486 
their fair proportion, and were thus 
enjoying a benefit at the expense of 
their poorer neighbours. This pro- 
duced an increase of about 750/. per 
annum to the rates, which were still 
further increased by cutting down 
much useless expense in the collection. 
They completely abolished the prac- 
tice, which had been carricd to a most 
unreasonable extent, of cating and 
drinking at the expense of the parish. 
They found the parish 4,3001. in debt, 
although 3,000/. had been borrowed 
the year before on annuities; and, in 
the very same vestry which clected 
them, it was proposed to raise the rate 
from three shillings and sixpence to 
four shillings in the pound, to meet the 
current expenses of the year. This 
motion they opposed ; and, at the end 
of the first year, they lowered the rate 
to. three shillings. They have now 
paid off 4,000/. of the debt ; 3002. only 
remaining unpaid. They have also 
paid off three bonds, which has re- 
duced the bond debt from 3,000/. to 
2,600/.. Thus, in a few years, with 
similar management and economy, the 
parish will in all probability be free 
from debt of every kind. 
It is truly. surprizing, when these 
services are acknowledged and appre- 
ciated all through the parish, and when 
churchwardens and overseers, from 
almost all parts, come to Clerkenwell 
for information respecting the mode in 
which its parochial concerns are con- 
ducted, that one individual should en- 
deayour ‘to deprive them of their hard- 
earned credit; for the duties of the 
office; are not performed, as in most 
other parishes, by an assistant over- 
seer with a salary, but are equally 
divided among the housekeepers who 
are.elected to that situation. 
To account for the labour of the 
poor producing only 3577. 14s, 1d. in 
three years, while the materials to set 
them to work for the same period cost 
4581. 1s. 2d. it is necessary to state, 
that it is the constant practice of the 
officers to give employment only to 
the idle and dissolute, who never 
cease from applying so long as they 
can obtain a shilling or sixpence, but 
are’soon cured when they have to earn 
it; but, so far from this bringing a 
profit to the parish, it is a fact that the 
labour in picking oakum, (which is 
their chief employment,) which costs 
the parish one shilling, only returns 
five farthings, when the produte is 
seld in its picked state, causing a loss 
Economy of the Poor in Clerkenwell. 
{July 1, 
of ten pence three farthings on every 
shilling, 
Should it not be trespassing too 
far, I could wish to say a few words 
on the policy of employing the poor in 
workhouses with a view to profit, as I 
doubt much whether it be not more to 
the interest of the community to allow 
them to remain in idleness, excepting 
so far as may be necessary for the 
cleanliness of the house, or for the pro- 
duction of whatever is requisite for 
their own consumption, than to em- 
ploy them in the way they usually are 
employed,—the women in nheedle- 
work, and the men in scraping gum, 
beating oakum, dressing flax, or break- 
ing stones, or sometimes in making 
shoes and clothes for the army, or 
charitable institutions, For, although it 
produces a saving or benefit to appear- 
ance, it may not in reality, because it 
is a measure of such extreme harsh- 
ness and cruelty to the very numerous 
class of industrious poor, who are just 
enabled to keep themselves above 
pauperism, by working on the same 
materials, and by supplying the same 
markets, and compels them, on the 
least illness or misfortune, to come 
with their families to the parish, when 
they soon exhaust what little profit 
may have been made by the labour of 
the poor in the house. 
It is also an object of the first im- 
portance to the interest of the commu- 
nity, to maintain as much as possible 
among the poor that spirit of indepen- 
dence which induces them to rely 
upon their own exertions for support, 
and to consider parochial relief as de- 
gradation. But it is quite destructive 
of this principle to collect, feed, and 
clothe, numbers of idle and dissipated 
characters in a workhouse, for nine- 
tenths of them are brought there by 
their own vices; and, after compelling 
them to work, to bring the produce into 
the market, and ruin (by selling it un- 
der price,) those work-people who 
have to support and clothe them- 
selves, and pay rent, out of the profit 
of their labour; for, unless it be sold 
under the market-price, it will seldom 
obtain purchascrs, being of. inferior 
quality; because it is made by persons 
habitually unwilling to work, and who 
fee] no interest in what they are doing, 
as they derive no profit from it when 
done. It has been too much the cus- 
tom of late to boast of the benefit 
derived from the labour of the poor, by 
looking only to_the produce, and over- 
looking 
