Page:An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798).djvu/119

Rh These evils attendant on the poor laws, are in some degree irremediable. If assistance be to be distributed to a certain class of people, a power must be given somewhere of discriminating the proper objects, and of managing the concerns of the institutions that are necessary; but any great interference with the affairs of other people is a species of tyranny; and in the common course of things the exercise of this power may be expected to become grating to those who are driven to ask for support. The tyranny of Justices, Churchwardens, and Overseers, is a common complaint among the poor: but the fault does not lie so much in these persons, who probably, before they were in power, were not worse than other people; but in the nature of all such institutions.