Swift may have written the following mock petition by way of satire against the many absurd petitions which were presented at the time to the Irish House of Commons, and of which two examples were quoted in the note to a previous tract. If coal-porters and hackney-coachmen might address the Honourable House, why not footmen?
The present text is based on that found at the end of Swift's "Serious and Useful Scheme to make an Hospital for Incurables," issued by George Faulkner in 1733. Faulkner reprinted this volume in 1734.
The Humble Petition of the Footmen in and about the City of Dublin.
Humbly Sheweth,
That your Petitioners are a great and numerous society, endowed with several privileges, time out of mind.
That certain lewd, idle, and disorderly persons, for several months past, as it is notoriously known, have been daily seen in the public walks of this City, habited sometimes in green coats, and sometimes in laced, with long oaken cudgels in their hands, and without swords, in hopes to procure favour, by that advantage, with a great number of ladies who frequent those walks, pretending and giving themselves out to be true genuine Irish footmen. Whereas they can be proved to be no better than common toupees,[182] as a judicious eye may soon discover by their awkward, clumsy, ungenteel gait and behaviour, by their unskilfulness in dress, even with the advantage of wearing our habits, by their ill-favoured countenances, with an air of impudence and dulness peculiar to the rest of their brethren; who have not yet arrived at that transcendent pitch of assurance. Although, it may be justly apprehended, that they will do so in time, if these counterfeits shall happen to succeed in their evil design, of passing for real footmen, thereby to render themselves more amiable to the ladies.
Your petitioners do further allege, that many of the said counterfeits, upon a strict examination, have been found in the very act of strutting, swearing, staring, swaggering, in a manner that plainly shewed their best endeavours to imitate us. Wherein, although they did not succeed, yet by their ignorant and ungainly way of copying our graces, the utmost indignity was endeavoured to be cast upon our whole profession.
Your Petitioners do therefore make it their humble request, that this Honourable House, (to many of whom your Petitioners are nearly allied) will please to take this grievance into your most serious consideration: Humbly submitting, whether it would not be proper, that certain officers might, at the public charge, be employed to search for, and discover all such counterfeit footmen, and carry them before the next Justice of Peace; by whose warrant, upon the first conviction, they should be stripped of their coats, and oaken ornaments, and be set two hours in the stocks. Upon the second conviction, besides stripping, be set six hours in the stocks, with a paper pinned on their breast signifying their crime, in large capital letters, and in the following words. "A. B. commonly called A. B. Esq.; a toupee, and a notorious impostor, who presumed to personate a true Irish footman."
And for any further offence the said toupee shall be committed to Bridewell, whipped three times, forced to hard labour for a month, and not be set at liberty, till he shall have given sufficient security for his good behaviour.
Your Honours will please to observe with what lenity we propose to treat these enormous offenders, who have already brought such a scandal on our honourable calling, that several well-meaning people have mistaken them to be of our Fraternity; in diminution to that credit and dignity wherewith we have supported our station, as we always did, in the worst of times.[183] And we further beg leave to remark, that this was manifestly done with a seditious design, to render us less capable of serving the public in any great employments, as several of our Fraternity, as well as our ancestors have done.
We do therefore humbly implore your Honours, to give necessary orders for our relief, in this present exigency, and your Petitioners (as in duty bound) shall ever pray, &c.
Dublin, 1733.
Swift here argues that a holder of an office under the government cannot, of necessity, be an honest representative of the people. There were two candidates before the freemen for the suffrages of the City, one, Lord Mayor French, and the other Mr. John Macarrell. The latter was an office-holder; he was Register to the Barracks, and received his salary from the government. It was not to be expected that he would vote against his employer, be he never so honest a man. Swift openly informs the freemen that the Drapier is against this man. The Lord Mayor was elected.
The text of this "Advice" is based on that given in the eighth volume of Swift's Collected Works, issued in 1746. The Forster Collection contains a made-up booklet of pp. 196-205, taken from a volume of one of the collected editions.
