COUNT RUMFORD. 115 



Four regiments of cavalry were so cantoned thai 

 every village in Bavaria and the adjoining provinces 

 had a patrol party of four or five mounted soldiers 

 'daily coursing from one station to another.' The 

 troopers were under strict discipline, extreme care being 

 taken to avoid collision with the civil authorities. This 

 disposition of the cavalry was antecedent to seizing, as 

 a beginning, all the beggars in the capital. Aged and 

 infirm mendicants were carefully distinguished from the 

 sturdy and able-bodied. Voluntary contributions were 

 essential, but the inhabitants, though groaning under 

 the load of mendicancy, had been so often disappointed 

 in their efforts to get rid of it that they now held back. 

 Thompson resolved to give proof of success before asking 

 for general aid. He interested persons of high rank in 

 his scheme ; organised a bureau to relieve the needy and 

 employ the idle. The members of his committee were 

 presidents of the great offices of State, who worked 

 without pay. The city was divided into sixteen districts, 

 with a committee of charity for each ; while a re- 

 spected citizen, assisted by a priest and a physician, 

 serving gratuitously, looked after the worthy poor. 

 He knew perfectly well that in Munich many be- 

 quests consecrated to charity were being abused and 

 wasted, but he cautiously abstained from meddling with 

 them. 



The problem before him might well have daunted a 

 courageous man. It was neither more nor less than to 

 convert people bred up in lazy and dissolute habits into 

 thrifty workers. Precepts, he knew, were unavailing, 

 so his aim was to establish habits. Eeversing the maxim 

 that people must be virtuous to be happy, he made his 

 beggars happy as a step towards making them virtuous. 

 He affirmed that he had learnt the importance of cleanli- 

 ness through observing the habits of birds and beasts. 



