ent himself, shall, in old age be removed
by an order, to perish among strangers. In 1768, a small property fell
into my hands, situated in a neighbouring village; I found the tenant
had entered upon the premises at the age of twenty-two; that he had
resided upon them, with poverty and a fair character, during the long
space of forty six years--I told him he was welcome to spend the residue
of his life upon the spot gratis. He continued there ten years after,
when finding an inability to procure support from labour, and meeting
with no assistance from the parish in which he had been resident for an
age, he resigned the place with tears, in 1778, after an occupation of
fifty six years, and was obliged to recoil upon his own parish, about
twelve miles distant; to be farmed with the rest of the poor; and
where, he afterwards assured me, "They were murdering him by inches." --
But no complaint of this ungrateful kind lies against that people whose
character I draw.

Perhaps it may be a wise measure, in a place like Birmingham, where the
manufactures flourish in continual sunshine, not to be over strict with
regard to removals. Though it may be burdensome to support the poor of
another parish, yet perhaps it is the least of two evils: to remove old
age which hath spent a life among us, is ungenerous; to remove temporary
sickness, is injurious to trade; and to remove infancy is impolitic,
being upon the verge of accommodating the town with a life of labour. It
may be more prudent to remove a rascal than a pauper. Forty pounds hath
been spent in removing a family, which would not otherwise have cost
forty shillings, and whose future industry might have added many times
that sum to the common capital. The highest pitch of charity, is that of
directing inability to support itself. Idleness suits no part of a
people, neither does it find a place here; every individual ought to
contribute to the general benefit, by his head or his hands: if he is
arrived at the western verge of life, when the powers of usefulness
decline, let him repose upon his fortune; if no such thing exists, let
him rest upon his friends, and if this prop fail, let the public nurse
him, with a tenderness becoming humanity.

We may observe, that the manufactures, the laborious part of mankind,
the poor's rates, and the number of paupers, will everlastingly go hand
in hand; they will increase and decrease together; we cannot annihilate
one, but the others will