420 Professor Tyndall [May 3, 10, and 17, 



• 



with professional rules to guide them. Their training was a training 

 in robbery; the means they employed for extorting support being 

 equivalent to direct plunder. Seeing no escape from the incubus, the 

 public had come to bow to it as a necessity. The energy with which 

 Thompson grappled with this evil may be inferred from the fact that 

 out of a population of sixty thousand, two thousand six hundred 

 beggars were seized in a single week. 



Four regiments of cavalry were so cantoned that every village in 

 Bavaria and the adjoining provinces had a patrol party of four or five 

 mounted soldiers " daily coursing from one station to another." The 

 troopers were under strict discii)linc, extreme care being taken to 

 avoid collision with the civil authorities. This disposition of the 

 cavalry was antecedent to seizing, as a beginning, all the beggars in 

 the capital. Aged and infirm mendicants were carefully distinguished 

 from the sturdy and able-bodied. Voluntary contributions were 

 essential, but the inhabitants, though groaning under the load of 

 mendicancy, had been so often disappointed in their efforts to get rid 

 of it, that they now held back. Thompson resolved to give proof of 

 success before asking for general aid. He interested persons of high 

 rank in his scheme ; organised a bureau to relieve the needy and 

 employ the idle. The members of his committee were Presidents of 

 the great offices of State, who worked without pay. The city was 

 divided into sixteen districts, with a committee of charity for each, 

 while a respected citizen assisted by a priest and a physician, serving 

 gratuitously, looked after the worthy poor. He knew perfectly well 

 that in the city many bequests consecrated to charity were being 

 abused and wasted, but he cautiously abstained from meddling with 

 them. 



The problem before him might well have daunted a courageous man. 

 It was neither more nor less than to convert people bred up in lazy 

 and dissolute habits into tljrifty workers. Precepts, he knew, were 

 unavailing, so his aim was to establish habits. Reversing the maxim 

 that people must be virtuous to be happy, he made his beggars happy 

 as a step towards making them virtuous. He affirmed that he had 

 learnt the importance of cleanliness through observing the habits of 

 birds and beasts. Lawgivers and founders of religions never failed to 

 recognise the influence of cleanliness on man's moral nature. " Virtue," 

 he said, " never dwelt long with filth and nastiness, nor do I believe 

 there ever was a person scrupulously attentive to cleanliness who was 

 a consummate villain." He had to deal with wretches covered v/ith 

 filth and vermin, to cleanse them, to teach them, and to give them the 

 pleasure and stimulus of earning money. He did not waste his means 

 on fine buildings, but taking a deserted manufactory, he repaired it, 

 enlarged it, adding to it kitchen, bakehouse, and workshojjs for 

 mechanics. Halls w^ere provided for the spinners of flax, cotton, and 

 wool. Other halls were set up for weavers, clothiers, dyers, saddlers, 

 wool-sorters, carders, combers, knitters, and seamstresses. 



The next step was to get the edifice filled with suitable inmates. 



