Shee layeth her Hand to the Spindle and her hands hold the distaffe Pro 31. 19. Depiction of woman at spindle SOME PROPOSALS For the imployment of the POOR AND For the prevention of Idleness and the Consequence thereof Begging A Practice so dishonourable to the Nation and to the Christian Religion In a Letter to a Friend by T. F. For even when we were with you this we commanded that if any would not work neither should they eat 2 Thes 3. 10. Let him that stole steal no more but rather let him labour working with his hands the thing that is good that he may have to give to him that needeth Eph. 4. 28. LONDON Printed by J. Grover and are to be sold by Francis Smith at the Elephant and Castle and Brab Aylmer at the Three Pigeons in Cornhill 1681. Some Proposals for the Employment of the Poor and for the Prevention of Idleness c. SIR IT is now above four years since I erected my Work-House in Little Britain for the Imployment of the Poor in the Linnen Manufacture which hath proved so great a Help and afforded such Relief to many Hundreds of poor Families that I never did nor I fear ever shall do an Action more to my own satisfaction nor to the good and benefit of the Poor In a former Letter that I wrote upon this occasion I gave you some account of the management of the said Work-house especially with relation to the Parish of Aldersgate which Letter being wholly out of Print and much desired by some persons I shall here insert the chief things conteined therein with what else hath come into my thoughts concerning that matter hoping that when the great benefit of such an Undertaking shall be made publick every good man will some way or other give incouragement to it there being nothing so necessary for the prevention of Poverty and the consequence thereof Begging as to provide some Imployment for our Poor People whereby to prevent Idleness the Mother and Nurse of all Mischief and one of those sins for which God destroyed Sodom with Fire and Brimstone from Heaven as the Holy Scripture informs us To the end therefore that Poverty together with that wicked Trade of Begging which so many thousands of late years have taken up to the dishonour of Almighty God and the great scandal of the Government of this Nation may be prevented I shall humbly propose a few things which being put in practice may with Gods Blessing prove effectual to the ends designed And the first is this That every Parish that abounds with Poor People would set up a School in the nature of a Work-house to teach their poor Children to work in who for want thereof now wander up and down the Parish and parts adjacent and between Begging and Stealing get a sorry liveing but never bring any thing to their poor Parents nor earn one Farthing towards their own maintenance or good of the Nation This in a short time would be found very advantagious not only to the poor Children themselves who by this means whilst young should be inured to labour and taught to get their own Livings but also to their Parents who should hereby both be freed from the Charge of keeping them and in time be helpt by their Labours as it is in other places and moreover the Parish should be freed from much Charge which many times they are at to keep such poor Children or at least which they are necessitated to allow their Parents towards it Nothing being accounted a better Argument for a large Pension than that a Man or Woman hath six or seven small Children whereas unless they were all born at a time or came faster into the World than ordinarily so many Children do it is very hard if some of them are not able to work for themselves I my self have at this time many poor Children not above five or six years old that can earn two pence a day and others but a little older three pence or four pence by spinning Flax which will go very far towards the maintenance of any poor Child Not that I would have these Schools confined only to Spinning but left at liberty to take in any other work that the Children shall be capable of as knitting of Stockings winding of Silk making of Lace or plain Work or the like For it matters not so much what you employ these poor Children in as that you do employ them in some thing to prevent an idle lazy kind of Life which if once they get the habit of they will hardly leave but on the contrary if you train up a Child in the way that he should go when he is old he will not depart from it And this is the way as I am informed that is practiced in Holland and other places with so great advantage that there is very few Children who have attained to seven or eight years of age that are any charge to their Parents or burthensome to the Parish And Mr. Chamberlain in his Book Intituled The Present State of England hath observed that in the City of Norwich it hath been computed of late years and found that yearly Children from six to ten years old have gained twelve thousand pounds a year more than they have spent chiefly by knitting fine Jersey Stockings This School would be of no great Charge but many ways advantagious to the Parish At this time I have a person who for five shillings a week doth constantly teach between twenty