It may be laid down for an undeniable truth, that where all work
nobody will want, and to promote this would be a greater charity and
more meritorious than to build hospitals, which very often are but
so many monuments of ill-gotten riches attended with late
repentance.
To make as many as possible of these 1,330,000 persons (whereof not
above 330,000 are children too young to work) who now live chiefly
upon others get themselves a large share of their maintenance would
be the opening a new vein of treasure of some millions sterling per
annum; it would be a present ease to every particular man of
substance, and a lasting benefit to the whole body of the kingdom,
for it would not only nourish but increase the numbers of the
people, of which many thousands perish every year by those diseases
contracted under a slothful poverty.
Our laws relating to the poor are very numerous, and this matter has
employed the care of every age for a long time, though but with
little success, partly through the ill execution, and partly through
some defect in the very laws.
The corruptions of mankind are grown so great that, now-a-days, laws
are not much observed which do not in a manner execute themselves;
of this nature are those laws which relate to bringing in the
Prince's revenue, which never fail to be put in execution, because
the people must pay, and the Prince will be paid; but where only one
part of the constitution, the people, are immediately concerned, as
in laws relating to the poor, the highways, assizes, and other civil
economy, and good order in the state, those are but slenderly
regarded.
Pages:
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117