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Facts, in the natural order, precede reasonings; and reasonings on practical subjects, lead to practical conclusions. The leading divisions of this Essay, therefore, will contain,

I. An Historical View of Indigence in
Civil Society

II. Theory of Indigence

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III. Practical Observations and Sugges

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THE PRINCIPLE

OF

THE ENGLISH POOR LAWS

ILLUSTRATed and defended.

PART I.

HISTORICAL VIEW OF INDIGENCE IN CIVIL SOCIETY.

THE great distinction subsisting between freemen and slaves at Athens, and Sparta, and Rome, in common with other states of antiquity, prevented the existence of a class of indigent persons analogous to that designated in this country by the name of the Poor. It should appear that the most indigent class in every society has always consisted of those, whose labour is exerted in the cultivation of the soil; but in those times the cultivators of the soil were slaves.

The tendency of the principle of population, after land had been divided, and property established, to introduce inequality of condition, and indigence consequent from it, had been perceived by the earliest legislators. To prevent this, their efforts were directed to continue a minute division of land; and to effect this purpose, the most ab

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surd and arbitrary laws were devised. But this Agrarian system, although the demagogues of all ages and all countries have had recourse to it to flatter their tyrant-the mob, has a tendency to impede the real march of civilization. The first necessary consequence of inequality of property, was a state of slavery; for those who had no means of support but their natural strength, were, in cases of want, compelled to barter their liberty for subsistence. The offspring followed the condition of their parents; and, as they received only a bare subsistence, so long as their health rendered them capable of labour they were a valuable property, and transferable as such; and although the Jewish law, the earliest which we have any knowledge of, modified by some milder regulations the hardships of their condition, yet it expressly recognized a state of slavery. But in the states above alluded to, no similar provisions for alleviation existed until very late: the care of preserving life after the period of labour was expired, was not the object of the state in a legislative view, and therefore slaves were left to the care and humanity of their masters. Although the feelings of humanity could never be extinguished, there is no reason to believe, that, with respect to this unfortunate race of beings, they were ever very finely exercised. Even in Athens, the life of a slave was never consi

dered as of much value: the detestable practice, in Sparta, of assassinating the Helots, is matter of history; and the unfeelingness of those who, in Rome, were otherwise regarded as virtuous men, is not reprobated, with the indignation which it would excite in a moralist of this day, by Plutarch, when speaking of the elder Cato, who sold his slaves when they became infirm or useless.

But in all these states the freemen, who were reduced to indigence by misfortune, or even by improvidence, were entitled, as of right, to relief from the state. It could not indeed be otherwise. In Athens and in Rome the collective body of freemen, however poor and worthless, were the sovereigns (the word as applied in Athens was "tyrants") of the state; in Sparta, the aristocratic government set a comparatively high value on each individual citizen, and the community of goods established by their legislator probably prevented him from ever being reduced to actual indigence. But in Athens, those who suffered from mutilation of the limbs and from sickness, and who were not possessed of three minæ, were paid daily a certain sum out of the public revenues *; and in Rome, the distribution of corn, which was begun upon the principle of always equalizing the price to the free consumer, and de

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*The words of Meursius, (Attic. Lect. l. 6. c. 5.) are, Qui membris mutili atque invalidi infra tres minas possiderent; ii

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