ere the wretched families turned out are obliged to sell
their little all, and forced in a few days either to steal or go about
begging? And yet the description which I have read is a description of
England, by Sir Thomas More--a description of the England of his
day.[200] And lest it should be considered highly coloured or fanciful,
let it be recollected that there are accounts written by magistrates, in
which it is stated that in every county there were 200 or 300 persons
who lived by thieving--who went about, say the contemporary
chroniclers, by sixty at a time--who carried away sheep and cattle, so
that no husbandman was secure, and against whom no defence was
sufficient: that in one reign alone no less than 70,000 of these
marauders were hanged. Sir, this is an account of what England once
was--the England in which we now see so much security. And in the
absence of the outrages described as formerly existing, I think we have
a proof that their existence was owing to the state of society at the
time, and not the nature of the country. I will now read you a
description of another country, at a different period, at the end of the
seventeenth century:--"There are at this day (besides a great number of
families very meanly provided for by the Church boxes, with others, who,
with living upon bad food, fall into various diseases) 200,000 people
begging from door to door. These are not only no ways advantageous, but
a very grievous burthen to so poor a country; and though the number of
them be, perhaps, double what was formerly, by reason of the very great
distress, yet in all times there have been about 100,000 of these
vagabonds, who have lived without any regard or submission, either to
the laws of the land, or even those of God and nature--fathers
incestuously accompanying their own daughters, the son with the mother,
and the brother with the sister. No magistrate could ever discover, or
be informed, which way any of these wretches died, or that ever they
were baptized. Many murders have been discovered among them; and they
are not only a most unspeakable oppression to poor tenants (who, if they
give not bread, or some sort of provision, to, perhaps, forty such
villains in one day, are sure to be insulted by them), but they rob many
poor people, who live in houses distant from any neighbourhood. In years
of plenty, many thousands of them meet together in the mountains, where
they feast and riot for many days; and at coun