The bodies of men are, without doubt, the most valuable treasure of
a country, and in their sphere the ordinary people are as
serviceable to the commonwealth as the rich if they are employed in
honest labour and useful arts, and such being more in number do more
contribute to increase the nation's wealth than the higher rank.
But a country may be populous and yet poor (as were the ancient
Gauls and Scythians), so that numbers, unless they are well
employed, make the body politic big but unwieldy, strong but
unactive, as to any uses of good government.
Theirs is a wrong opinion who think all mouths profit a country that
consume its produce, and it may be more truly affirmed, that he who
does not some way serve the commonwealth, either by being employed
or by employing others, is not only a useless, but a hurtful member
to it.
As it is charity, and what we indeed owe to human kind, to make
provision for the aged, the lame, the sick, blind, and impotent, so
it is a justice we owe to the commonwealth not to suffer such as
have health, and who might maintain themselves, to be drones and
live upon the labour of others.
The bulk of such as are a burden to the public consists in the
cottagers and paupers, beggars in great cities and towns, and
vagrants.
Upon a survey of the hearth books, made in Michaelmas, 1685, it was
found that of the 1,300,000 houses in the whole kingdom, those of
one chimney amounted to 554,631, but some of these having land about
them, in all our calculations, we have computed the cottagers but at
500,000 families; but of these, a large number may get their own
livelihood, and are no charge to the parish, for which reason Mr.
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