Wrath of Blog

From A Pictorial History of Terriers:

At about the time that Reverend John Russell was picking up his first terrier, the Reverend Thomas Malthus was publishing his tract on human population growth, which was written as a defense of the Enclosure Movement. Malthus argued that nothing should be done to help the rural poor that were being shoved off the land and into the cities — in fact the poor should be pushed towards the grave so that the lives of the rich could be better enjoyed and poor taxes reduced:

“Instead of recommending cleanliness to the poor, we should encourage contrary habits. In our towns we should make the streets narrower, crowd more people into the houses, and court the return of the plague. In the country we should build our villages near stagnant pools, and particularly encourage settlements in all marshy and unwholesome situations. But above all, we should reprobate specific remedies for ravaging diseases: and those benevolent, but much mistaken men, who have thought they were doing a service to mankind by projecting schemes for the total extirpation of particular disorders. If by these and similar means the annual mortality were increased … we might probably every one of us marry at the age of puberty and yet few be absolutely starved.”

In 2009, we would call this guy a psychopath.

The article has some other very provocative tidbits of info on urbanization in England, which it calls the rich man’s land grab. The article is quite a combination of urbanization, sheep breeding, workhouses, the Origin of Species, hunting and, oh yeah, dogs. Is it correct? I don’t know.