CIi. iv. Objections to this Mode considered. 297 



when their labour may be wanted, by the well- 

 founded caution of civil society.* 



* Police of the Metropolis, c. xiii. p. 353, et seq. In so large 

 a town as London, which must necessarily encourage a prodigious 

 influx of strangers from the country, there nmst be always a great 

 many persons out of work ; and it is probable, that some public 

 institutiou for the relief of the casual poor, upon a plan similar to 

 that proposed by Mr. Colquhoun (c. xiii. p. 371) would, under 

 very judicious management, produce more good than evil. But 

 for this purpose it would be absolutely necessary that, if work were 

 provided by the institution, the sum that a man could earn by it 

 should be less than the worst paid common labour ; otherwise the 

 claimants would rapidly increase, and the funds would soon be 

 inadequate to their object. In the institution at Hamburgh, 

 which appears to have been the most successful of any yet esta- 

 blished, the nature of the work was such, that, though paid above 

 the usual price, a person could not easily earn by it more than 

 eighteen pence a week. It was the determined principle of the 

 managers of the institution, to reduce the support which they gave 

 lower than what any industrious man or woman in such circum- 

 stances could earn. (Account of the Management of the Poor in 

 Hamburgh, by C. Voght, p. 18.) And it is to this principle that 

 they attribute their success. It should be observed however, that 

 neither the institution at Hamburgh, nor that planned by Count 

 Rumford in Bavaria, has subsisted long enough for us to be able 

 to pronounce on their permanent good eflects. It will not admit of 

 a doubt, that institutions for the relief of the poor, on their first 

 establishment, remove a great quantity of distress. The only 

 question is, whether, as succeeding generations arise, the increasing 

 funds necessary for their support, and the increasing numbers 

 that become dependent, are not greater evils than that which 

 was to be remedied ; and whether the country will not ultimately 

 be left with as much mendicity as before, besides all the poverty 

 and dependence accumulated in the public institutions. This 

 seems to be nearly the case in England at present. It may be 

 doubted whether we should have more beggars if we had no poor- 

 laws. 