Those few writers, who, since the death of Alderman Burton, have employed their pens in giving advice to our citizens, how they should proceed in electing a new representative for the next sessions, having laid aside their pens, I have reason to hope, that all true lovers of their country in general, and particularly those who have any regard for the privileges and liberties of this great and ancient city, will think a second, and a third time, before they come to a final determination upon what person they resolve to fix their choice.
I am told, there are only two persons who set up for candidates; one is the present Lord Mayor,[184] and the other, a gentleman of good esteem, an alderman of the city, a merchant of reputation, and possessed of a considerable office under the crown.[185] The question is, which of these two persons it will be most for the advantage of the city to elect? I have but little acquaintance with either, so that my inquiries will be very impartial, and drawn only from the general character and situation of both.
In order to this, I must offer my countrymen and fellow-citizens some reasons why I think they ought to be more than ordinarily careful, at this juncture, upon whom they bestow their votes.
To perform this with more clearness, it may be proper to give you a short state of our unfortunate country.
We consist of two parties: I do not mean Popish and Protestant, High and Low Church, Episcopal and Sectarians, Whig and Tory; but of these English who happen to be born in this kingdom, (whose ancestors reduced the whole nation under the obedience of the English crown,) and the gentlemen sent from the other side to possess most of the chief employments here. This latter party is very much enlarged and strengthened by the whole power in the church, the law, the army, the revenue, and the civil administration deposited in their hands; although, out of political ends, and to save appearances, some employments are still deposited (yet gradually in a smaller number) to persons born here; this proceeding, fortified with good words and many promises, is sufficient to flatter and feed the hopes of hundreds, who will never be one farthing the better, as they might easily be convinced, if they were qualified to think at all.
Civil employments of all kinds have been for several years past, with great prudence, made precarious, and during pleasure; by which means the possessors are, and must inevitably be, for ever dependent; yet those very few of any consequence, which are dealt with so sparing a hand to persons born among us, are enough to keep hope alive in great numbers, who desire to mend their condition by the favour of those in power.
Now, my dear fellow-citizens, how is it possible you can conceive, that any person, who holds an office of some hundred pounds a year, which may be taken from him whenever power shall think fit, will, if he should be chosen a member for any city, do the least thing, when he sits in the house, that he knows or fears may be displeasing to those who gave him or continue him in that office? Believe me, these are no times to expect such an exalted degree of virtue from mortal men. Blazing stars are much more frequently seen than such heroical worthies. And I could sooner hope to find ten thousand pounds by digging in my garden, than such a phœnix, by searching among the present race of mankind.
I cannot forbear thinking it a very erroneous, as well as modern maxim of politics, in the English nation, to take every opportunity of depressing Ireland; whereof an hundred instances may be produced in points of the highest importance, and within the memory of every middle-aged man; although many of the greatest persons among that party which now prevails, have formerly, upon that article, much differed in their opinion from their present successors.
But so the fact stands at present. It is plain that the court and country party here, (I mean in the House of Commons,) very seldom agree in anything but their loyalty to his present Majesty, their resolutions to make him and his viceroy easy in the government, to the utmost of their power, under the present condition of the kingdom. But the persons sent from England, who (to a trifle) are possessed of the sole executive power in all its branches, with their few adherents in possession who were born here, and hundreds of expectants, hopers, and promissees, put on quite contrary notions with regard to Ireland. They count upon a universal submission to whatever shall be demanded; wherein they act safely, because none of themselves, except the candidates, feel the least of our pressures.
