be administered by such ignorant and rough directors, that, if it is not
simple, it must fail entirely.

---
{199} It would be foreign to the plan of this Inquiry to enter into the
details of the poor persons, and shew the absurdity of the
management; but, it is very evident, from those that are printed, that
they get no work to do, the quantity of materials delivered to them to
work upon will not admit of earning money to maintain themselves.

The following is a specimen of the attention given to this subject, and
the means taken to enable the poor to pay for their maintenance, by
their labour. In Middlesex, where the expense amounted, in 1803, to
123,700 L. or about 340 L. a day, the sum expended to buy materials
amounted to no more than 4L.1s.11d. !!! It is impossible to
comprehend how this capital stock could be distributed amongst
above ten thousand labourers. It is not very easy to conceive the
impertinence of those who presented this item, as a statement to the
House of Commons, which would have done well to have committed
to the custody of the sergeant-at-mace, the persons who so grossly
insulted it. One thing, however, is very easily understood and
collected from all this. The business altogether is conducted with
ignorance, and executed carelessly and negligently, and that to an
extreme and shameful degree.
-=-

[end of page #253]

To have a good surgeon or physician is essential; and those who
would not work, and who were able, should have the same allowance
that a prisoner has in a jail; but those who would work should be paid
a fair price, and allowed to lay out the money, to hoard it, or do as
they please, except drinking to excess. [{200}]

Though many for want of vigour are refused employment in a
workshop, some for want of character, and others for various reasons,
become burthensome, yet there are not a few, who, from mere
laziness, throw themselves upon the parish, where they live a careless
life, free from hunger, cold, and labour. When the mind is once
reconciled to this situation, the temptation is considerable, and there
are many of those poor people, who will boast that the have
themselves been overseers, and paid their share to the expenses.

Whatever evil is found to have a tendency to increase with the wealth
of a nation ought, most carefully, to be kept under; and this is one not
of the least formidable, and, of all others, most evidently arising from
bad management and want of att