and thirty poor Children to spin Some that are little upon the single Wheel and others that are bigger upon the double or two handed Wheel like that which you have at the beginning of these Papers which I esteem the best way for spinning and full as proper for Wooll as Flax which when they are expert in I give the Children leave to carry away with them to their several places of abode that so there may be room for others and of these there are divers that can earn six pence a day and some more allowing them two hours in a day to learn to read in instead of that time which is allotted to the poorest of our Children to play in a custom that I verily believe hath been the ruin of many thousand poor Children and hath nothing in the World to justifie it but an old Proverb which yet we have not fully observed For instead of giving them all work and no play the generality of our poor Children have all play and no work which is a thousand times more mischievous than the other Not that I would have all manner of Recreation and Divertisement prohibited to Children nor will it be hard to find some others besides playing at push-pin or hide-Farthing neither of which nor twenty others now in use are any ways conducing to the health of their Bodies or to the improvement of their minds but are only fit to teach them lying and wrangling with twenty cheating Tricks which
40. s. worth of Goods which they must fetch away in such a time which being never so little elapsed the Goods are no more to be heard of Neither are many of our Tally-men much better who trust poor Persons with twenty shillings worth of Goods or rather with twelve or fourteen shillings worth instead of twenty to pay them by 6 d. or 12 d. a week wherein if they fail to pay they hurry them into a Prison with great Charge for Arrests and Proceedings at Law which many times exceed the first Debt which we hope will be in a great measure prevented by setting up a Court of Conscience in the City of Westminster and Borough of Southwark as it is at present in the City of London at which Prison they are sure to lie till Charity comes thither for the Release of poor Prisoners which they very well know will come at ceatain times of the Year and then if you meet with a kind Jaylor or a Creditor of any Compassion 't is like you may get out your Prisoner with some small Abatement otherwise not so that in effect most of those Moneys that are carried to Prisons run either into the Bailiffs or the Jaylors or into the Pawn-brokers or Tally-mens Pockets This I instance not to hinder people from delivering persons out of Prison I wish there were many more so well minded but to provoke them to do all they can to keep them from coming thither It being twice as great an Act of Charity and much more for the benefit of any person to keep him from falling and breaking his Head than to take him up and give him a Plaister So to keep a poor man from going to Prison is much greater Charity than to help him out and I heartily wish that this sort of Charity were more in practice both here and in other Countreys where they tell you of prodigious Numbers that are every Year brought to their Hospitals and Charitable Houses when it is much to be feared little Care is taken to prevent that Poverty Misery and Necessity that falls upon them but is rather occasioned from the badness of some Laws or from the want of good ones Methinks it were greatly to be wished that care were taken to provide work for all our poor Debtors and Felons that being cast into Prison could not there keep themselves without the Charity of such places Nay for our Felons I see no reason but they should be made to labour though they could otherwise provide for themselves This would be a good means to prevent much of that Wickedness which is practiced in those places It seems to me very unreasonable that Prisons should be places of pleasure delight and choice yet some such there are into which several persons of good Estates but very bad Consciences remove themselves on purpose to cheat their Creditors and to spend their own and other mens Moneys in Sloth and Luxury whilst their poor Creditors are fain to fare hardly and many times to live in Sorrow and Want As these therefore should be wholly supprest on the one hand so also those little Prisons about the Town which in some respects I may call little because the Houses are not big by reason of which 20 or 30 shall be cast into one room and that none of the bigest and also because the Actions are not great for which persons are sent thither tho' it may be some of them have more Commitments and Discharges in a Year than Newgate it self Into some of these Prisons I have known several persons cast for a debt often Groats and sometimes for less where if the person continue but a Night his Fees shall be 13 s. 6 d. to the Keeper and his company besides 1 s. 6 d. Garnish-money 3 s. for the Writ and 5 s. for the Arrest with some other Charges It it is not very long since I had one of these Jaylors before the Judges for taking unlawful Fees and other Exorbitant Practices but before any thing was determined in the Matter the person made a Rope