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 ¬demanded that support from those whom Provi- dence had exempted from such severe infirmities; but every principle of sound policy opposed its. further extension, and it was limited at first, in every district, to one-fortieth, which, speaking in your coin, would be only sixpence in the pound; but, by a strange departure from the principle of the original law, it now often exceeds forty times that amount, and in some places even the annual value of the property on which it professes to be a tax. — To be entitled to relief, it is no longer necessary that the appli- cant should bring himself within any of the descriptions of the ancient law; neither blind- ness, nor lameness, nor impotence, nor even inability to work, are necessary qualifications for support; large houses in every district being now built for the reception of almost any body who chooses to go into them, and from a pro- stration of morals it is no longer felt as a humi- liation or a reproach ; even they who, from their own improvidence, have contracted marriage though they knew themselves to be utterly k incapable ¬