II.] POOR MAN'S FRIEND. 29 



insecurity, if liable to be invaded according to the 

 wants of others ; of which wants no man can possi- 

 bly be an adequate judge, but the party himself who 

 pleads them. In this country especially, there would 

 be a peculiar impropriety in admitting so dubious an 

 excuse ; for by our laws such a sufficient provision is 

 made for the poor by the power of the civil magis- 

 trate, that it is impossible that the most needy stran- 

 ger should ever be reduced to the necessity of thiev- 

 ing to support nature. This case of a stranger is, by 

 the way, the strongest instance put by Baron PUFFEN- 

 DORF, and whereon he builds his principal arguments ; 

 which, however they may hold upon the continent, 

 "where the parsimonious industry of the natives or- 

 ders every one to work or starve, yet must lose all 

 their weight and efficacy in England, where charity 

 is reduced to a system, and interwoven in our very 

 constitution. Therefore, our laws ought by no means 

 to be taxed with being unmerciful, for denying this 

 privilege to the necessitous ; especially when we con- 

 sider, that the king, on the representation of his mi- 

 nisters of justice, hath a power to soften the law, and 

 to extend mercy in cases of peculiar hardship. An 

 advantage which is wanting in many states, parti- 

 cularly those which are democratical : and these have 

 in its stead introduced and adopted, in the body of 

 the law itself, a multitude of circumstances tending 

 to alleviate its rigour. But the founders of 'our con- 

 stitution thought it better to vest in the crown the 

 power of pardoning peculiar objects of compassion, 

 than to countenance and establish theft by one gene- 

 ral undistinguishing law." 



36. First of all, I beg you to observe, that this pas- 

 sage is merely a flagrant act of theft, committed 

 upon JUDGE HALE ; next, you perceive, that which I 

 noticed in paragraph 28, a most base and impudent 

 garbling of the Scriptures. Next, you see, that 

 BLACKSTONE, like HALE, comes, at last, to the poor- 

 laws; and tells us that to take other men's goods 

 without leave, is theft, because " charity is here re- 

 duced to a system, and interwoven in our very con- 



