458 APPENDIX. 



them the injustice of still professing to relieve them. If this 

 statute were expunged or altered, we should virtually deny 

 the right of the poor to support, and only retain tiie ab- 

 surdity of saying, that they had a right to a certain sum ; an 

 absurdity on which Mr. Young justly comments with much 

 severity in the case of France.* In both cases the hard- 

 ships which they would suffer would be much more severe, 

 and would come upon them in a much more unprepared 

 state, than upon the plan proposed in the Essay. 



According to this plan, all that are already married, and 

 even all that are engaged to marry during the course of the 

 jear, and all their children, would be relieved as usual ; and 

 only those who marry subsequently, and who of course may 

 be supposed to have made better provision for contingen- 

 cies, would be out of the pale of relief. 



Any plan for the abolition of the poor-laws must pre- 

 suppose a general acknowledgment that they are essentially 

 wrong, and that it is necessary to tread back our steps. 

 With this acknowledgment, whatever objections may be 

 made to my plan, in the too frequently short-sighted views 

 of policy, I have no fear of comparing it with any other that 

 has yet been advanced, in point of justice and humanity ; 

 and of course the terms iniquitous and horrible " pass by 

 me like the idle wind, which I regard not." 



Mr. Young, it would appear, has now given up this plan. 

 He has pleaded for the privilege of being inconsistent, and 

 has given such reasons for it that I am disposed to acquiesce 

 in them, provided he confines the exercise of this privilege 

 to different publications, in the interval between which he 



* The National Assembly of France, though they disapproved of the English 

 poor-laws, still adopted tlieir principle, and declared, that the poor had a right 

 to pecuniary assistance ; that the Assembly ought to consider such a provision 

 as one of its first and most sacred duties ; and that, with this view, an expense 

 ought to be incurred to the amount of 50 millions a year. Mr. Young justly 

 observes that he does not comprehend how it is possible to regard the expendi- 

 ture of 50 millions as a sacred duty, and not extend that 50 to 100 (if necessity 

 should demand it), the 100 to 200, the 200 to 300, and so on in the same mi- 

 serable progression which has taken place in England. — Travels in France, 

 c. XV. p. 459. 



I should be the last man to quote Mr. Young against himself, if I thought he 

 had left the path of error for the path of truth, as such kind of inconsistency I 

 hold to be highly praiseworthy. iJut thinking, on the contrary, that helms left 

 truth for error, it is surely justifiable to remind him of his former opinions. 

 We may recal to a vicious man his former virtuous conduct, though it would be 

 useless and indelicate to remind a virtuous man of the vices which he had relin- 

 quished. 