and hanged himself It is a most lamentable thing that these little Prisons are not supprest or at least regulated and a Table of Fees set up both in them and all the Prisons of England that so all the poor people may know what they have to pay and not be left to the mercy of a cruel Jaylor who rather than he will abate any thing of his Demands will keep a poor Wretch in Prison till he is almost starved there and his Wife and Children quite starved at home I do not lay this Charge against them all some I have known to be more compassionate yet such I have known also that upon the least Displeasure taken against a poor Prisoner have threatned to make Dice of his Bones before he would abate him a penny and no doubt he would have been as good as his word 'T is in these places that they eat up the poor of the Land as a man would eat Bread neither are the Jaylers themselves sometimes more cruel than the poor people are one unto another insomuch that I have greatly wondred to see how violently they will prosecute one another it being most certainly true which Solomon hath observed That when the Poor oppresseth the Poor it is like a sweeping Rain that leaveth nothing behind it much of which Cruelty also would be prevented by setting up a Court of Conscience in the out-parts of this City as it is already in London to which all persons should apply themselves for any Debt under 40 s. with very little Charge to themselves by reason of which the Creditor would be much more like to get his Debt and the Debtor better able to pay him than when five times the value of the Debt shall be run out in Charges of a Suit as many times I have known it to the utter ruine of the Debtor and loss of the Creditor's Money And as for those Night-walkers and other idle and vitious persons that are sent to Bridewel and other Houses of Correction it would be of great use that there were some Law to confine them to such places for a certain time according to the nature of their Offences where they might be taught to work and made able to get their own Livings both while they were there and when they came out as it is in Holland and other places whereas for want of such a Law these kind of people are no sooner put into prison but they are bailed out again and if they do receive the Correction of the house before they are discharged it signifies very little neither can it reasonably be thought but that they will follow their old Trade again for want of a better whereas 't is very probable if they were taught a more honest way to get a Living they might leave off that wicked course of Life which they had followed and betake themselves to that Employment they had learnt
some such honest and faithful Persons may be found as would not wrong the Parish nor imbezzle one farthing of their Stock but account it their Honour to be employed in so noble and generous a Work which would not only make a better Provision for the Poor but make them better also A.B. in C.D. When the Yarn comes in I lay every sort by it self that is spun to a Fineness and when I deliver any of it to the Weaver I enter to his account the Quantity and Quality as for Instance to A. B. in C. D. so many pound of Yarn which cost such a price and when the Weaver brings home his Cloth I weigh it again by means of which I can certainly tell you at the making up of the Account whether all my Flax and Hemp be brought home by the Spinner and all my Yarn by the Weaver as also what my Cloth stands me in By which I do prevent being deceived by others and deceiving my self When I first began to employ the Poor in Spinning the best direction that I could receive was to pay for spinning the same price that the Flax and Hemp stood me in or what those sorts were generally sold for but this I soon found to be a very unequal way Forasmuch as some People would spin a much finer Thread than others and better deserve 8 d. for spinning a pound of Flax that cost but six pence than another four pence so that after a little time I brought all the poor people to spin six hundred Yards for a penny were the Thread finer or courser which was three Knots or Lays about a half yard Reel with one hundred Threads in a Lay which makes just six hundred yards and since then with much ado finding the Loss to be great I have brought them to fifty Yards more which yet is much less than is spun in other places In the Contract which the City of Bristol made with one Mr. King and others for the Employment of five hundred of their poor People in the way of Spinning For the first Year he was obliged to pay them two pence half penny for sixteen hundred Yards of Yarn which is much about the price that I pay the poor People here because they being either wholly to learn or much to seek might not be discouraged but after the first Year by this Contract he might alter the Price provided he never brought them to spin above eight hundred Yards for a penny and I doubt not if our poor People could be brought to spin so much here there would be no Loss by the Liunen we make but rather Profit but the Mischief of it is our Poor People have not been brought up either to work hard or to fare hardly