5IO Address and Petition to the 



The public safety also demands it. The dreadful 

 consequences are obvious which must ensue when 

 great numbers of healthy individuals, and whole fam- 

 ilies, live in idleness, without any settled abode, con- 

 cluding every day with schemes for defrauding the 

 public of their subsistence for the next ; where the 

 children belonging to this numerous society are made 

 use of to impose on the credulity of the benevolent, 

 and where they are regularly trained, from their earliest 

 infancy, in all those infamous practices which are car- 

 ried on systematically and to such an alarming extent 

 among us. 



Great numbers of these children grow up to die under 

 the hands of the executioner. The only instruction 

 they receive from their parents is how to cheat and 

 deceive, and daily practice in lying and stealing from 

 their very infancy renders them uncommonly expert 

 in their infamous trade. The records of the courts of 

 justice show, in innumerable instances, that early habits 

 of idleness and beggary are a preparation for the gal- 

 lows ; and, among the numerous thefts that are daily 

 committed in this capital, there are very few that are 

 not committed by persons who get into the houses 

 under the pretext of asking for charity. 



What person is ignorant of these facts } and who 

 can demand further proofs of the necessity of a solid 

 and durable institution for the relief and support of the 

 poor .? 



The reader would be seized with horror, were we to 

 unveil all the secret abominations of these abandoned 

 wretches. They laugh alike at the laws of God and of 

 man. No crime is too horrible and shocking for them, 

 nothing in heaven or on the earth too holy not to be 



