An Enquiry into the Causes of the late Increase of Robbers/Section 1

SECT. I

Of too frequent and expenive Diverions among the Lower Kind of People.

Firt then, I think that the vat Torrent of Luxury which of late Years hath poured itelf into this Nation, hath greatly contributed to produce, among many others, the Michief I here complain of. I am not here to atirize the Great, among who Luxury is probably rather a moral than a political Evil. But Vices no more than Dieaes will top with them; for bad Habits are as infectious by Example, as the Plague itelf by Contact. In free Countries, at leat, it is a Branch of Liberty claimed by the People to be as wicked and as profligate as their Superiors. Thus while the Nobleman will emulate the Grandeur of a Prince; and the Gentleman will apire to the proper State of the Nobleman; the Trademan teps from behind his Counter into the vacant Place of the Gentleman, Nor doth the Confuion end here: It reaches the very Dregs of the People, who apiring till to a Degree beyond that which belongs to them, and not being able by the Fruits of honet Labour to upport the State which they affect, they didain the Wages to which their Indutry would entitle them; and abandoning themelves to Idlenes, the more imple and poor-spirited betake themelves to a State of Starving and Beggary, while thoe of more Art and Courage become Thieves, Sharpers, and Robbers.

Could Luxury be confined to the Palaces of the Great, the Society would not perhaps be much affected with it; at leat, the Michiefs, which I am now intending to obviate can never be the Conequence. For tho', perhaps, there is not more of real Virtue in the higher State, yet the Sene of Honour is there more general and prevalent. But there is a much tronger Reaon. The Means bear no Proportion to the End: For the Los of Thouands, or of a great Etate, is not to be relieved or upplied by any Means of common Theft or Robbery. With regard to uch Evils therefore the Legilature might be jutified in leaving the Punihment, as well as the pernicious Conequences, to end in the Miery, Ditres, and ometimes utter Ruin of a private Family. But when this Vice decends downward to the Trademan, the Mechanic, and the Labourer, it is certain to engender many political Michiefs, and, among the ret, it is mot evidently the Parent of Theft and Robbery, to which not only the Motive of Want but of Shame conduces: For there is no greater Degree of Shame than the Trademan generally feels at the firt Inability to make his regular Payments; nor is there any Difficulty which he would not undergo to avoid it. Here then the Highway promies; and hath, I doubt not, often given Relief. Nay, I remember very lately a Highwayman who confesed everal Robberies before me, his Motive to which, he asured me, (and o it appeared) was to pay a Bill that was hortly to become due. In this Cae therefore the Public becomes intereted, and conequently the Legilature is obliged to interpoe.

To give a final Blow to Luxury by any general Prohibition, if it would be adviable, is by no means posible. To ay the Truth, bad Habits in the Body Politic, epecially if of any Duration, are eldom to be wholly eradicated. Palliatives alone are to be applied; and thee too in a free Contitution mut be of the gentlet Kind, and as much as posible adapted to the Tate and Genius of the People.

The gentlet Method which I know, and at the ame Time perhaps one of the mot effectual, of topping the Progres of Vice, is by removing the Temptation. Now the two great Motives to Luxury, in the Mind of Man, are Vanity and Voluptuounes. The former of thee operates but little in this Regard with the lower Order of People. I do not mean that they have les of this Pasion than their Betters; but the apparent Imposibility of gratifying it this Way deters them, and diverts at leat this Pasion into another Channel; for we find it puts them rather on vying with each other in the Reputation of Wealth, than in the outward Appearance of Show and Grandeur. Voluptuounes or the Love of Pleaure is that alone which leads them into Luxury. Here then the Temptation is with all posible Care to be withdrawn from them.

Now what greater Temptation can there be to Voluptuounes, than a Place where every Sene and Appetite of which it is compounded, are fed and delighted; where the Eyes are feated with Show, and the Ears with Muic, and where Gluttony and Drunkennes are allured by every Kind of Dainty; nay where the finet Women are expoed to View, and where the meanet Peron who can dres himelf clean, may in ome degree mix with his Betters, and thus perhaps atify his Vanity as well as his Love of Pleaure?

It may posibly be aid that thee Diverions are cheap: I anwer, that is one Objection I have to them: Was the Price as high as that of a Ridotto, or an Opera, it would, like thee Diverions, be confined to the higher People only; beides the Cheapnes is really a Deluion. Unthinking Men are often deceived into Expence, as I once knew an honet Gentleman who carried his Wife and two Daughters to a Maquerade, being told that he could have four Tickets for four Guineas; but found afterwards, that in Dreses, Maques, Chairs, &c. the Night's Entertainment cot him almot Twelve. I am convinced, that many thouands of honet Trademen have found their Expences exceed their Computation in a much greater Proportion. And the Sum of even or eight Shillings (which is a very moderate Allowance for the Entertainment of the mallet Family) repeated once or twice a Week thruogh a Summer, will make too large a Deduction from the reaonable Profits of any low Mechanic.