I remember a person of distinction some days ago affirmed in a good deal of mixed company, and of both parties, that the gentry from England, who now enjoy our highest employments of all kinds, can never be possibly losers of one farthing by the greatest calamities that can befall this kingdom, except a plague that would sweep away a million of our hewers of wood and drawers of water, or an invasion that would fright our grandees out of the kingdom. For this person argued, that while there was a penny left in the treasury, the civil and military list must be paid; and that the Episcopal revenues, which are usually farmed out at six times below the real value, could hardly fail. He insisted farther, that as money diminished, the price of all necessaries for life must of consequence do so too, which would be for the advantage of all persons in employment, as well as of my lords the bishops, and to the ruin of everybody else. Among the company there wanted not men in office, besides one or two expectants; yet I did not observe any of them disposed to return an answer; but the consequences drawn were these: That the great men in power sent hither from the other side, were by no means upon the same foot with his Majesty's other subjects of Ireland; they had no common ligament to bind them with us; they suffered not with our sufferings; and if it were possible for us to have any cause of rejoicing, they could not rejoice with us.
Suppose a person, born in this kingdom, shall happen by his services for the English interest to have an employment conferred on him worth four hundred pounds a year; and that he hath likewise an estate in land worth four hundred pounds a year more; suppose him to sit in Parliament; then, suppose a land-tax to be brought in of five shillings a pound for ten years; I tell you how this gentleman will compute. He hath four hundred pounds a year in land: the tax he must pay yearly is one hundred pounds; by which, in ten years, he will pay only a thousand pounds. But if he gives his vote against this tax, he will lose four thousand pounds by being turned out of his employment, together with the power and influence he hath, by virtue or colour of his employment; and thus the balance will be against him three thousand pounds.
I desire, my fellow-citizens, you will please to call to mind how many persons you can vouch for among your acquaintance, who have so much virtue and self-denial as to lose four hundred pounds a year for life, together with the smiles and favour of power, and the hopes of higher advancement, merely out of a generous love of his country.
The contentions of parties in England are very different from those among us. The battle there is fought for power and riches; and so it is indeed among us: but whether a great employment be given to Tom or to Peter, they were both born in England, the profits are to be spent there. All employments (except a very few) are bestowed on the natives; they do not send to Germany, Holland, Sweden, or Denmark, much less to Ireland, for chancellors, bishops, judges, or other officers. Their salaries, whether well or ill got, are employed at home: and whatever their morals or politics be, the nation is not the poorer.
The House of Commons in England have frequently endeavoured to limit the number of members, who should be allowed to have employments under the Crown. Several acts have been made to that purpose, which many wise men think are not yet effectual enough, and many of them are rendered ineffectual by leaving the power of re-election. Our House of Commons consists, I think, of about three hundred members; if one hundred of these should happen to be made up of persons already provided for, joined with expecters, compliers easy to be persuaded, such as will give a vote for a friend who is in hopes to get something; if they be merry companions, without suspicion, of a natural bashfulness, not apt or able to look forwards; if good words, smiles, and caresses, have any power over them, the larger part of a second hundred may be very easily brought in at a most reasonable rate.
There is an Englishman[186] of no long standing among us, but in an employment of great trust, power, and profit. This excellent person did lately publish, at his own expense, a pamphlet printed in England by authority, to justify the bill for a general excise or inland duty, in order to introduce that blessed scheme among us. What a tender care must such an English patriot for Ireland have of our interest, if he should condescend to sit in our Parliament! I will bridle my indignation. However, methinks I long to see that mortal, who would with pleasure blow us all up at a blast: but he duly receives his thousand pounds a year; makes his progresses like a king; is received in pomp at every town and village where he travels,[187] and shines in the English newspapers.
I will now apply what I have said to you, my brethren and fellow-citizens. Count upon it, as a truth next to your creed, that no one person in office, of which he is not master for life, whether born here or in England, will ever hazard that office for the good of this country. One of your candidates is of this kind, and I believe him to be an honest gentleman, as the word honest is generally understood. But he loves his employment better than he doth you, or his country, or all the countries upon earth. Will you contribute and give him city security to pay him the value of his employment, if it should be taken from him, during his life, for voting on all occasions with the honest country party in the House?—although I must question, whether he would do it even upon that condition.
