produced by the Poor Laws. 435 
pared to an indispensible part of a moving 
piece of mechanism, of which, if the form 
or situation be altered, the whole machine is 
deranged. Exactly the same thing happens 
with respect to the different classes consti- 
tuting a nation; for when the lower orders 
have, by the inefficiency of their exertions, 
lost all incitement to activity, the progress 
of general improvement receives an imme- 
diate check, which it may require centuries 
to counteract. 
One great evil of throwing the poor upon 
the public as mendicants, is, that all controul 
over them ceases. For begging cannot be 
successfully prosecuted within the parish to 
which they belong, and therefore their first 
care is to quit their native place for another 
where they are not known. Thus is extin- 
guished all that wholesome restraint, which 
arises from being subject to the observation 
of superiors, whom they have been accus- 
tomed to respect; and they indulge, among 
strangers, a profligacy of habits and con- 
duct, from which an honorable shame and 
regard to character would have preserved 
them, if they had remained at home. Un- 
fortunately, too, a vagrant life, to persons 
who possess few or no domestic comforts, is 
generally very fascinating, and it is found 
