46R APPENDIX. 



If any man could build a hovel by the road-side, or on the 

 neighbouring waste, without molestation ; and yet were 

 secure that he and his family would always be supplied with 

 w ork and food by the parish, if they were not readily to be 

 obtained elsewhere ; I do not believe that it would be long 

 before the physical impossibility of executing the letter of 

 the poor-laws would appear. It is of importance, there- 

 fore, to be aware that it is not because this or any other 

 society has really the power of employing and supporting 

 all that might be born, that we have been able to continue 

 the present system ; but because by the indiiect operation 

 of tliis system, not adverted to at the time of its establish- 

 ment and frequently reprobated since, the number of births 

 is always very greatly limited, and thus reduced within the 

 pale of possible support. 



The obvious tendency of the poor-laws is certainly to 

 encourage marriage ; but a closer attention to all their in- 

 direct as well as direct effects may make it a matter of 

 doubt to what extent they really do this. They clearly 

 tend, in their general operation, to discourage sobriety and 

 economy, to encourage idleness and the desertion of chil- 

 dren, and to put virtue and vice more on a level than they 

 otherwise would be; but I will not presume to say positively 

 that they greatly encourage population. It is certain that the 

 proportion of births in this country compared with others in 

 similar circumstances is very small ; but this was to be ex- 

 pected from the superiority of the government, the more 

 respectable state of the people, and the more general diffu- 

 sion of a taste for cleanliness and conveniences. And it 

 •will readily occur to the reader, that owing to these causes, 

 combined with the twofold operation of the poor-laws, it 

 must be extremely difficult to ascertain, with any degree of 

 precision, what has been their effect on population.* 



The only argument of a general nature against the Essay, 

 which strikes me as having any considerable force, is the 



* The most favourable light, in which the poor-laws can possibly be placed, 

 is to say that under all the circumstances, with which the3- liave been accom- 

 panied, they do not much encourage marriage ; and undoubtedly the returns 

 of the Population Act seem to warrant the assertion. Should this be true, 

 some of the objections which have been urged in the Essay against the poor- 

 laws will be removed ; but I wish to press on the attention of the reader, that 

 they will in that case be removed in strict conformity to the general principles 

 of the work, and in a manner to confirm, not to invalidate, the main positions 

 n liicli il has alfeni|ili'd to establish. 



