people of England have been duped and robbed.

The Boroughmongers having usurped all the powers of government, and having begun to pocket the public money at a great rate, the people grew discontented. They began to think that they had done wrong in driving King James away. In a pretty little fable-book, there is a fable which says that the frogs, who had a log of wood for king, prayed to Jupiter to send them something more active. He sent them a stork, or heron, which gobbled them up alive by scores! The people of England found in the Boroughmongers what the poor frogs found in the stork; and they began to cry out against them and to wish for the old king back again.

The Boroughmongers saw their danger, and they adopted measures to prevent it. They saw that if they could make it the interest of a great many rich people to uphold them and their system they should be able to get along. They therefore pa.s.sed a law to enable themselves to borrow money of rich people; and by the same law they imposed it on the people at large to pay, for ever, the interest of the money so by them borrowed.

The money which they thus borrowed they spent in wars, or divided amongst themselves, in one shape or another. Indeed the money spent in wars was pocketed, for the greater part, by themselves. Thus they owed, in time, immense sums of money; and as they continued to pa.s.s laws to compel the nation at large to pay the interest of what they borrowed, spent and pocketed, they called and still call this debt, the debt of the nation; or, in the usual words, the national debt.

It is curious to observe that there has seldom been known in the world any very wicked and mischievous scheme of which a priest of some description or other was not at the bottom. This scheme, certainly as wicked in itself as any that was ever known, and far more mischievous in its consequences than any other, was the offspring of a Bishop of Salisbury, whose name was Burnet; a name that we ought to teach our very children to execrate. This crafty priest was made a Bishop for his invention of this scheme; a fit reward for such a service.

The Boroughmongers began this debt one hundred and twenty-four years ago. They have gone on borrowing ever since; and have never paid off one farthing, and never can. They have continued to pa.s.s Acts to make the people pay the interest of what has been borrowed; till, at last, the debt itself amounts to more than all the lands, all the houses, all the trees, all the ca.n.a.ls and all the mines would sell for at their full sterling value; and the money to pay the interest is taken out of men"s rents and out of their earnings; and you, Jack, as I shall by and by prove to you, pay to the Boroughmongers more than the half of what you receive in weekly wages from your master.

Is not this a pretty state of things? Pray observe, Jack, the debt far exceeds the real full value of the whole kingdom, if there could be a purchaser found for it. So that, you see, as to private property no man has any, as long as this debt hangs upon the country. Your master, Farmer Gripe, for instance, calls his farm _his_. It is none of his, according to the Boroughmongers" law; for that law has p.a.w.ned it for the payment of the interest of the Boroughmongers" debt; and the p.a.w.n must remain as long as the Boroughmongers" law remains. Gripe is compelled to pay out of the yearly value of his farm a certain portion to the debt. He may, indeed, sell the farm; but he can get only a part of the value; because the purchaser will have to pay a yearly sum on account of the p.a.w.n. In short, the Boroughmongers have, in fact, pa.s.sed laws to take every man"s private property away from him, in whatever portions their debt may demand such taking away; and a man who thinks himself an owner of land, is at best only a steward who manages it for the Boroughmongers.

This, however, is only a small part of the evil; for the whole of the rents of the houses and lands and mines and ca.n.a.ls would not pay the interest of this debt; no, and not much more than the half of it. The labour is therefore p.a.w.ned too. Every man"s labour is p.a.w.ned for the payment of the interest of this debt. Aye, Jack, you may think that you are working for yourself, and that, when on a Sat.u.r.day night you take nine shillings from Farmer Gripe, the shillings are for your own use. You are grievously deceived, for more than half the sum is paid to the Boroughmongers on account of the p.a.w.n. You do not see this, but the fact is so. Come, what are the things in which you expend the nine shillings? Tea, sugar, tobacco, candles, salt, soap, shoes, beer, bread; for no meat do you ever taste. On the articles taken together, except bread, you pay far more than half tax; and you will observe that your master"s taxes are, in part, pinched out of you. There is an army employed in Ireland to go with the excis.e.m.e.n and other taxers to make the people pay. If the taxers were to wait at the ale houses and grocers" shops, and receive their portion from your own hands, you would then clearly see that the Boroughmongers take away more than the half of what you earn. You would then clearly see what it is that makes you poor and ragged, and that makes your children cry for the want of a bellyful. You would clearly see that what the hypocrites tell you about this being your lot, and about Providence placing you in such a state in order to try your patience and faith, is all a base falsehood. Why does not Providence place the Boroughmongers and the parsons in a state to try their patience and faith? Is Providence less anxious to save them than to save you? If you could see clearly what you pay on account of the Boroughmongers" p.a.w.n, you would see that your misery arises from the designs of a benevolent Providence being counteracted by the measures of the Borough-tyrants.