Wherefore, since there are but two candidates, I entreat you will fix on the present Lord Mayor. He hath shewn more virtue, more activity, more skill, in one year's government of the city, than a hundred years can equal. He hath endeavoured, with great success, to banish frauds, corruptions, and all other abuses from amongst you.
A dozen such men in power would be able to reform a kingdom. He hath no employment under the Crown; nor is likely to get or solicit for any: his education having not turned him that way. I will assure for no man's future conduct; but he who hath hitherto practised the rules of virtue with so much difficulty in so great and busy a station, deserves your thanks, and the best return you can make him; and you, my brethren, have no other to give him, than that of representing you in Parliament. Tell me not of your engagements and promises to another: your promises were sins of inconsideration, at best; and you are bound to repent and annul them. That gentleman, although with good reputation, is already engaged on the other side. He hath four hundred pounds a year under the Crown, which he is too wise to part with, by sacrificing so good an establishment to the empty names of virtue, and love of his country. I can assure you, the Drapier is in the interest of the present Lord Mayor, whatever you may be told to the contrary. I have lately heard him declare so in public company, and offer some of these very reasons in defence of his opinion; although he hath a regard and esteem for the other gentleman, but would not hazard the good of the city and the kingdom for a compliment.
The Lord Mayor's severity to some unfair dealers, should not turn the honest men among them against him. Whatever he did, was for the advantage of those very traders, whose dishonest members he punished. He hath hitherto been above temptation to act wrong; and therefore, as mankind goes, he is the most likely to act right as a representative of your city, as he constantly did in the government of it.
Humbly offered to the Right Honourable the Lord
Mayor, the Court of
Aldermen, and Common-Council
of the Honourable City of Dublin,
The office of Recorder to this city being vacant by the death of a very worthy gentleman,[188] it is said, that five or six persons are soliciting to succeed him in the employment. I am a stranger to all their persons, and to most of their characters; which latter, I hope, will at this time be canvassed with more decency than it sometimes happeneth upon the like occasions. Therefore, as I am wholly impartial, I can with more freedom deliver my thoughts how the several persons and parties concerned ought to proceed in electing a Recorder for this great and ancient city.
And first, as it is a very natural, so I can by no means think it an unreasonable opinion, that the sons or near relations of Aldermen, and other deserving citizens, should be duly regarded as proper competitors for an employment in the city's disposal, provided they be equally qualified with other candidates; and provided that such employments require no more than common abilities, and common honesty. But in the choice of a Recorder, the case is entirely different. He ought to be a person of good abilities in his calling; of an unspotted character; an able practitioner; one who hath occasionally merited of this city before; he ought to be of some maturity in years; a member of Parliament, and likely to continue so; regular in his life; firm in his loyalty to the Hanover succession; indulgent to tender consciences; but, at the same time, a firm adherer to the established church. If he be such a one who hath already sat in Parliament, it ought to be inquired of what weight he was there; whether he voted on all occasions for the good of his country; and particularly for advancing the trade and freedom of this city; whether he be engaged in any faction, either national or religious; and, lastly, whether he be a man of courage, not to be drawn from his duty by the frown or menaces of power, nor capable to be corrupted by allurements or bribes.—These, and many other particulars, are of infinitely more consequence, than that single circumstance of being descended by a direct or collateral line from any Alderman, or distinguished citizen, dead or alive.
There is not a dealer or shopkeeper in this city, of any substance, whose thriving, less or more, may not depend upon the good or ill conduct of a Recorder. He is to watch every motion in Parliament that may the least affect the freedom, trade, or welfare of it.
In this approaching election, the commons, as they are a numerous body, so they seem to be most concerned in point of interest; and their interest ought to be most regarded, because it altogether dependeth upon the true interest of the city. They have no private views; and giving their votes, as I am informed, by balloting, they lie under no awe, or fear of disobliging competitors. It is therefore hoped that they will duly consider, which of the candidates is most likely to advance the trade of themselves and their brother-citizens; to defend their liberties, both in and out of Parliament, against all attempts of encroachment or oppression. And so God direct them in the choice of a Recorder, who may for many years supply that important office with skill, diligence, courage, and fidelity. And let all the people say, Amen.