Beides the actual Expence in attending thee Places of Pleaure, the Los of Time and Neglect of Buines are Conequences which the inferior Trademan can by no means upport. To be born for no other Purpoe than to conume the Fruits of the Earth is the Privilege (if it may be called a Privilege) of very few. The greater Part of Mankind mut weat hard to Produce them, or Society will no longer anwer the Purpoes for which it was ordained. Six Days halt thou labour, was the poitive Command of God in his own Republic. A Severity, however, which the Divine Widom was pleaed omewhat to relax; and appointed certain Times of Ret and Recreation for his People. Such were the Feat of the unleavened Bread, the Feat of the Weeks, and the Feat of the Tabernacles. On which Occaions it is written, Thou halt rejoice before the Lord thy God, thou and thy Son and thy Daughter, and thy Servant, and thy Maid, and the Levite that is within thy Gates, and the Stranger, and the Fatherles, and the Widow.

All other Nations have imitated this divine Intitution. It is true that among the Greeks, ariing from the Nature of their Supertition, there were many Fetivals; yet carce any of thee were univeral, and few attended with any other than religious Ceremonies. The Roman Calendar is thinner trewed with thee Seaons of Idlenes. Indeed there eems to have been one only Kind of univeral Sport and Revelling amongt them, which they called the Saturnalia, when much too great Indulgence was given to all Kinds of Licentiounes. Public Scenes of Rendezvous they had none. As to the Grecian Women, it is well known they were almot entirely confined to their own Houes; where the very Entertainment of their finet Ladies was only Works of the finer Sort. And the Romans, by the Orchian Law, which was made among many others for the Suppresion of Luxury, and was publihed in the third Year of Cato's Cenorhip, thought proper to limit the Number of Perons who were to asemble even at any private Feat. Nay the Exhibitions of the Theatre were uffered only at particular Seaons, and on Holydays.

Nor are our own Laws ilent on this Head, with Regard at leat to the lower Sort of People, whoe Diverions have been confined to certain tated Times. Mr. Pulton peaking of thoe Games and Asemblies of the People which are lawful, ays, that they are lawful at certain Places and Seaons of the Year, allowed by old and ancient Cutoms. The Statute of Hen. VIII. goes farther, and expresly enacts, that no Manner of Artificer or Craftman of any Handicraft or Occupation, Hubandman, Apprentice, &c. hall play at the Tables, Tennis, Dice, Cards, Bowls, &c. out of Chritmas under the Penalty of 20s.

Thus we find that by divine as well as human Intitution, as well by our own Laws as thoe of other Countries, the Diverions of the People have been limited and retrained to certain Seaons: Under which Limitations, Seneca calls thee Diverions the necesary Temperament of Labour. 'Some Remision, ays he, mut be given to our Minds, which will pring up the better, and more brik from Ret. It is with the Mind as with a fruitful Field, whoe Fertility will be exhauted if we give it no Intermision. The ame will accrue to the Mind by incesant Labours, whereas both from gentle Remision will acquire Strength. From contant Labour aries a certain Dulnes and Langour of the Spirits; nor would Men with uch Eagernes affect them, if Sport and Merriment had not a natural Sweetnes inherent in themelves; the frequent Ue of which however will detroy all Gravity and Force in our Minds. Sleep is necesary to our Refrehment, but if this be continued Night and Day, it will become Death. There is a great Difference between the Remision of any Thing and its Disolution. Lawgivers, therefore, intituted certain Holydays, that the People might be compelled by Law to Merriment, interpoing this as a necesary Temperament to their Labours .'

Thus the Greek and Latin Philoopher, tho' they derive the Intitution differently, the one alledging a divine and the other a human Original, both agree that a necesary Relaxation from Labour was the only End for which Diverion was invented and allowed to the People. This Intitution, as the former of thee great Writers tell us, was groly perverted even in his Time; but urely neither then, nor in any Age or Nation, until now, was this Perverion carried to o candalous an Exces as it is at preent in this Kingdom, and epecially in and near the Metropolis, where the Places of Pleaure are almot become numberles: for beides thoe great Scenes of Rendezvous, where the Nobleman and his Taylor, the Lady of Quality and her Tirewoman, meet together and form one common Asembly, what an immene Variety of Places have this Town and its Neighbourhood et apart for the Amuement of the lowet Order of the People; and where the Mater of the Houe, or Wells, or Garden, may be aid to angle only in the Kennels, where baiting with the vilet Materials, he catches only the thoughtles and tateles Rabble. And thee are carried on, not on a ingle Day, or in a ingle Week; but all of them during half, and ome during the whole Year.