Your lot, indeed! Your lot a.s.signed by Providence! This is real blasphemy! Just as if Providence, which sends the salt on sh.o.r.e all round our coast, had ordained that you should not have any of it unless you would pay the Boroughmongers fifteen shillings a bushel tax upon it! But what a Providence must that be which would ordain that an Englishman should pay fifteen shillings tax on a bushel of English salt, while a Long Islander pays only two shillings and sixpence for a bushel of the same salt, after it is brought to America from England?

What an idea must we have of such a Providence as this? Oh no, Jack; this is not the work of Providence. It is the work of the Boroughmongers; the pretext about Providence has been invented to deceive and cheat you, and to perpetuate your slavery.

Well: all is p.a.w.ned then. The land, the houses, the ca.n.a.ls, the mines, and the labour are p.a.w.ned for the payment of the interest of the Boroughmongers debt. Your labour, mind, Jack, is p.a.w.ned for the one-half of its worth. But you will naturally ask, how is it that the nation, that everybody submits to this? There"s your mistake, Jack. It is not _everybody_ that submits. In the first place there are the Boroughmongers themselves and all their long tribe of relations, legitimate and spurious, who profit from the taxes, and who have the church livings, which they enjoy without giving the poor any part of their legal share of those livings. Then there are all the officers of army and navy, and all the endless hosts of place-men and place-women, pensioned men and pensioned women, and all the hosts of tax-gatherers, who alone, these last I mean, swallow more than would be necessary to carry on the Government under a reformed Parliament. But have you forgotten the lenders of the money which makes the debt? These people live wholly upon the interest of the debt; and of course they approve of your labour, and the labour of every man being p.a.w.ned. The Boroughmongers have p.a.w.ned your labour to them. Therefore they like that your labour should be taxed. They cannot be said to submit to the tyranny; they applaud it, and to their utmost they support it.

But you will say, still the ma.s.s of the people would, if they had a mind to bestir themselves, be too strong for all these. Very true. But you forget the army, Jack. This is a great military force, armed with bayonets, bullets and cannon-b.a.l.l.s, ready at all times and in all places to march or gallop to attack the people, if they attempt to eat sugar or salt without paying the tax. There are forts, under the name of barracks, all over the kingdom, where armed men are kept in readiness for this purpose. In Ireland they actually go in person to help to collect the taxes; and in England they are always ready to do the same. Now, suppose, Jack, that a man who has a bit of land by the seaside, were to take up a little of the salt that Providence sends on sh.o.r.e. He would be prosecuted. He would resist the process. Soldiers would come and take him away to be tried and _hanged_. Suppose you, Jack, were to dip your rushes into grease, till they came to farthing candles. The Excise would prosecute you. The sheriff would send men to drag you to jail. You would fight in defence of your house and home.

You would beat off the sheriff"s men. Soldiers would come and kill you, or would take you away to be hanged.

This is the thing by which the Boroughmongers govern. There are enough who would gladly not submit to their tyranny; but there is n.o.body but themselves who has an army at command.

Nevertheless they are not altogether easy under these circ.u.mstances.

