Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 1.djvu/296

260 with his own eyes, perhaps no equal sum disposed of in that way was ever productive of so much good. There was one species of charity first struck out by him, which was attended with the greatest benefit to numbers of the lowest class of tradesmen. Soon after he was out of debt, the first five hundred pounds which he could call his own, he lent out to poor industrious tradesmen in small sums of five, and ten pounds, to be repaid weekly, at two or four shillings, without interest. As the sums thus weekly paid in, were lent out again to others at a particular day in each month, this quick circulation doubled the benefit arising from the original sum. In order to ensure this fund from diminution, he laid it down as a rule that none should be partakers of it, who could not give good security for the regular repayment of it in the manner proposed: for it was a maxim with him, that any one known by his neighbours to be an honest, sober, and industrious man, would readily find such security; while the idle and dissolute would by this means be excluded. Nor did they who entered into such securities run any great risk; for if the borrower was not punctual in his weekly payments, immediate notice of it was sent to them, who obliged him to be more punctual for the future. Thus did this fund continue undiminished to the last; and small as the spring was, yet, by continual flowing, it watered and enriched the humble vale through which it ran, still extending and widening its course. I have been well assured from different quarters, that many families in Dublin, now living in great credit, owed the foundation of their fortunes to the sums first borrowed from this fund.

His reputation for wisdom and integrity was so great,