Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 16.djvu/274

266 be enlarged to maintain three thousand, or even double that number.

The revenues of the poor-house, as it is now established, amount to about two thousand pounds a year; whereof, two hundred allowed for officers and one hundred for repairs, the remaining seventeen hundred, at four pounds a head, will support four hundred and twenty-five persons. This is a favourable allowance, considering that I subtract nothing for the diet of those officers, and for wear and tear of furniture; and if every one of these collegiates should be set to work, it is agreed they will not be able to gain by their labour above one fourth part of their maintenance.

At the same time, the oratorial part of these gentlemen, seldom vouchsafe to mention fewer than fifteen hundred or two thousand people, to be maintained in this hospital, without troubling their heads about the fund * * * * * * * *

MY LORD,

OUR grace having been pleased to communicate to us a certain brief, by letters patent, for the relief of one Charles Carthy, whose house in College-green, Dublin, was burnt by an accidental fire; and