An army is a two-edged weapon. It may cut the employer as well as the thing that it is employed upon. It is made up of flesh and blood, and of English flesh and blood too. It may not always be willing to move, or to strike when moved. The Boroughmongers see that their t.i.tles and estates hang upon the army. They would fain coax the people back again to feelings of reverence and love. They would fain wheedle them into something that shall blunt their hostility. They have been trying Bible-schemes, school-schemes, and soup-schemes. And at last they are trying the Savings Banks scheme, upon which I shall now more particularly address you.

This thing is of the same nature, and its design is the same, as those of the grand scheme of Bishop Burnet. The people are discontented.

They feel their oppressions; they seek a change; and some of them have decidedly protested against paying any longer any part of the interest of the debt, which they say ought to be paid, if at all, by those who have borrowed and spent, or pocketed, the money. Now then, in order to enlist great numbers of labourers and artisans on their side, the Boroughmongers have fallen upon the scheme of coaxing them to put small sums into what they call _banks_. These sums they pay large interest upon, and suffer the parties to take them out whenever they please. By this scheme they think to bind great numbers to them and their tyranny. They think that great numbers of labourers and artisans, seeing their little sums increase, as they will imagine, will begin to conceive the hopes of becoming rich by such means; and as these persons are to be told that their money is in the _funds_, they will soon imbibe the spirit of fundholders, and will not care who suffers, or whether freedom or slavery prevail, so that the funds be but safe.

Such is the scheme and such the motives. It will fail of its object, though not unworthy the inventive powers of the servile knaves of Edinburgh. It will fail, first because the men from whom alone the Borough-tyrants have anything to dread, will see through the scheme and despise it; and will, besides, well know that the funds are a mere bubble that may burst, or be bursted at any moment. The parsons appear to be the main tools in this coaxing scheme. They are always at the head of everything which they think likely to support tyranny. The depositors will be domestic servants, particularly women, who will be tickled with the idea of having a fortune in the funds. The Boroughmongers will hint to their tenants that they must get their labourers into the Savings Banks. A preference will be given to such as deposit. The Ladies, the "Parsons" Ladies," will scold poor people into the funds. The parish officers will act their part in this compulsory process: and thus will the Boroughmongers get into their hands some millions of the people"s money by a sort of "forced loan": or in other words, a robbery. In order to swell the thing out, the parsons and other tools of the Boroughmongers will lend money in this way themselves, under feigned names; and we shall, if the system last a year or two, hear boastings of how rich the poor are become.

Now then, Jack, supposing it possible that Farmer Gripe may, under pain of being turned out of your cottage, have made you put your twopence a week into one of these banks, let us see what is the natural consequence of your so doing. Twopence a week is eight shillings and eightpence a year; and the interest will make the amount about nine shillings perhaps. What use is this to you? Will you let it remain; and will you go on thus for years? You must go on a great many years, indeed, before your deposit amounts to as much as the Boroughmongers take from you in one year! Twopence will buy you a quarter of a pound of meat. This is a dinner for your wife or yourself. You never taste meat. And why are you to give up half a pound of your bread to the Boroughmongers. You are ill; your wife is ill; your children are ill. "Go to the bank and take out your money,"

says the overseer; "for I"ll give you no aid till that be spent." Thus then, you will have been robbing your own starved belly weekly, to no other end than that of favouring the parish purse, upon which you have a just and legal claim, until the clergy restore to the poor what they have taken from them. As the thing now stands, the poor are starved by others, this scheme is intended to make them a.s.sist in the work themselves, at the same time that it binds them to the tyranny.

But, Jack, what a monstrous thing is this, that the Boroughmongers should kindly pa.s.s an Act to induce you to save your money, while they take from you five shillings out of every nine that you earn? Why not take less from you! That would be the more natural way to go to work, surely. Why not leave you all your earnings to yourself? Oh, no! They cannot do that. It is from the labour of men like you that the far greater part of the money comes to enrich the Boroughmongers, their relations and dependants.

