114 COUNT EUMFORD. 



The marshes near Mannheim were dreary bogs, use- 

 less for cultivation and ruinous to the health of the 

 city. Thompson drained them, banked them in, and 

 converted them into a garden for the use of the garrison. 

 For the special purpose of introducing the culture of 

 the potato, he extended the plan of military gardens 

 to all other garrisons. The gardens were tilled, and their 

 produce was owned by noncommissioned officers and 

 privates, each of whom had a plot of 365 square feet 

 allotted to him. Gravel walks divided the plots from 

 each other. The plan proved completely successful. 

 Indolent soldiers became industrious, while soldiers on 

 furlough, spreading abroad their taste and knowledge, 

 caused little gardens to spring up everywhere over the 

 country. Having secured this end, he converted it into 

 a means of suppressing the enormous evils of mendicity. 

 Bavaria was infested with beggars, vagabonds, and 

 thieves, native and foreign. These mendicant tramps 

 were in the main stout, healthy, and able-bodied fellows, 

 who found a life of thievish indolence pleasanter than 

 a life of honest work. ' These detestable vermin had 

 recourse to the most diabolical arts and the most horrid 

 crimes in the prosecution of their infamous trade. 

 They robbed, and maimed and exposed little children, 

 so as to extract money from the tender-hearted. In the 

 cities the beggars formed a distinct caste, with profes- 

 sional rules to guide them. Their training was a 

 training in robbery; the means they employed for 

 extorting support being equivalent to direct plunder. 

 Seeing no escape from the incubus, the public had come 

 to bow to it as a necessity. The energy with which 

 Thompson grappled with this evil may be inferred from 

 the fact that out of a population of sixty thousand, two 

 thousand six hundred beggars were impounded in a 

 single week. 



