r10 
stances to middle life. The middle-aged 
may be presumed to bave attached the 
patronage of some persons. of indepen- 
dence; and to have established in their 
own rank habits of interchanging petty 
services, which are likely to protect them 
from extreme distress and neglect,-with- 
out the formal help of the magistrate. 
The laws, prohibiting combinations of 
journeymen to obtain a rise of wages, 
tirst rendered necessary some allowances 
to middle-aged persons, during extensive 
stagnations of work. But for these laws, 
labour would be so paid as to enable the 
artificer to make some reserve against 
the weeks of contingent leisure. And 
were these laws again to be annihilated, 
the practice of allowing parish-relief only 
to those who are below twelve, or above 
sixty years of age, might without heavy 
hardship or injustice, be revived. 
By founding the power of parishes to 
bind out poor children apprentices; thus 
allowing corporate bodies to sell into a 
seven years slavery free-born British 
children; @ most pernicious and-oppres- 
sive system of tyranny and cruelty has 
resulted from the forty-third of Elizabeth. 
The horrible usage of English appren- 
tices, the villainous length of their com- 
pulsory servitude, the cold indifference 
of the justices to the future fortunes of 
the innocent victims of this domestic 
slave-trade, call aloud for reform. The 
first step is a law to confer on five years 
of servitude, all the privileges municipal 
and civil, which now attach to a seven 
‘years servitude, ‘Fhe second is. to trans- 
fer to the nearest of kin, or to the god- 
father, or to some person hkely to be on 
the child’s side, and not on that of the 
parish, the power of resisting, or of as- 
senting to such contracts, on the child’s 
behalf. Perhaps the poor of every pavish 
might be encouraged to elect, triennially, 
some benevolent character as their ha- 
bitual guardian, as the father of their or- 
phans, and the advocate of their wants. 
The clergyman of the parish might com- 
monly merit and obtain this distinction; 
but wherever any other person had more 
of the appropriate humanities, the choice 
ought to be free. To have been the 
zeardian of the poor would be an expe-, 
dient preliminary grade of magistracy. 
Mr. Colquhoun is for employing the 
state about every thing, even about ap- 
prentices. Parliament, according to the 
plan in his sixth chapter, 1s to open a 
register-ofice for providing apprentices 
with masters, and masters with appren- 
tices, Every March, and every Septem- 
Reflections occasioned from the perusal of 
(Sept. 1, 
ber, all the parishes in the kingdom are 
to send in a list of their male and female 
children, with their names, ages, abilities, 
statures, and inclinations, specifically re- 
corded; uay, their very strength is to be 
measured by an adapted instrament, and 
to be inserted in the character. A board 
of education, situate in London, is to 
hand over these little innocents at its 
pleasure to the cotton-spinners, or tron- 
workers, who may apply to the minister 
for a reyiment of recruits.—“ Go, Jittle 
ones, take leave for ever of the play 
grounds of your childhood, and the kins- 
men of your parents: you are to know 
no relation but that which you will bear 
to your employer: he, who labours with- 
out remission, lives for the enrichment of 
his country.” ‘ 
In all this project, there is much of ° 
cold unkindness: and so there is in the 
maxim advanced elsewhere by this wri- 
ter, that @ penny given, is a premium to 
idleness ; and a penny spent, a premium to 
indusiry. Next follows an inquiry into 
the causes of indigence, of which the 
most prominent is certainly the profuse 
taxation of necessaries. The system of 
settlements is well attacked. The ad- 
vice given.to make assessments national, 
would treble the rates, and secure local 
extravagance. , Much observation is dis- 
played respecting the manners of the 
poor, This .great truth results, that, 
want is the cause of vice: and that vir- 
tue, in all classes, is usually proportioned 
to the regular income of wealth, 
Much may be done otherwise to di- 
minisb actual mendicity and vagrancy. 
Surely iia society were instituted for the 
encouragement of emigration, which 
would undertake to remove at free cost 
any poor persons desirous of residing at 
the chicftowns of our colonial establish- 
ments; a great number of individuals, 
superfluous and burdensome here, might 
be put in situations profitable to them- 
selves, and usetul to the great commu. 
nity of mankind. There are many dis- 
tricts, such as Guyana, where the most 
ordinary arts of life, rearing chickens, or 
washing linen, are attended with a pro- 
fuse recompense ; and where a saunter- 
ing negligence, which would here be ru- 
inous, is not punished by total misery. 
Mr. Colquhoun proposes, (p.73,) not 
amicably to transport vagrants, but to 
sell them by auction, like negro-slaves, to 
the highest bidder: the siavery to con- 
tinue for a term of years proportioned 
to the delinquency of the vagrant, It 
may be justifiable in obstinate cases to 
institute 
' 
“ 
Ps 
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