Note 103 — Chapter IX · A GENERAL COMPARISON OF CUSTOMARY AND REFLECTIVE MORALITY

"One of Dr. Alison's Scotch facts struck us much. A poor Irish Widow, her husband having died in one of the Lanes of Edinburgh, went forth with her three children, bare of all resources, to solicit help from the Charitable Establishments of that City. At this Charitable Establishment and then at that she was refused; referred from one to the other, helped by none; till she had exhausted them all; till her strength and heart failed her; she sank down in typhus-fever; died, and infected her Lane with fever, so that 'seventeen other persons' died of fever there in consequence.... The forlorn Irish Widow applies to her fellow creatures, as if saying, 'Behold I am sinking, bare of help; ye must help me! I am your sister, bone of your bone; one God made us; ye must help me.' They answer, 'No, impossible; thou art no sister of ours.' But she proves her sisterhood; her typhus fever kills them:" (Past and Present, Book III., ch. ii.)