Page:The reports of the Society for Bettering the Condition and Increasing the Comforts of the Poor (IA b21971961 0001).pdf/27

Rh The fifth is an account of the jail and house of correction at Dorchester.—When we consider the important consequences of what has been effected there, in annually saving, to the public and to themselves, many persons otherwise abandoned to destruction, we cannot help lamenting that so very few similar instances are to be found in the whole kingdom.The principle of this reform will apply, with still greater force, to every measure that regards the local and domestic concerns of mankind; in all of which it will invariably be found, that in proportion as coercion is given up, and the interest of the party is made the spring of action, temptations to vice will be excluded, and habits of labour and honesty will be gradually acquired.

In the next paper, upon fuel, the reader will find a very gratifying proof, that the poor may be easily reconciled to inclosures, or to any other measure of public benefit, where their own feelings and interests are only properly consulted.The last