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1Author:  Paulding James Kirke 1778-1860Add
 Title:  The merry tales of the three wise men of Gotham  
 Published:  1997 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 
 Description: I was born, began the first Wise Man of Gotham, in a country that I consider unworthy of my nativity, and for that reason I shall do all in my power to deprive it of the honour, by not mentioning its name. I am, moreover, descended from a family, which must necessarily be of great antiquity, since, like all old things, it has long since fallen into decay. My father had little or no money, but was blessed with the poor man's wealth, a fruitful wife and great store of children. Of these I am the eldest; but at the period I shall commence my story, we were all too young to take care of ourselves, until the fortunate discovery was made by some great philanthropist, that little children, of six or seven years old, could labour a dozen or fourteen hours a day without stinting their minds, ruining their health, or destroying their morals. This improvement in the great science of PRODUCTIVE LABOUR, delighted my father—it was shifting the onus, as the lawyers say, from his own shoulders to that of his children. He forthwith bound us all over to a cotton manufactory, where we stood upon our legs three times as long as a member of congress, that is to say, fourteen hours a day, and among eight of us, managed to earn a guinea a week. The old gentleman, for gentleman he became from the moment he discovered his little flock could maintain him—thought he had opened a mine. He left off working, and took to drinking and studying the mysteries of political economy and productive labour. He soon became an adept in this glorious science, and at length arrived at the happy conclusion, that the whole moral, physical, political and religious organization of society, resolved itself into making the most of human labour, just as we do of that of our horses, oxen, asses and other beasts of burthen.
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