LONDON,
Printed for T. Cooper at the Globe in Pater Noster Row.
MDCCXXXVII.
Price Six Pence.
The "badging" of beggars was a favourite scheme of Swift's for the better regulation of the many who infested the city of Dublin as tramps and idlers. While many of these were really deserving persons, there were a great many also who made the business of begging a profession. Eleven years before this tract was printed Swift wrote to Archbishop King on the same subject, as will be seen from the letter quoted in the note on pages 326-327.
The present text is based on the original edition of 1737 collated with that given by Sir Walter Scott.
It hath been a general complaint, that the poor-house, especially since the new Constitution by Act of Parliament, hath been of no benefit to this city, for the ease of which it was wholly intended. I had the honour to be a member of it many years before it was new modelled by the legislature, not from any personal regard, but merely as one of the two deans, who are of course put into most commissions that relate to the city; and I have likewise the honour to have been left out of several commissions upon the score of party, in which my predecessors, time out of mind, have always been members.
The first commission was made up of about fifty persons, which were the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Sheriffs, and some few other citizens; the Judges, the two Archbishops, the two Deans of the city, and one or two more gentlemen. And I must confess my opinion, that the dissolving the old commission, and establishing a new one of nearly three times the number, have been the great cause of rendering so good a design not only useless, but a grievance instead of a benefit to the city. In the present commission all the city clergy are included, besides a great number of 'squires, not only those who reside in Dublin, and the neighbourhood, but several who live at a great distance, and cannot possibly have the least concern for the advantage of the city.
At the few general meetings that I have attended since the new Establishment, I observed very little was done, except one or two Acts of extreme justice, which I then thought might as well have been spared: and I have found the Court of Assistants usually taken up in little brangles about coachmen, or adjusting accounts of meal and small beer; which, however necessary, might sometimes have given place to matters of much greater moment, I mean some schemes recommended to the General Board, for answering the chief ends in erecting and establishing such a poor-house, and endowing it with so considerable a revenue: and the principal end I take to have been that of maintaining the poor and orphans of the city, where the parishes are not able to do it; and clearing the streets from all strollers, foreigners, and sturdy beggars, with which, to the universal complaint and admiration, Dublin is more infested since the Establishment of the poor-house, than it was ever known to be since its first erection.
As the whole fund for supporting this hospital is raised only from the inhabitants of the city, so there can be hardly any thing more absurd, than to see it mis-employed in maintaining foreign beggars and bastards, or orphans, whose country landlords never contributed one shilling towards their support. I would engage, that half this revenue, if employed with common care, and no very great degree of common honesty, would maintain all the real objects of charity in this city, except a small number of original poor in every parish, who might, without being burthensome to the parishioners, find a tolerable support.
I have for some years past applied myself to several Lord Mayors, and to the late Archbishop of Dublin[189], for a remedy to this evil of foreign beggars; and they all appeared ready to receive a very plain proposal, I mean, that of badging the original poor of every parish, who begged in the streets;[190] that the said beggars should be confined to their own parishes; that, they should wear their badges well sewn upon one of their shoulders, always visible, on pain of being whipped and turned out of town; or whatever legal punishment may be thought proper and effectual. But, by the wrong way of thinking in some clergymen, and the indifference of others, this method was perpetually defeated, to their own continual disquiet, which they do not ill deserve; and if the grievance affected only them, it would be of less consequence, because the remedy is in their own power. But all street-walkers, and shopkeepers bear an equal share in this hourly vexation.
