Note 85 — CHAP. XI.

It is not to be inferred from this statement, that there are not to be found even among the lower classes of the labouring People in the Metropolis, many instances of honest and virtuous Poor, whose distresses are to be attributed to the calamity of a failure of employment, bad health, death of Parents or Children, and other causes which human prudence cannot prevent; and particularly where the want of opulent Inhabitants in several of the Eastern Parishes, renders it necessary to assess Indigence for the support of Poverty.—To these Parishes and Hamlets the Poor resort, both from the nature of their employments, and the impossibility of finding habitations any where else.—They have perhaps no legal settlement where they reside, or the funds of the Parish can afford but a very scanty and inadequate relief. Depressed with sickness, and broke down and dispirited by extreme poverty, the little furniture and apparel of Man, Woman, and Child, is carried to the Pawn-broker's to obtain a scanty pittance for the immediate support of life, until at length there does not remain what is sufficient to cover nakedness.—In these miserable mansions the Author has himself frequently witnessed scenes of distress, which would rend the heart of the most unfeeling of the human species.—A temporary and partial expedient has through the benevolence of the Publick, been administered in the excellent institutions of Soup-houses: but until the funds of the different Parishes can be made one Common Purse, and an intelligent management substituted in the place of an ignorant and incompetent superintendance, the evil will not diminish.—To the opulent part of the Community the burden would never be felt.—At present, where the most indigent are assessed, the rates are double and treble those in the rich Parishes.—It is principally to this cause, that Poverty is no where to be found in so great a degree, cloathed in the garb of the extremest misery and wretchedness, as in the Metropolis.—And it is to this cause also, joined to various others explained in this Chapter, that above Twenty Thousand miserable Individuals of various classes, rise up every morning without knowing how, or by what means they are to be supported, during the passing day; or where, in many instances, they are to lodge on the succeeding night.