ense of the poor. In a nation where every individual is fully
occupied with his affairs, and has little time to attend to any thing else,
those who manage the affairs of the poor find that few are inclined to
look close into matters, and fewer still have the means of doing it if
they would; so that abuses increase, as is always the case when there
is no counteracting check to keep them within bounds.

Another cause, no doubt, is that, as the number of unproductive
labourers increase, greater numbers of children are left in want.

To all those causes we must add the increase of towns, and the
decrease of hamlets and villages. Towns are the places where
indigence has the greatest consolation, and where the relief which is
held out is attended with the least degree of humiliation and reproach.

When we compare the cases of England and Scotland, the causes
cannot be doubted; for, there, servants live harder, the working class
do not labour so hard, and are not so soon worn out, neither have the
towns increased so much, at the expense of the hamlets and villages.

The greatest of all the causes of the increase of poor, however, arises
from taxation and rent. It has been observed, in the chapter on
Taxation, that, for a certain length, taxes and rent are productive of
industry, and that, at last, they finish by crushing it entirely.

---
{194} If it were the custom to keep horses that were worn out till they
died a natural death, the maintenance of them would cost more in
England than in any other country; for their vigour is exhausted before
the term of old age arrives. The calculation is in this country, to pay
well, and be well served.
-=-

[end of page #248]

The manner that this happens, is, that long before a country is as
highly taxed as the majority of its inhabitants will bear, those who are
the least able to pay are crushed, and reduced to absolute poverty.

There are two causes which may render a person unable to support the
burthen of taxation: the one is, having a great family; the other is,
being able to gain but little from weakness, or some other cause; and,
where there are two causes that tend to produce the same effect,
though they operate separately, they must, of course, sometimes act in
conjunction.

The weakest part of society gives way first, in every country; and, on
account of the arbitrary and ignorant, though lavish method of
relieving that portion of society, in England, the evil is incr