However, suppose you have gotten together five pounds in a Savings Bank. That is to say in the funds. This is a great deal for you, though it is not half so much as you are compelled to give to the Boroughmongers in one year. This is a great sum. It is much more than you ever will have; but suppose you have it. It is _in the funds_, mind. And now let me tell you what the funds are; which is necessary if you have not read my little book called _Paper against Gold._ The funds is _no place_ at all, Jack. It is nothing, Jack. It is moonshine. It is a lie, a bubble, a fraud, a cheat, a humbug. And it is all these in the most perfect degree. People think that the funds is a place where money is kept. They think that it is a place which contains that which they have deposited. But the fact is, that the funds is a word which means nothing that the most of the people think it means. It means the _descriptions of the several sorts of the debt_. Suppose I owed money to a tailor, to a smith, to a shoemaker, to a carpenter, and that I had their several bills in my house. I should in the language of the Boroughmongers, call these bills my _funds_. The Boroughmongers owe some people annuities at three pounds for a hundred; some at four pounds for a hundred; some at five pounds for a hundred; and these annuities, or debts they call their funds.

And, Jack, if the Savings Bank people lend them a good parcel of money, they will have that money in these debts or funds. They will be owners of some of those debts which never will and never can be paid.

But what is this money too in which you are to be paid back again? It is no money. It is paper; and though that paper will pa.s.s just at this time; it will not long pa.s.s, I can a.s.sure you, Jack. When you have worked a fortnight, and get a pound note for it, you set a high value upon the note, because it brings you food. But suppose n.o.body would take the note from you. Suppose no one would give you anything in exchange for it. You would go back to Farmer Gripe and fling the note in his face. You would insist upon real money, and you would get it, or you would tear down his house. This is what will happen, Jack, in a very short time.

I will explain to you, Jack, how this matter stands. Formerly bank-notes were as good as real money, because anybody that had one might go at any moment, and get real money for it at the Bank. But now the thing is quite changed. The Bank broke some years ago; that is to say, it could not pay its notes in real money; and it never has been able to do it from that time to this; and what is more, it never can do it again. To be sure the paper pa.s.ses at present. You take it for your work, and others take it of you for bread and tea. But the time may be, and I believe is, very near at hand, when this paper will not pa.s.s at all; and then as the Boroughmongers and the Savings Bank people have, and can have, no real money, how are you to get your five pounds back again?

The bank-notes may be all put down at any moment, if any man of talent and resolution choose to put them down; and why may not such a man exist, and have the Disposition to put them down? They are now of value, as I said before, because they will pa.s.s; because people will take them and will give victuals and drink for them; but, if n.o.body would give bread and tea and beer for them, would they then be good for anything? They are taken because people are pretty sure that they can pa.s.s them again; but who will take them when he does not think that he can pa.s.s them again? And I a.s.sure you, Jack, that even I myself could, before next May-day, do that which would prevent any man in England from ever taking a bank-note any more. If you should put five pounds into a Savings Bank, therefore, you could, in such case, never see a farthing in exchange for it.

This being a matter of so much importance to you, I will clearly explain to you how I might easily do the thing. Mind, I do not say that I will do the thing. Indeed, I will not; and I do not know any one that intends to do it. But I will show you how I _might_ do it; because it is right that you should know what a ticklish state your poor five pounds will be in if you deposit them in the Savings Bank.

You know, Jack, that _forged_ notes pa.s.s till people find them out.

They keep pa.s.sing very quietly till they come to the Bank, and there being known for forged notes, the man who carries them to the Bank, or owns them at the time, loses the amount of them. Suppose now, that Tom were to forge a note, and pay it to d.i.c.k for a pig. d.i.c.k would pay it to Bob for some tea. Bob would send it up to London to pay his tea-man. The tea-man would send it to the Bank. The Bank would keep it, and give him nothing for it. If the tea-man forgot whom he got it from, he must lose. If he could prove that he got it from Bob, Bob must lose it; and so on; but either d.i.c.k or Bob or the tea-man must lose it. There must be a loss somewhere.

