COUNT RUMFORD. 117 



him to the Town-hall, " where he would be provided for 

 in one way if he were really helpless, but in another way 

 if he were not." Thompson encouraged his associates, 

 and with such alacrity was the work accomplished, that 

 at the end of that day not a single beggar remained at 

 large. The name of every member of the motley crew 

 was inserted in prepared lists, and they were sent off to 

 their haunts with instructions to appear on the following 

 day at the military workhouse, where they would inhabit 

 comfortable warm rooms, enjoy a warm dinner daily, 

 and be provided with remunerative work. In the 

 suburbs the same measures were followed up successfully 

 by patrols of soldiers and police. 



With his iron resolution was associated, in those 

 days, a plastic tact which enabled him to avoid 

 jealousies and collisions that a man of more hectoring 

 temper and less self-restraint would infallibly have in- 

 curred. To the schools for poor students, the Sisters 

 of Charity, the hospital for lepers, and other institu- 

 tions, had been conceded the right of making periodic 

 appeals from house to house; German apprentices had 

 also been permitted to beg upon their travels; all of 

 these had their claims adjusted. After he had swept 

 his swarm of paupers into the quarters provided for 

 them, Thompson's hardest work began. Here the in- 

 flexible order which characterised him through life came 

 as a natural force to his aid. " He encouraged a spirit 

 of industry, pride, self-respect, and emulation, finding 

 help even in trifling distinctions of apparel." His pauper 

 workhouse was self-supporting, while its inmates were 

 happy. For several years they made up all the clothing 

 of the Bavarian troops, realising sometimes a profit of 

 10,000 florins a year. Thompson himself constructed 

 and arranged a kitchen which provided daily a warm 

 and nutritious dinner for a thousand or fifteen hundred 



