Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 16.djvu/273

Rh and the rather because they are not very proper for my subject, to which I shall now return.

Among all the schemes for maintainuig the poor of the city, and setting them to work, the least weight has been laid upon that single point which is of greatest importance; I mean, that of keeping foreign beggars from swarming hither, out of every part of the country; for, until this be brought to pass effectually, all our wise reasonings and proceedings upon them will be vain and ridiculous.

The prodigious number of beggars throughout this kingdom, in proportion to so small a number of people, is owing to many reasons: to the laziness of the natives; the want of work to employ them; the enormous rents paid by cottagers for their miserable cabins and potatoe-plots; their early marriages, without the least prospect of establishment; the ruin of agriculture, whereby such vast numbers are hindered from providing their own bread, and have no money to purchase it; the mortal damp upon all kind of trade, and many other circumstances too tedious or invidious to mention.

And to the same causes we owe, the perpetual concourse of foreign beggars to this town; the country landlords giving all asistance, except money and victuals, to drive from their estates, those miserable creatures they have undone.

It was a general complaint against the poor-house, under its former governors, "That the number of poor in this city did not lessen by taking three hundred into the house, and all of them recommended under the minister and churchwardens hands of the several parishes:" and this complaint must still continue, although the poor-house should be