334 Fundamental Principles of 



very heavy expense would be indispensably necessary 

 to carry into execution such an undertaking. But this 

 difficulty may be speedily removed by showing (which 

 may easily be done) that the execution of a well-ar- 

 ranged plan for providing for the poor, and giving 

 useful employment to the idle and indolent, so far from 

 being expensive, must, in the end, be attended with a 

 very considerable saving, not only to the public collect- 

 ively, but also to individuals. 



Those who now extort their subsistence by begging 

 and stealing are, in fact, already maintained by the 

 public. But this is not all ; they are maintained in a 

 manner the most expensive and troublesome, to them- 

 selves and the public, that can be conceived ; and this 

 may be said of all the poor in general. 



A poor person, who lives in poverty and misery, and 

 merely from hand to mouth, has not the power of avail- 

 ing himself of any of those economical arrangements, in 

 procuring the necessaries of life, which others, in more 

 affluent circumstances, may employ, and which may be 

 employed with peculiar advantage in a public estab- 

 lishment. Added to this, the greater part of the poor, 

 as well those who make a profession of begging as 

 others who do not, might be usefully employed in vari- 

 ous kinds of labour; and supposing them, one with 

 another, to be capable of earning only half as much as 

 is necessary to their subsistence, this would reduce the 

 present expense to the public for their maintenance at 

 least one half; and this half might be reduced still 

 much lower by a proper attention to order and economy 

 in providing for their subsistence. 



Were the inhabitants of a large town, where men- 

 dicity is prevalent, to subscribe only half the sums 