I never heard more than one objection against this expedient of badging the poor, and confining their walks to their several parishes. The objection was this: What shall we do with the foreign beggars? Must they be left to starve? I answered, No; but they must be driven or whipped out of town; and let the next country parish do as they please; or rather after the practice in England, send them from one parish to another, until they reach their own homes. By the old laws of England still in force, and I presume by those of Ireland, every parish is bound to maintain its own poor; and the matter is of no such consequence in this point as some would make it, whether a country parish be rich or poor. In the remoter and poorer parishes of the kingdom, all necessaries for life proper for poor people are comparatively cheaper; I mean butter-milk, oatmeal, potatoes, and other vegetables; and every farmer or cottager, who is not himself a beggar, can sometimes spare a sup or a morsel, not worth the fourth part of a farthing, to an indigent neighbour of his own parish, who is disabled from work. A beggar native of the parish is known to the 'squire, to the church minister, to the popish priest, or the conventicle teachers, as well as to every farmer: he hath generally some relations able to live, and contribute something to his maintenance. None of which advantages can be reasonably expected on a removal to places where he is altogether unknown. If he be not quite maimed, he and his trull, and litter of brats (if he hath any) may get half their support by doing some kind of work in their power, and thereby be less burthensome to the people. In short, all necessaries of life grow in the country, and not in cities, and are cheaper where they grow; nor is it equal, that beggars should put us to the charge of giving them victuals, and the carriage too.
But, when the spirit of wandering takes him, attended by his female, and their equipage of children, he becomes a nuisance to the whole country: he and his female are thieves, and teach the trade of stealing to their brood at four years old; and if his infirmities be counterfeit, it is dangerous for a single person unarmed to meet him on the road. He wanders from one county to another, but still with a view to this town, whither he arrives at last, and enjoys all the privileges of a Dublin beggar.
I do not wonder that the country 'squires should be very willing to send up their colonies; but why the city should be content to receive them, is beyond my imagination.
If the city were obliged by their charter to maintain a thousand beggars, they could do it cheaper by eighty per cent. a hundred miles off, than in this town, or any of its suburbs.
There is no village in Connaught, that in proportion shares so deeply in the daily increasing miseries of Ireland, as its capital city; to which miseries there hardly remained any addition, except the perpetual swarms of foreign beggars, who might be banished in a month without expense, and with very little trouble.
As I am personally acquainted with a great number of street beggars, I find some weak attempts to have been made in one or two parishes to promote the wearing of badges; and my first question to those who ask an alms, is, Where is your badge? I have in several years met with about a dozen who were ready to produce them, some out of their pockets, others from under their coat, and two or three on their shoulders, only covered with a sort of capes which they could lift up or let down upon occasion. They are too lazy to work, they are not afraid to steal, nor ashamed to beg; and yet are too proud to be seen with a badge, as many of them have confessed to me, and not a few in very injurious terms, particularly the females. They all look upon such an obligation as a high indignity done to their office. I appeal to all indifferent people, whether such wretches deserve to be relieved. As to myself, I must confess, this absurd insolence hath so affected me, that for several years past, I have not disposed of one single farthing to a street beggar, nor intend to do so, until I see a better regulation; and I have endeavoured to persuade all my brother-walkers to follow my example, which most of them assure me they do. For, if beggary be not able to beat out pride, it cannot deserve charity. However, as to persons in coaches and chairs, they bear but little of the persecution we suffer, and are willing to leave it entirely upon us.
To say the truth, there is not a more undeserving vicious race of human kind than the bulk of those who are reduced to beggary, even in this beggarly country. For, as a great part of our publick miseries is originally owing to our own faults (but, what those faults are I am grown by experience too wary to mention) so I am confident, that among the meaner people, nineteen in twenty of those who are reduced to a starving condition, did not become so by what lawyers call the work of God, either upon their bodies or goods; but merely from their own idleness, attended with all manner of vices, particularly drunkenness, thievery, and cheating.
Whoever enquires, as I have frequently done, from those who have asked me an alms; what was their former course of life, will find them to have been servants in good families, broken tradesmen, labourers, cottagers, and what they call decayed house-keepers; but (to use their own cant) reduced by losses and crosses, by which nothing can be understood but idleness and vice.
