306 HISTORY OF SCIENCE. 



residence was assigned for him. He rapidly acquired the German 

 and French languages, and was made a privy councillor of state. He 

 was advanced to the rank of general, and placed at the head of the 

 War Department. In 1791 he was raised to the dignity of Count of 

 the Ploly Roman Empire, and on this occasion he selected as his title 

 the name of the village where fortune had first smiled upon him. The 

 offices held by Sir Benjamin Thompson included nominally the chief 

 administration of the War and Police Departments of the Electorate 

 of Bavaria, and he was also the Chamberlain of the Elector. In fact, 

 he virtually exercised control over every branch of the public service. 

 Let us now see some of the uses he made of this power. The Munich 

 of those days was a very different place from the handsome city whose 

 artistic treasures and embellishments now attract tourists to the banks 

 of the Iser. The industry of the country was saddled with the main- 

 tenance of a disproportionate standing army, and in the enforced idle- 

 ness, oppressive and useless discipline, and harsh treatment of the 

 soldiery, Thompson recognized the source of great social evils. He 

 made the position of the soldier as pleasant as possible, increased his 

 pay, improved his clothing, allowed him all liberty consistent with mili- 

 tary discipline, gave him quarters neat, clean, and attractive. Schools 

 were established in all regiments. As the best of all means of mitigating 

 the evils attending a standing army, he aimed at " making soldiers 

 citizens, and citizens soldiers/' The men had raw material furnished 

 them, and were at liberty to dispose of the produce of their labours 

 when off duty. They were also employed on public works, and they 

 were permitted to engage in agricultural labours to a certain extent. 

 It was found that the soldiers could by their organized civil labour 

 earn three times the pay the State could afford to give them, and that 

 discontent and disorder no longer prevailed. 



More striking was Thompson's suppression at one vigorous and 

 decisive blow of the enormous system of mendicity which had long 

 heavily taxed the industrious part of the community. Beggars and 

 vagabonds of all ages, sexes, and nationalities swarmed in all parts of 

 the country, levying contributions by importunities, threats, and thefts. 

 The roads seemed to a traveller to be lined with extended palms. 

 Mendicity became a profession, and the beggars formed in the cities 

 an organized caste with assigned beats and districts. The account of 

 the effective, wise, and benevolent measures which Rumford planned 

 for at once putting an end to these evils, forms perhaps the most in- 

 teresting pages in the memoir of the Count, which was not long ago 

 published in connection with a complete edition of his works, prepared 

 under the auspices of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. 

 To relate the manner in which these measures w?re carried out would 

 lead us too far from our subject, but of their success the reader may 

 judge from the inscriptions on the monumental memorial to Rumford 

 which is set up in the park or " English Garden " at Munich. This 



