lowed to a family of a man, a wife, and _four
children_, beyond the bare eight shillings a week of wages; and this is
even worse than the allowance which I contrasted with that of the hospital
patients and convicted felons; for there I supposed the family to consist
of a man, his wife and _three children_. If I am told, that the farmers,
that the occupiers of houses and land, are _so poor_ that they cannot do
more for their wretched work-people and neighbours; then I answer and
say, What a selfish, what a dastardly wretch is he, who is not ready to do
all he can to change this disgraceful, this horrible state of things!

72. But, at any rate, is the salary of the "ASSISTANT OVERSEER" necessary?
Cannot that be dispensed with? Must he have as much as _all the widows_,
or _all the old men_? And his salary, together with the charge for
_printing_ and other his various expenses, will come to a great deal more
_than go to all the widows and old men too_! Why not, then, do without
him, and double the allowance to these poor old women, or poor old men,
who have spent their strength in raising crops in the parish? I went to
see with my own eyes some of the "_parish houses_," as they are called;
that is to say, the places where the select vestry put the poor people
into to live. Never did my eyes before alight on such scenes of
wretchedness! There was one place, about 18 feet long and 10 wide, in
which I found the wife of ISAAC HOLDEN, which, when all were at home, had
to contain _nineteen persons_; and into which, I solemnly declare, I would
not put 19 pigs, even if well-bedded with straw. Another place was shown
me by JOB WALDRON'S daughter; another by Thomas Carey's wife. The _bare
ground_, and that in holes too, was the floor in both these places. The
windows broken, and the holes stuffed with rags, or covered with rotten
bits of board. Great openings in the walls, parts of which were fallen
down, and the places stopped with hurdles and straw. The thatch rotten,
the chimneys leaning, the doors but bits of doors, the sleeping holes
shocking both to sight and smell; and, indeed, every-thing seeming to say:
"_These_ are the abodes of wretchedness, which, to be believed possible,
must be seen and felt: _these_ are the abodes of the descendants of those
amongst whom _beef_, _pork_, _mutton_ and _veal_ were the food of the
poorer sort; to _this are come, at last_, the descendants of those common
people of England, who, FORTESCUE tell