As this is the only Christian country where people contrary to the old maxim, are the poverty and not the riches of the nation, so, the blessing of increase and multiply is by us converted into a curse; and, as marriage hath been ever countenanced in all free countries, so we should be less miserable if it were discouraged in ours, as far as can be consistent with Christianity. It is seldom known in England, that the labourer, the lower mechanick, the servant, or the cottager thinks of marrying until he hath saved up a stock of money sufficient to carry on his business; nor takes a wife without a suitable portion; and as seldom fails of making a yearly addition to that stock, with a view of providing for his children. But, in this kingdom, the case is directly contrary, where many thousand couples are yearly married, whose whole united fortunes, bating the rags on their backs, would not be sufficient to purchase a pint of butter-milk for their wedding supper, nor have any prospect of supporting their honourable state, but by service, or labour, or thievery. Nay, their happiness is often deferred until they find credit to borrow, or cunning to steal a shilling to pay their Popish priest, or infamous couple-beggar. Surely no miraculous portion of wisdom would be required to find some kind of remedy against this destructive evil, or at least, not to draw the consequences of it upon our decaying city; the greatest part whereof must of course in a few years become desolate, or in ruins.
In all other nations, that are not absolutely barbarous, parents think themselves bound by the law of nature and reason to make some provision for their children; but the reasons offered by the inhabitants of Ireland for marrying is, that they may have children to maintain them when they grow old and unable to work.
I am informed that we have been for some time past extremely obliged to England for one very beneficial branch of commerce: for, it seems they are grown so gracious as to transmit us continually colonies of beggars, in return of a million of money they receive yearly from hence. That I may give no offence, I profess to mean real English beggars in the literal meaning of the word, as it is usually understood by protestants. It seems, the Justices of the Peace and parish officers in the western coasts of England, have a good while followed the trade of exporting hither their supernumerary beggars, in order to advance the English Protestant interest among us; and, these they are so kind to send over gratis, and duty free. I have had the honour more than once to attend large cargoes of them from Chester to Dublin: and I was then so ignorant as to give my opinion, that our city should receive them into bridewell, and after a month's residence, having been well whipped twice a day, fed with bran and water, and put to hard labour, they should be returned honestly back with thanks as cheap as they came: or, if that were not approved of, I proposed, that whereas one English man is allowed to be of equal intrinsic value with twelve born in Ireland, we should in justice return them a dozen for one, to dispose of as they pleased. But to return.
As to the native poor of this city, there would be little or no damage in confining them to their several parishes. For instance; a beggar of the parish of St. Warborough's,[191] or any other parish here, if he be an object of compassion, hath an equal chance to receive his proportion of alms from every charitable hand; because the inhabitants, one or other, walk through every street in town, and give their alms, without considering the place, wherever they think it may be well disposed of: and these helps, added to what they get in eatables by going from house to house among the gentry and citizens, will, without being very burthensome, be sufficient to keep them alive.
It is true, the poor of the suburb parishes will not have altogether the same advantage, because they are not equally in the road of business and passengers: but here it is to be considered, that the beggars there have not so good a title to publick charity, because most of them are strollers from the country, and compose a principal part of that great nuisance, which we ought to remove.
I should be apt to think, that few things can be more irksome to a city minister, than a number of beggars which do not belong to his district, whom he hath no obligation to take care of, who are no part of his flock, and who take the bread out of the mouths of those, to whom it properly belongs. When I mention this abuse to any minister of a city-parish, he usually lays the fault upon the beadles, who he says are bribed by the foreign beggars; and, as those beadles often keep ale-houses, they find their account in such customers. This evil might easily be remedied, if the parishes would make some small addition to the salaries of a beadle, and be more careful in the choice of those officers. But, I conceive there is one effectual method, in the power of every minister to put in practice; I mean, by making it the interest of all his own original poor, to drive out intruders: for, if the parish-beggars were absolutely forbidden by the minister and church-officers, to suffer strollers to come into the parish, upon pain of themselves not being permitted to beg alms at the church-doors, or at the houses and shops of the inhabitants; they would prevent interlopers more effectually than twenty beadles.
