218. Paupers, [Part 11. 



Priests : namely, to live icithouf. labour on the earnings 

 of others. The desire to live thus is almost universal ; 

 but with sluggards, thieves, Boroughraongers, and 

 Priests, it is a princi/jlc of action. Ask a Priest why 

 he is a Priest \ He will say (for he has vowed it on the 

 Altar !) that he believes himself called by the Holy 

 Ghost to take on him the care of souls. But, put the 

 thing close to him ; push him hard ; and you v.ill find it 

 was the benefice, the money and the tithes, that called 

 him. Ask him what he wanted them for. That he 

 might live, and live, too, ivithout icork. Oh ! this work ! 

 It is an old saying, that, if the Devil find a fellow idle, 

 he is sure to set him to work ; a saying the truth of 

 which the Priests seem to have done their utmost to 

 establish. 



398. Of the goers back was a Mr. Oxslow Wake- 

 ford, Avho was a coach-maker, some years, in Phila- 

 delphia, and Avho, having, from nothing hardly to begin 

 with, made a comfortable fortune, icent bach about the 

 time that I returned home. 1 met him, by accident, at 

 Goodwood, in Sussex, in 1814. We talked about 

 America. Said he, " I have often thought of the foolish 

 *' way, in Avhich my good friend. North, and I used to 

 " talk about the happy state of England. The money 

 " that I have paid in taxes here, would have kept me 

 " like a gentleman there. Why," added he, " if a la- 

 " bouring man here were seen having in his possession, 

 " the fowls and other things that labourers in Phila- 

 " delphia carry home from market, he woidd be stopped 

 " in the street, and taken itp on^ suspicion of being a 

 " thief I upon the supposition of its he'wg impossible that 

 " he could have come honestly by them." I told this 

 story after 1 got home ; and we read in the newspapers, 

 not long afterwards, that a Scotch Porter, in London, 

 who had had a little tub of butter sent him up from his 

 relations, and who was, in the evening, carrying it from 

 the vessel to his home, had actually been seized by the 

 Police, lodged in prison all night, brought before the 

 magistrate the next clay, and not released until he had 

 produced witnesses to prove that he had not stolen a 

 thing, which was thought far too valuable for such a 

 man to come at by honest means! What a state of 