and the Trade of Begging being known to be so easie and gainful they will much rather range about forty or fifty Parishes in a day and get a penny in each Parish than work hard in one to get six pence or eight pence which they must do in this Employment So that till the Magistrate will do his Duty and see the Laws put in Execution agaiust Beggars or the People grow so wise as not to encourage this wicked Course of Life I have little hope to see this matter much amended Having given you an account of the price I pay for spinning I shall now tell you what I pay for Flax and Hemp though this is sometimes more or less as the Markets rise or fall as also what I pay for dressing them and for weaving the Cloth I make because I would give the greatest Encouragment I could to the setting up this Manufacture for the Employment of our poor People till some other or better way should be found out For Riga Hemp at this time I pay twenty shillings a hundred which is very low for Quinborough about twenty two which is cheap for Muscovia Flax about forty four a hundred for Quinborough about forty shillings a hundred for Holladay about thirty six for Pater-noster Flax about thirty All which Prizes are very high to what they are at some times for English Flax about five pence half penny a pound undrest which Prizes I rather insert to give Buyers a little Aim than for a standing Rule For beating of Hemp I pay four Shillings and eight pence a hundred Weight For dressing Hemp long or short eleven pence a dozen pound for dressing Flax I give three pence a Stone accounting eight pound to the Stone For Weaving Cloth I pay the several Prices following for Yarn spun to six pence and seven pence a pound for every Ell of Cloth half-ell wide two pence half penny for that which is three quarters wide three pence for that which is three quarters and half wide three pence half penny for that which is Yard wide four pence for that which is Ell wide five pence For Yarn spun to nine pence and ten pence a pound I pay one half penny more for every half quarter of an Ell rising as before in that of seven pence and eight pence and the like in that which is still finer for course Cloth Yard half quarter wide I pay three pence an Ell and for Sacking about three pence a Yard Which prices I have here inserted as I said before rather to give some Aim than to be a standing Rule yet this I am sure no one need to exceed them but in some places they may be abated according to the Cheapness of Living over what it is in this City It is a thing greatly to be wished that we could make Linnen Cloth here as cheap as they send it us from abroad but if that cannot be done nor any other way found out to employ our poor People we had much better lose something by the Labour of our poor than loose all their Labour and keep them into the Bargain which must be done one way or other for the Back and Belly have no Ears Hunger will break through stone Walls and if some People cannot honestly they will any way supply their Wants though they are hanged for their Pains But Thanks be to God there are still amongst us an honest sort of poor people that are content to take any pains for a Living rather than beg or steal and for their Sakes chiefly I have set up this Employment and do heartily wish it were better for their sakes they being indeed the truest Objects of Charity that will do what they can to get a Living and 't is great Pity that such poor Souls should not be helped If by what they are able to do they cannot procure to themselves Necessaries of this sort You very seldom see any begging about the Streets except upon some extraordinary Occasion or Accident and then 't is done with great Modesty and as much against their Natures as any thing in the World but starving But as for those common Beggers and especially those profligate Wretches called the running Camp which every day pester
some of which would otherwise be begging in the Streets but made much more happy and chearful being by their own Labours able to make Provision for themselves And were the Rich of this Parish fewer than they be and the Poor many more than they are the same course might be taken and would prove effectual to the Ends before exprest And by how much greater the number of the poor People are by so much the more need to find them Employment it being much more easie to provide them Work than to keep them in Idleness and much more for their advantage to be put into a way to get their own Bread than to give it them for nothing If with their Pension you find them Employment 't is like that 6 d. will go further and do them more good than 3 s. nothing being more mischievous to the Poor than to live in Sloth and Idleness as hath been said But further to encourage the setting up of Schools in every greeat Parish for the Instruction of young Children and bringing them to labour and also for providing Work for such as are of Age which they may carry to their own Habitations I have a few things more to say First By means hereof you will prevent much of that mischief that happens to young Children by suffering them to wander up and down without any Care or