rry
at an early age; menial servants, revenue officers, and all those who
administer to the gratifications of a wealthy and luxurious people,
marry later in life; and besides their not having an industrious example
to set before their children, are torn from them sooner, by the course
of things.

---
{136} If one of the brute creation is in want, it will supply that where
it is most easily to be had, physical difficulty is the only one it knows;
bodily pain the only one it feels. But men are different, they often
undergo great want amongst strangers, to avoid more insufferable
feelings amongst friends.
-=-

[end of page #158]

It has been noticed, that, in every society, as wealth increases
hospitality dies away. And those good offices interchanged between
man and man, to which life owes many of its comforts in a less
advanced state of society, and which protect individuals from the
frowns of fortune, gradually disappear. The social feelings become
less active, and men turn selfish and interested, thinking for
themselves, and careless for the community; while, on the other hand,
the causes for poverty increase; on the other, the means of relief are
misapplied, neglected, or squandered away. The funds that ought to be
administered with disinteredness and integrity are committed to the
hands of men who live on the general misfortune, and thus the
wretched, who are relieved, are not fairly treated, while the public,
that is burthened with their misfortunes, is loaded far beyond its
proper degree.

The population of a country is diminished in a double ratio as the poor
increases: they create nothing, but they consume; and if a country sees
one-tenth of its population living on charity, it is equivalent at least to
seeing one-seventh diminished in numbers altogether.

Most sorts of labour require those employed in it to have some capital,
such as decent clothes, or tools, or money to live upon till wages are
due. Little as that capital is, yet thousands are reduced to absolute
beggary for want of it; their industry finding no means of exertion. A
man becomes dependant =sic= on charity for existence; and, though
able to work, eats the bread of idleness, and that without being in
fault.

The number of persons absolutely unable to labour is nearly the same
in every country, and is not much augmented by its wealth; so that if
there were, as there easily might be, always employment for those
who would otherwise be enti