Life of Count Rumford. 187 



initiated in 1789 as the Military Workhouse, not 

 dependent upon charity, but substantially self-support- 

 ing as a manufactory for clothing the army ; and the 

 Institution for the Poor, occupied in 1790, and draw- 

 ing its resources from the benevolent that its profits 

 might accrue to the relief of the poor and the protec- 

 tion and education of their children. 



The spinning and weaving of wool, linen, and cot- 

 ton were carried on with great, systematic, and profita- 

 ble enterprise in the Military Workhouse at Munich, 

 which furnished the clothing for fifteen Bavarian regi- 

 ments. Its profits for six years exceeded a hundred 

 thousand florins. The troops of the Palatinate, and 

 those of the Duchies of Juliers and Bergen, were fur- 

 nished from a similar establishment at Mannheim. This 

 had been in operation some months before its corre- 

 sponding institution had been opened at Munich, and, 

 being Thompson's first experiment, he improved much 

 upon it in the second. When he came to publish a 

 second edition of his first Essay, he was compelled to 

 announce that his Military Workhouse at Mannheim 

 had been set on fire and totally destroyed during the 

 siege of that city by the Austrian troops. 



None of our numerous ethical essays contain more 

 healthful, just, or fitly expressed reflections upon the 

 exercise of the benevolent feelings and the pure happi- 

 ness which comes from doing good to others, than does 

 the closing part of Thompson's sketch of his establish- 

 ment for the poor. He was the daily witness of its 

 benefits, and the daily recipient of the gratitude of its 

 inmates, beggars raised to self-respecting industry, 

 abandoned women reformed to an enjoyment of a pure 

 life, little children shedding tears of joy to welcome their 



