produced by the Poor Laws. 437 
or lavish bounty, by consequences in which 
they themselves must participate. This kind 
of relief, it appears to me, has no natural or 
direct tendency to debase those to whom it is 
extended; for the poor-rate is to them a capi- 
tal, indirectly arising out of their own former 
labour, and upon this capital they have aclaim, 
until, by the revival of trade, their industry 
and activity are again called forth unimpaired. 
Whilst preferring such a claim, no indivi- 
dual can possibly entertain a feeling of de- 
gradation.’ But on the other hand, no one 
can feel otherwise than debased, who is com- 
pelled, by the short sighted policy of the 
higher classes in society, to solicit alms as a 
vagrant beggar. 
An opinion has been maintained by a poli- 
tical economist of great and deserved cele- 
brity, that want and misery operate as checks 
to early marriages. This opinion appears to 
me to be ill founded; for prudential restraint 
exists, I believe, only, where a certain degree 
of comfort and luxury is enjoyed, and where 
the sacrifice of those comforts must be the 
inevitable consequence of an indiscreet mar- 
riage. “On the principle assumed by Mr. 
Malthus, that the means of subsistence re- 
gulate the amount of population, without 
any reference to the habits of the people, the 
