Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 9.djvu/428

418, he becomes a nuisance to the whole country; he and his females are thieves, and teach the trade of stealing to their brood at four years old; and if his infirmities be counterfeit, it is dangerous for a single person unarmed to meet him on the road. He wanders from one country to another, but still with a view to this town, where he arrives at last, and enjoys all the privileges of a Dublin beggar.

I do not wonder, that the country squires should be very willing to send up their colonies; but why the city should be content to receive them, is beyond my imagination.

If the city were obliged by their charter to maintain a thousand beggars, they could do it cheaper by eighty per cent, a hundred miles off, than in this town, or in any of its suburbs.

There is no village in Connaught, that in proportion shares so deeply in the daily increasing miseries of Ireland, as its capital city; to which miseries there hardly remained any addition, except the perpetual swarms of foreign beggars, who might be banished in a month, without expense, and with very little trouble.

As I am personally acquainted with a great number of street beggars, I find some weak attempts have been made in one or two parishes to promote the wearing of badges; and my first question to those who ask an alms is, "Where is your badge?" I have, in several years, met with about a dozen who were ready to produce them, some out of their pockets, others from under their coat, and two or three on their shoulders, only covered with a sort of capes, which they could lift up or let down upon occasion. They are too lazy to work; they are not afraid to steal,