ON THE POOR; THEIR RIGHTS, DUTIES, AND THE LAWS RESPECTING THEM. IN LETTER XXÍV. N 1767, the Farmer's Letters' to the People of England appeared, which, among a variety of topicks, treated with much spirit and strength of argument, afford a few strictures on the poor and the laws respecting them; the prevailing ideas fhall be shortly mentioned, although the propriety and juftness of them cannot be fully admitted. The author confiders the poor laws of England as univerfally encouragers of idleness, VOL. II. B drunkennefs, drunkenness, and tea drinking; he wishes for a total abolition of them, and for a new code, on the principle, that those only should be maintained at the public expence who cannot maintain themselves; and that fuch maintenance fhould be in hundred houses of induftry. Is it not the principle of the existing code, that those only who cannot maintain themfelves, should be maintained at the public expence? And if the parishes agree in thinking them adviseable, may not hundred houses of industry be now the means? Why then abolish the old laws to make new ones on the fame principle? Would a man of fenfe pull down a family manfion, in good repair, to build a new one on the fame principle? Surely not. A prevailing idea, in this publication, seems to be, that the poor fhould have no certainty of provifion, except from their own industry; --but is not fuch the theoretic principle of the exifting poor laws, as far as is consistent with humanity? If practice has departed from the principle, blame the execution of the laws, and not the principle. Dr. Dr. Price's Obfervations on Réverfionary Payments, Annuities, &c. were published in 1772; the principle of fome of those useful focieties, called box-clubs, originated from a plan intended for the benefit of the labouring poor in this very excellent publication; the following is the calculation alluded to. "Let the fociety, at its firft institution, confist of a hundred persons, all between the age of thirty and forty, whose mean age maý, therefore, be reckoned at thirty-fix, and let it be supposed to be always kept up to this number, by the admiffion of new members; between the ages of thirty and forty, as old ones die off; let the contribution of each member be 4d. a week, making from the whole body, an annual contribution of 8 51. 175. Let it be fuppofed, that feven of them will fall every year into disorders that shall incapaciate them for seven weeks, 30l. 128. of the annual contribution will be juft fufficient to enable the fociety to grant to each of them 12s. a week during their illness, and the remaining 551. per annum laid out and carefully improved, at the rate of three and half per cent. will increase to a capital that shall be suffi.cient, B 2 cient, according to the chances of life in the tables, three, four, five, to enable the fociety to pay to every member, after attaining to fixty-seven years of age, or upon his entering into his fixty-eighth year, an annuity, beginning with 51. and increasing, at the rate of 11. every year, for feven years, until at the age of seventy-five, it will be a standing annuity of 121. for the remainder of life. Were such a fociety to make its contribution 7d. a week, an allowance of 153. might be made, on the fame fuppofition, to every member during fickness, befides the payment of an annuity, beginning with 51. when a member entered his fixty-fourth year, and increafing for fifteen years, until at feventy-nine, it became fixed for the remainder of his life at 201." If fociety has a right to expect from its constituent parts every exertion in their power to maintain themselves, before any individual has a claim for any part of their maintenance on fociety, in the aggregate; a univerfal plan, obliging those members who have nothing to fubfift on but their labour, to lay up a small part of its produce, while in health, against the day of fickness and want, would be no unjust |