ldren to take care of, or to
kill also, whichever you choose; but, now, observe, you must take care
of _them_ for nothing, or not at all; and what you might have had good
value for, if you had given it when it would have cheered the father's
heart, you now can have no return for at all, to yourselves; and what
you give to the orphans, if it does not degrade them, at least
afflicts, coming, not through their father's hand, its honest
earnings, but from strangers.

Observe, farther, whatever help the orphans may receive, will not be
from the public at all. It will not be from those who profited by
their father's labors; it will be chiefly from his fellow-laborers; or
from persons whose money would have been beneficially spent in other
directions, from whence it is drawn away to this need, which ought
never to have occurred,--while those who waste their money without
doing any service to the public will never contribute one farthing to
this distress.

114. Now it is this double fault in the help--that it comes too late,
and that the burden of it falls wholly on those who ought least to be
charged with it--which would be corrected by that institution of
overseers of which I spoke to you in the twelfth of these letters,
saying, you remember, that they were to have farther legal powers,
which I did not then specify, but which would belong to them chiefly
in the capacity of public almoners, or help-givers, aided by their
deacons, the reception of such help, in time of true need, being not
held disgraceful, but honorable; since the fact of its reception would
be so entirely public that no impostor or idle person could ever
obtain it surreptitiously.

115. (11th April.) I was interrupted yesterday, and I am glad of it,
for here happens just an instance of the way in which the unjust
distribution of the burden of charity is reflected on general
interests; I cannot help what taint of ungracefulness you or other
readers of these letters may feel that I incur, in speaking, in this
instance, of myself. If I could speak with the same accurate knowledge
of any one else, most gladly I would; but I also think it right that,
whether people accuse me of boasting or not, they should know that I
practise what I preach. I had not intended to say what I now shall,
but the coming of this letter last night just turns the balance of the
decision with me. I enclose it with the other; you see it is one from
my bookseller, Mr. Quaritch, offering