And, here I cannot but take notice of the great indiscretion in our city-shopkeepers, who suffer their doors to be daily besieged by crowds of beggars, (as the gates of a lord are by duns,) to the great disgust and vexation of many customers, whom I have frequently observed to go to other shops, rather than suffer such a persecution; which might easily be avoided, if no foreign beggars were allowed to infest them.
Wherefore, I do assert, that the shopkeepers, who are the greatest complainers of this grievance, lamenting that for every customer, they are worried by fifty beggars, do very well deserve what they suffer, when a 'prentice with a horse-whip is able to lash every beggar from the shop, who is not of the parish, and does not wear the badge of that parish on his shoulder, well fastened and fairly visible; and if this practice were universal in every house to all the sturdy vagrants, we should in a few weeks clear the town of all mendicants, except those who have a proper title to our charity: as for the aged and infirm, it would be sufficient to give them nothing, and then they must starve or follow their brethren.
It was the city that first endowed this hospital, and those who afterwards contributed, as they were such who generally inhabited here; so they intended what they gave to be for the use of the city's poor. The revenues which have since been raised by parliament, are wholly paid by the city, without the least charge upon any other part of the kingdom; and therefore nothing could more defeat the original design, than to misapply those revenues on strolling beggars, or bastards from the country, which bear no share in the charges we are at.
If some of the out-parishes be overburthened with poor, the reason must be, that the greatest part of those poor are strollers from the country, who nestle themselves where they can find the cheapest lodgings, and from thence infest every part of the town, out of which they ought to be whipped as a most insufferable nuisance, being nothing else but a profligate clan of thieves, drunkards, heathens, and whore-mongers, fitter to be rooted out of the face of the earth, than suffered to levy a vast annual tax upon the city, which shares too deep in the public miseries, brought on us by the oppressions we lye under from our neighbours, our brethren, our countrymen, our fellow protestants, and fellow subjects.
Some time ago I was appointed one of a committee to inquire into the state of the workhouse; where we found that a charity was bestowed by a great person for a certain time, which in its consequences operated very much to the detriment of the house: for, when the time was elapsed, all those who were supported by that charity, continued on the same foot with the rest of the foundation; and being generally a pack of profligate vagabond wretches from several parts of the kingdom, corrupted all the rest; so partial, or treacherous, or interested, or ignorant, or mistaken are generally all recommenders, not only to employments, but even to charity itself.
I know it is complained, that the difficulty of driving foreign beggars out of the city is charged upon the bellowers (as they are called) who find their accounts best in suffering those vagrants to follow their trade through every part of the town. But this abuse might easily be remedied, and very much to the advantage of the whole city, if better salaries were given to those who execute that office in the several parishes, and would make it their interest to clear the town of those caterpillars, rather than hazard the loss of an employment that would give them an honest livelyhood. But, if that would fail, yet a general resolution of never giving charity to a street beggar out of his own parish, or without a visible badge, would infallibly force all vagrants to depart.
There is generally a vagabond spirit in beggars, which ought to be discouraged and severely punished. It is owing to the same causes that drove them into poverty; I mean, idleness, drunkenness, and rash marriages without the least prospect of supporting a family by honest endeavours, which never came into their thoughts. It is observed, that hardly one beggar in twenty looks upon himself to be relieved by receiving bread or other food; and they have in this town been frequently seen to pour out of their pitcher good broth that hath been given them, into the kennel; neither do they much regard clothes, unless to sell them; for their rags are part of their tools with which they work: they want only ale, brandy, and other strong liquors, which cannot be had without money; and, money as they conceive, always abounds in the metropolis.
I had some other thoughts to offer upon this subject. But, as I am a desponder in my nature, and have tolerably well discovered the disposition of our people, who never will move a step towards easing themselves from any one single grievance; it will be thought, that I have already said too much, and to little or no purpose; which hath often been the fate, or fortune of the writer,