Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 9.djvu/425

Rh or two more gentlemen. And I must confess my opinion, that the dissolving of the old commission, and establishing a new one of near three times the number, have been the great cause of rendering so good a design not only useless, but a grievance instead of a benefit to the city. In the present commission all the city clergy are included, beside a great number of squires; not only those who reside in Dublin and the neighbourhood, but several who live at a great distance, and cannot possibly have the least concern for the advantage of the city.

At the few general meetings, that I have attended since the new establishment, I observed very little was done except one or two acts of extreme justice, which I then thought might as well have been spared; and I have found the court of assistants usually taken up in little wrangles about coachmen, or adjusting accounts of meal and small beer; which however necessary, might sometimes have given place to matters of much greater moment; I mean some schemes recommended to the general board for answering the chief ends in erecting and establishing such a poor house, and endowing it with so considerable a revenue; and the principal end I take to have been that of maintaining the poor and orphans of the city, where the parishes are not able to do it; and clearing the streets from all strollers, foreigners, and sturdy beggars, with which, to the universal complaint and admiration, Dublin is more infested since the establishment of the poor house, than it was ever known to be since its first erection.

As the whole fund for supporting this hospital is raised only from the inhabitants of the city; so there can be hardly any thing more absurd than to see it misemployed