782 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



alms by systematic intim^idation. Previous attempts to cure tlie evil 

 had failed, and the public had lost all faith in further projects, and 

 therefore no support was to be expected for Rumford's scheme. 

 " Aware of this," he says, " I took my measures accordingly. To con- 

 vince the public that the scheme was feasible, I determined first, by a 

 great exertion, to carry it into complete execution, and then to ask 

 them to supjDort it." 



He describes the military organization by which he distributed the 

 army throughout the country districts to capture all the strolling pro- 

 vincial beggars, and how, on January 1, 1790, he bagged all the beg- 

 gars of Munich in less than an hour by means of a well-organized civil 

 and military hattue, the New-Year's-Day being the great festival when 

 all the beggars went abroad to enforce their customary black-mail 

 upon the industrious section of the population. Though very inter- 

 esting, I must not enter upon these details, but can not help stepping 

 a little aside from my proper subject to quote his weighty words on 

 the ethical principles upon which he proceeded. He says that " with 

 persons of this description, it is easy to be conceived that precepts, 

 admonitions, and punishments would be of little avail. But, where 

 precepts fail, habits may sometimes be successful. To make vicious 

 and abandoned people happy, it has generally been supposed necessary, 

 first, to make them vii'tuous. But why not reverse this order ? Why 

 not make them first hax)py and then virtuous ? If happiness and vir- 

 tue be inseparable, the end will as certainly be attained by one 

 method as by the other ; and it is most undoubtedly much easier to 

 contribute to the happiness and comfort of persons in a state of pov- 

 erty and misery than, by admonitions and punishments, to improve 

 their morals." 



He applied these principles to his miserable material with complete 

 success, and referring to the result exclaims, " Would to God that my 

 success might encourage others to follow my example ! " Further ex- 

 amination of his proceedings shows that, in order to follow such exam- 

 ple, a knowledge of first principles and a determination to carry them 

 out in bold defiance of vulgar ignorance, general prejudice, and polite 

 sneering, are necessary. 



Having captured the beggars thus cleverly, he proceeded to carry 

 out the above-stated principle, by taking them to a large building 

 already prepared, and where " everything was done that could be de- 

 vised to make them really comfortableP The first condition of such 

 comfort, he maintains, is cleanliness, and his dissei'tation on this, 

 though written so long ago, might be inscribed in letters of gold over 

 the portals of our Health Exhibition of to-day. 



Describing how he carried out his principles, he says of the pris- 

 oners thus captured : " Most of them had been used to living in the 

 most miserable hovels, in the midst of vermin and every kind of filthi- 

 ness, or to sleep in the streets, and under the hedges, half naked and 



