1799] 
faé&t, and will tell him the true reafon.”’ 
What then follows from fuch an ad- 
miflion, but that Mr. Woop has been 
liable to impofition? and that the con- 
clufions he deduces from fuch queftion- 
able data ought to be feverely carechifed, 
and even at laft received with no {mall 
degree of hefitation and doubt. This, I 
freely avow, has been the conduct I have 
purfued mytelf: and yet, for the mere 
expreffion of fuch doubt, the actual de- 
tection of errors now openly contedled, I 
have been unfortunate enough to excite 
Mr. Woop’s indignation: and he {peaks, 
in confequence, ot di/ingenutty on my part ; 
of attempts to deceive the public; ot round 
and confident affertion; of my being the 
dupe of my own fallacious reafoning ; of 
being bis enemy ; of aiming a dagger dipt 
in oil at his reputation ; and, laftly, of be- 
ing hereby guilty of a capital crime!!! 
This, Sir, is language which I cer- 
tainly fhall not imitate, and which I 
fhould much rather have expected from 
one of the inhabitants of the Shrew/bury 
poor-houfe than from one of its directors. 
Far, howeyer, from being irritated by its 
very opprobrious and unmerited violence, 
I am rather excited to laughter; and am 
half induced to regard it as anew, but 
certainly extraordinary, attempt at wit. 
Yet I cannot but regret that a gentleman 
of Mr. Woop’s liberal purfuits, and, as 
i hear, eftimable heart, fhould 1o widely 
deviate from the path that belongs to 
him; and confent to tarnifh a journal of 
POLITE LETTERS with a phraleology fo 
diametrically out of charaéter. 
It appears there has been a mis-ftate- 
ment of the weekly price of provifions in- 
curred at the poor-houfe at Norwich: and 
Mr. Woop is ftill refolutely determined 
to impute this mis-ftatement to mytelf. 
Whoever does me the honour to perule 
my Differtation on the Poor, will readily 
difcover that there was at no time any 
neceflity for fuch a perfonal imputation : 
but furely, after the full explanation I 
have fince giyen of this fubjeét in my lait 
letter, to perfevere in fuch an imputation 
ftill, is to difcover a pertinacity of dif- 
pofition, fortunately for the world, not 
often to be met with. But even this 
does not now fatisfy Mr. Woop; for 
independent of this zmputed error re{pect- 
ing the poor-houle at Norwich, he afferts 
that I have fallen into one of even 
greater magnitude relative to that at 
Shrewfbury: for Ihave ftated, he gravely 
tells us, that the coft of the poor at 
Shrewfbury is 3s. 13d. each per weck ; 
Mr, Good in Reply to Mr. Wood. 123 
while, adds he, they are xow fupported 
at 1s. od. inftead. Even this, however, 
IT am forry to obferve,-is not perfectly 
confiftent with the fact. { avowedly cal- 
culated the expence of the poor at Shrew1- 
bury, as I did thofe of every other infti- 
tution upon which I thought it neceflary 
to animadvert, at the sean London price 
of the different articles confumed, and at 
a period when provifions were in fome in- 
{tances double the mean price at which 
they may be purchaled at prefent: and 
upon fuch calculation, and at fuch time, 
I certainly did ftate that the Shrewfbury 
diet, if purchafed in London, would, at 
the time of writing (to wit, in January 
1796) have amounted to the average price 
of 3s. 13d. for each weekly. But fo far’ 
from ftating that this 3s. 13d. muft be 
the common average expended at Shrew{f- 
bury; I exprefsly declared in the fame 
place (p. 65), that even at that period of 
extreme fcarcity and dearnefs, it was 
very probable this calculation exceeded in 
fome degree the aétual coft incurred at 
that place: contending alone that Mr. 
Woop at leaft muft have been miftaken 
in reducing it at any time to fo low an 
eftimate as 1s. 62d. 
This gentleman once more enquires 
what right I had to prefume that the 
number of their poor cuzthiz the Houle of 
Induftry were diminifhing annually ? 
This I have twice told him already ; and 
fhall only, therefore, refer him to paflages 
which he hitherto appears to have peruled 
inadvertently. The auginentation of the 
poor-rates during the lalt two or three 
years at Norwich and: Manchefter, to 
which he fo triumphantly adverts, does 
not zecefarily imply an augmentation of 
the number maintained cu/thim thof? re- 
fpeétive poor-houfes ; whofe families, for 
the moft part, are derived trom a defcrip- 
tion of perfons, who fo far from being 
fubject to frequent increafe, Mr. Woop 
himfelf immediately afterwards, with a 
fingular inftance of felf-contraction, afferts 
to be commonly ftationary; and which in 
reality appears to have been nearly fo at 
the inftitution to which he has devoted fo 
much of his time. The augmentation in 
the above rates may, therefore, and in all 
probability actually does avife from the 
additional affiftance which, in confequence 
of the prefent war, or fome cafual rife in 
the price of provifions, it has been deemed 
neceflary to afford a vatt multitude of 
families without the poor houfe; and 
whom, from the mere preflure of tempo- 
rary diftrels, it would be equally in- 
) ‘ ~ humane 
* 
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