If a Computation was made of the Money expended in thee Temples of Idlenes by the Artificer, the Handicraft, the Apprentice, and even the common Labourer, the Sum would appear excesive; but without putting myelf to that Trouble, I believe the Reader will permit me to conclude that it is much greater than uch Perons can or ought to afford; epecially as Idlenes, its necesary Attendant, adds greatly to the Debtor's Side in the Account; and that the necesary Conequence mut be Ruin to many, who from being ueful Members of the Society will become a heavy Burden or abolute Nuiance to the Public. It being indeed a certain Method to fill the Streets with Beggars, and the Goals with Debtors and Thieves.

That this Branch of Luxury hath grown to its preent Height, is owing partly to a Defect in the Laws; and this Defect may, with great Decency and Repect to the Legilature, be very truly imputed to the Recency of the Evil; for as our Ancetors knew it not, they may well be excued for not having foreeen and guarded againt it. If therefore it hould eem now necesary to be retrenched, a new Law will, I apprehend, be necesary for that Purpoe; the Powers of the Magitrate being carce extenive enough, under any Proviion extant, to detroy a Hydra now become o pregnant and dangerous. And it would be too dangerous as well as too invidious a Tak to oppoe the mad Humours of the Populace, by the Force of any doubtful obolete Law; which, as I have hinted before, could not have been directly levelled at a Vice which did not exit at the Time when the Law was made.

But while I am recommending ome Retraint of this Branch of Luxury, which urely appears to be necesary, I would be undertood to aim at the Retrenchment only, not at the Extirpation of Diverion; nay, and in this Retraint, I confine myelf entirely to the lower Order of People. Pleaure always hath been, and always will be, the principal Buines of Perons of Fahion and Fortune, and more epecially of the Ladies, for whom I have infinitely too great an Honour and Repect to rob them of any their leat Amuement. Let them have their Plays, Operas, and Oratorios, their Maquerades and Ridottos; their Asemblies, Drums, Routs, Riots, and Hurricans; their Ranelagh and Vauxhall; their Bath, Tunbridge, Britol, Scarborough, and Cheltenham; and let them have their Beaus and Danglers to attend them at all thee; it is the only Ue for which uch Beaus are fit; and I have een in the Coure of my Life, that it is the only one to which by enible Women they are applied.

In Diverion, as in many other Particulars, the upper Part of Life is ditinguihed from the Lower. Let the Great therefore anwer for the Employment of their Time, to themelves, or to their piritual Governors. The Society will receive ome temporal Advantage from their Luxury. The more Toys which Children of all Ages conume, the briker will be the Circulation of Money, and the greater the Increae of Trade.

The Buines of the Politician is only to prevent the Contagion fro preading to the ueful Part of Mankind, the ΕΠΙΠΟΝΟΝ ΠΕΦΥΚΟΣ ΓΕΝΟΣ ; and this is the Buines of Perons of Fahion and Fortune too, in order that the Labour and Indutry of the ret may adminiter to their Pleaures, and furnih them with the Means of Luxury. To the upper Part of Mankind Time is an Enemy, and (as they themelves often confes) their chief Labour is to kill it; whereas, with the others, Time and Money are almot ynonymous; and as they have very little of each to pare, it becomes the Legilature, as much as posible, to uppres all Temptations whereby they may be induced too profuely to quander either the one or the other; ince all uch Profuion mut be repaid at the Cot of the Public.

Such Places of Pleaure, therefore, as are totally et apart for the Ue of the Great World, I meddle not with. And though Ranelagh and Vauxhall, by reaon of their Price, are not entirely appropriated to the People of Fahion, yet they are eldom frequented by any below the middle Rank; and a trict Regard to Decency is preerved in them both. But urely two uch Places are ufficient to contain all thoe who have any Title to pend their Time in this idle, though otherwie innocent Way. Nor hould uch a Fahion be allowed to pread into every Village round London, and by Degrees all over the Kingdom; by which means, not only Idlenes, but all Kinds of Immorality, will be encouraged.

I cannot dimis this Head, without mentioning a notorious Nuiance which hath lately arien in this Town; I mean, thoe Balls where Men and Women of looe Reputation meet in diguied Habits. As to the Maquerade in the Hay-market, I have nothing to ay; I really think it a illy rather than a vicious Entertainment: But the Cae is very different with thee inferior Maquerades; for thee are indeed no other than the Temples of Drunkennes, Leudnes, and all Kind of Debauchery.