Now, it is clear that if there were a great quant.i.ty of forged notes in circulation, people would be afraid to take notes at all; and that if this great quant.i.ty came out all of a sudden, it would for a while put an end to all payments and all trade. And if such great quant.i.ty can with safety be put out, I leave you to guess, Jack, at the situation of your five pounds. I will now show you, then, that I could do this myself, and with perfect safety and ease.

I could have made, at a very trifling expense, a million of pounds in bank-notes of various amounts. There are fourteen different ways in which I could send them to England, and lodge them safely there, without the smallest chance of their arrival being known to any soul except the man to whom they should be confided. The Banks might search and ransack every vessel that arrived from America. They might do what they would. They would never detect the cargo!

There they are then, safe in London; a famous stock of bank-notes, so well executed that no human being except the Bank people would be able to discover the counterfeit. The agent takes a parcel at a time, and drops them in the street in the dark. This work he carries on for a week or two in such streets as are best calculated for the purpose, till he has well stocked the town. He may do the same at Portsmouth and other great towns if he please, and he may send off large supplies by post.

Now, Jack, suppose you were up at London with your master"s waggon.

You might find a parcel of notes. You would go to the first shop to buy your wife a gown and your children some clothes, yourself a hat, a greatcoat, and some shoes. The rest you would lay out at shops on the road home; for the sooner you got rid of this _foundal_, the less chance of having it taken from you. The shopkeepers would thank you for your custom, and your wife"s heart would bound with joy.

The notes would travel about most merrily. At last they would come to the Bank. The holders would lose them; but you would gain by them. So that, upon the whole, there would be no loss, and the maker of the notes would have no gain. Others would find, and nearly all would do like you. In a few days the notes would find their way to the Bank in great numbers, where they would all be stopped. The news would spread abroad. The thieftakers would be busy. Every man who had had his note stopped at the Bank would alarm his neighbourhood. The country would ring with the news. n.o.body would take a bank-note. All business would be at a stand. The farmers would sell no corn for bank-notes. The millers would have nothing else to pay with. No markets, because no money. The baker would be able to get no flour. He could sell no bread, for n.o.body would have money to pay him.

Jack, this thing will a.s.suredly take place. Mind, I tell you so. I have been right in my predictions on former occasions; and I am not wrong now. I beg you to believe me; or, at any rate, to blame yourself if you lose by such an event. In the midst of this hubbub what will you do? Farmer Gripe will, I daresay, give you something to eat for your labour. But what will become of your five pounds? That sum you have in the Savings Bank, and as you are to have it out at any time when you please, your wife sets off to draw it. The banker gives her a five-pound note. She brings it; but n.o.body will take it of you for a pig, for bread, for clothing, or for anything else! And this, Jack, will be the fate of all those who shall be weak enough to put their money into those banks!

I beg you, Jack, not to rely on the power of the Boroughmongers in this case. Anything that is to be done with halters, gags, dungeons, bayonets, powder, or ball, they can do a great deal at; but they are not conjurers; they are not wizards. They cannot prevent a man from dropping bank-notes in the dark; and they cannot make people believe in the goodness of that which they must know to be bad. If they could hold a sword to every man"s breast, they might indeed do something; but short of this, nothing that they can do would be of any avail.

However, the truth is that they, in such case, will have no sword at all. An army is a powerful weapon; but an army must be paid. Soldiers have been called machines; but they are eating and drinking machines.

With good food and drink they will go far and do much; but without them, they will not stir an inch. And in such a case whence is to come the money to pay them? In short, Jack, the Boroughmongers would drop down dead, like men in an apoplexy, and you would, as soon as things got to rights, have your bread and beer and meat and everything in abundance.

The Boroughmongers possess no means of preventing the complete success of the dropping plan. If they do, they ought to thank me for giving them a warning of their danger; and for telling them that if they do prevent the success of such a plan, they are the cleverest fellows in this world.

