MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
resorted-to, in order to supply ima- 
ginary wants and improper grati- 
fications, which are not knowa: in 
lesser societies ; and against which 
the iaws have provided few appli- 
cable remedies in the way of pre- 
vention. 
The improvident, and even the 
luxuriows mode of living which 
prevails too generally among various 
classes of the lower ranks of the 
people in the metropolis, leads to 
much misery and to many crimes, 
Accustomed from their earliest 
infancy to indulge themselves in 
eating many articles of expensive 
food in its season, and possessing 
little or no knowledge of that 
kind of frugality and care which 
enables well regulated families to 
make every thing to go as far as 
possible, by a diversified mode of 
cookery and goed management :-— 
Assailed also by the numerous 
temptations held out by fraudulent 
lotteries, and places of public re- 
sort and amusement; and above 
all, by the habit of spending a 
great deal of valuable time as well 
as money unnecessarily in public. 
houses ; and often ‘allured by low 
gaming, to squander more. than 
they can afford ;—there is scarce an 
instance of accommodating the in- 
come to the expenditure, even in 
the best of times, with a consider- 
able body of the lowest orders of the 
people inhabiting the capital: and 
hence a melancholy conclusion is 
drawn, warranted by a generally 
assumed faét, that above twenty. 
thousand individuals rise every 
Morning in this great metropolis, 
without knowing how, or by what 
means they are to be supported 
during the passing day, or where 
they are to lodge ow the succeeding 
night, 
[489 
Poverty is ne where to be found 
clothed in so great a degree with 
the gard and emolems ot the ex- 
tremest misery and wretchedness, 
as in Londen. 
Develope the history ofany given 
number of these miserable fellow- 
mortals, and their distresses will 
be found, almost in every instance, 
to have been occasioned by extra- 
vagance, idleness, profligacy, and 
crimes :—and tbat their chief sup. 
port is by thieving in a little 
way. 
Allured and deceived by the fa- 
cilities which the pawn-brokers 
and the old iron-shops hold out, 
in enabling the labouring people, 
when they marry, and first enter 
upon life in the metropolis, to raise 
money upon whatever can be of- 
fered as a pledge or for sale; the 
first step with too many, is gene- 
rally to dispose of wearing apparel 
and household goods, which 1s fre. 
quently done upon the least pres. 
sure, rather than forego the usual 
gratification of a good dinner or a 
hot supper.—Embarrassments are 
speedily the consequence of this 
line of conduét, which is too often 
followed up by idleness amd inac. 
tivity. The alehouse is di atin se 
as a desperate remedy ;—where t 
idle and dissolute will always 
find associates, who being unwil- 
ling to labour, resort to crimes for 
the purpose of supplying an un- 
necessary extravagance. 
It is truly melancholy to refle& 
upon the abject coméition of that 
numerous class of profligate pa- 
rents, who, with their children, 
are constantly to be found in the 
tap-rooms of public-houses, spending 
in two days as much of their earn. 
ings as would support thema week 
comfortably, in their own dwel- 
lings; 
