Ch. vi. Of Poor- Laws, continued. 91 



some workhouses, where a great mortality ahnost 

 universally takes place, particularly among the 

 young children. The dreadful account given by 

 Jonas Hanway of the treatment of parish children 

 in London is well known ; and it appears from 

 Mr. Howlett and other writers, that in some parts 

 of the country their situation is not very much 

 better. A great part of the redundant population 

 occasioned by the poor-laws is thus taken off by 

 the operation of the laws themselves, or at least 

 by their ill execution. The remaining part which 

 survives, by causing the funds for the maintenance 

 of labour to be divided among a greater number 

 than can be properly maintained by them, and 

 by turning a considerable share from the support 

 of the diligent and careful workman to the support 

 of the idle and negligent, depresses the condition 

 of all those who are out of the workhouses, forces 

 more into them every year, and has ultimately 

 produced the enormous evil, which we all so justly 

 deplore ; that of the great and unnatural propor- 

 tion of the people which is now become dependent 

 upon charity. 



If this be a just representation of the manner 

 in which the clause in question has been executed, 

 and of the effects which it has produced, it must 

 be allowed that we have practised an unpardon- 

 able deceit upon the poor, and have promised what 

 we have been very far from performing. 



The attempts to employ the poor on any great 

 scale in manufactures have almost invariably 