I now, Jack, take my leave of you, hoping that you will not be coaxed out of your money, and a.s.suring you that I am your friend,

WM. COBBETT.

VII.--"THE LETTERS OF MALACHI MALAGROWTHER"

BY SIR WALTER SCOTT

(_To what has been said in the Introduction respecting the _Letters of Malachi Malagrowther_ it is only necessary to add that their immediate cause was a Bill due to the very commercial crisis which indirectly ruined Scott himself, and introduced in the spring of 1826 for stopping the note circulation of private banks altogether, while limiting that of the Bank of England to notes of 5 and upwards. The scheme, which was to extend to the whole of Great Britain, was from the first unpopular in Scotland, and Scott plunged into the fray. The letters excited or coincided with such violent opposition throughout the country that the Bill was limited to England only. As Scott was a strong Tory, his friends in the Government, especially Lord Melville and Croker (who was officially employed to answer "Malachi"), were rather sore at his action. He defended himself in some spirited private letters, which will be found in Lockhart._)

A LETTER ON THE PROPOSED CHANGE OF CURRENCY

_To the Editor of the Edinburgh Weekly Journal_

My dear Mr. Journalist--I am by pedigree a discontented person, so that you may throw this letter into the fire, if you have any apprehensions of incurring the displeasure of your superiors. I am, in fact, the lineal descendant of Sir Mungo Malagrowther, who makes a figure in the _Fortunes of Nigel_, and have retained a reasonable proportion of his ill-luck, and, in consequence, of his ill-temper.

If, therefore, I should chance to appear too warm and poignant in my observations, you must impute it to the hasty and peevish humour which I derive from my ancestor. But, at the same time, it often happens that this disposition leads me to speak useful, though unpleasant truths, when more prudent men hold their tongues and eat their pudding. A lizard is an ugly and disgusting thing enough; but, methinks, if a lizard were to run over my face and awaken me, which is said to be their custom when they observe a snake approach a sleeping person, I should neither scorn his intimation, nor feel justifiable in crushing him to death, merely because he is a filthy little abridgment of a crocodile. Therefore, "for my love, I pray you, wrong me not."

I am old, sir, poor, and peevish, and therefore I may be wrong; but when I look back on the last fifteen or twenty years, and more especially on the last ten, I think I see my native country of Scotland, if it is yet to be called by a t.i.tle so discriminative, falling, so far as its national, or rather, perhaps, I ought now to say its _provincial_, interests are concerned, daily into more absolute contempt. Our ancestors were a people of some consideration in the councils of the empire. So late as my own younger days, an English minister would have paused, even in a favourite measure, if a reclamation of national rights had been made by a member for Scotland, supported as it uniformly then was, by the voice of her representatives and her people. Such ameliorations in our peculiar system as were thought necessary, in order that North Britain might keep pace with her sister in the advance of improvement, were suggested by our own countrymen, persons well acquainted with our peculiar system of laws (as different from those of England as from those of France), and who knew exactly how to adapt the desired alteration to the principle of our legislative enactments, so that the whole machine might, as mechanics say, work well and easily. For a long time this wholesome check upon innovation, which requires the a.s.similation of a proposed improvement with the general const.i.tution of the country to which it has been recommended, and which ensures that important point, by stipulating that the measure shall originate with those to whom the spirit of the const.i.tution is familiar, has been, so far as Scotland is concerned, considerably disused. Those who have stepped forward to repair the gradual failure of our const.i.tutional system of law, have been persons that, howsoever qualified in other respects, have had little further knowledge of its construction than could be acquired by a hasty and partial survey, taken just before they commenced their labours. Scotland and her laws have been too often subjected to the alterations of any person who chose to found himself a reputation, by bringing in a bill to cure some defect which had never been felt in practice, but which was represented as a frightful bugbear to English statesmen, who, wisely and judiciously tenacious of the legal practice and principles received at home, are proportionally startled at the idea of anything abroad which cannot be brought to a.s.similate with them.