his business in a single office and
sends his ship all over the world, and the great carriers, because their
business happens not to be rateable according to the law, should bear no
greater burden than the shop-keepers in a great London thoroughfare. It
is likely that there would be a _temporary_ increase of expenditure; but
then justice would be done to the aged, the infirm, and the sick. In
this respect the expenditure would increase; but as regards the
able-bodied there would be a reduction, and in this way: If a man is
thrown out of work, and his habits being known, he is relieved; he is
thereby sustained, and when work begins to abound he starts fairly. If
he is compelled to sink, the chances are he will never rise. Every
guardian in the kingdom knows, from personal observation, how difficult
it is to dispose of a family which has been forced into the union-house,
and has lost a home. It is confidently expected, if out-door relief,
accompanied by labour, be given only to those able-bodied applicants who
are known, from the facts of their history as officially reported, to be
idle, dissolute, and intemperate;--if the labour required to be done be
public work; if it be apportioned and tasked by judiciously chosen
task-masters, and given to each individual at a low rate of prices,
lower than those of ordinary labour, and paid in food, or even in
lodging when specially applied for and deemed necessary,--then, as
regards the able-bodied applicants, the nearest approach will have been
made to a perfect system. And if the system here sketched, or rather if
the hints which have been dropped from time to time in the progress of
this article, be collected and arranged, it is believed, that inasmuch
as they have reference to the moral principles of our nature, as well as
to the physical condition of the pauper, they will operate beneficially
upon the poor of England. And if it should appear, from the statistics
officially reported by a _minister_ in the regular exercise of his duty
in parliament, that the number of poor receiving relief who belong to
the first three classes have slightly increased, that report should be
considered as highly satisfactory, and not as a disclosure injurious to
national honour. It is not a matter of which Englishmen ought to be
ashamed, or a subject to be bewailed, that the aged, the infirm, and the
sick among the very poor, are not allowed either to perish, or to have
their cherished habits and as