Government by reason of which they do not only get a lazy idle Habit which yet is no small Evil but learn all manner of Wickedness that they are capable of as Lying Swearing Thieving and such like which by sad experience we find many times they retain as long as they live being bred in the Bone will hardly be got out of the Flesh it being almost as possible to wash the Blackamore white as it is to teach them to do well that have been long accustomed to do evil Whereas if due Care were taken to instruct young Children and to put them into a good Course of Life before Evil had taken hold of them both Labour and Vertue would be much more pleasing to them than Idleness Sloth and Vice Then by providing Work for such of your poor People as are able and may want it By this means you shall in the first place most certainly make Provision for all the honest and industrious Poor in your Parish who will with great Joy and Thankfulness be employed in any honest way to get a penny Idleness being to them the greatest Burthen in the World insomuch that several persons have told me they have taken as much pleasure in earning a penny as they have in useing it their minds being all that time quiet in which they have been employed and the day seem'd shorter and passed away much more pleasantly than otherwise it would have done no part of it being a Burthen to them and had you seen as I have done many a time with what Joy and Satisfaction many poor people have brought home their Work and received their Money for it you would think no Charity in the World like to this of finding them Employment Do not think that all the poor people in England are like those idle Vagrants you find up and down the streets no there are many thousands whose Necessities are very great and yet they do what they can by their honest Labour to help themselves and many times they would do more than they do but for want of Employment several that I have now working to me do spin some fourteen and some sixteen hours in four and twenty and had much rather do it than be idle Here if it were to the purpose I could tell you many sad stories of the great wants and necessities of several poor people that I have been an Eye-witness of that would melt the most rocky heart into Compassion the poorest people are many times those that come least in sight who fare hard and work hard to get bread Some Trades are grown so bad and several Commodities fal'n so low in their price that some who could with ease have earned 2 s. or 2. s. 6. d. in a day can now hardly earn 12 d. by reason of which you have men run away from their Wives and Children leaving them to the Parish and sometimes run distracted or make away with themselves Instances of all which cases I have known too many To whom should Charity be extended rather than to such poor people who are willing to take any pains for their Living and yet are wholly idle many times for want of work but by this means of providing work for all persons that want Employment it will be much more easie for the honest and laborious poor to find Relief Secondly By this means you will leave all idle persons so much without Excuse that they will not deserve your pity whatsoever their Wants and Necessities are they must thank themselves who will not make use of such a means as is put into their own Power for if this Course was taken in all Parishes to imploy all that were able and did want work then when you saw a lusty person begging in the streets you might say go to your Parish and work for your Living but unless this be done and you are sure that this person may have Employment to bid him go work for his Living is no better than to say to a Brother or Sister that is naked and destitute of daily Food go be warmed and filled but give them not those things that are needful for the Body I pray God lay it not to the Charge of this City and Suburbs that so little Care hath been taken in this respect for this is one of those things to which it is chiefly owing that our prisons are so full of Fellons and Debtors of which it is thought no Age hath produced the like for tho I know one man that within a few years last past with the Charity of some worthy persons hath delivered many hundred poor people out of Prison that lay there either for their Fees or very small Debts and I have reason to believe that many more hath been delivered by others yet let any one but go to the Marshalsey or the prison of White Chappel or to the two Compters of London and he shall find them very full of Prisoners at this time It was hoped that the City of London would have provided a Stock and appointed a place to which poor persons might have brought their Pawns and have been supplyed with Money upon any Extremity which would have been no loss to the City and much to the Advantage of the poor who now are fain to go to such Brokers as will not lend twenty Shillings a Week under six pence which comes to 26 s. a year by which Trade they make above two of one in a years time to the Ruine of many poor people neither is this the worst of it but for every 20 Shillings they borrow they must leave many times above
to encrease it Forasmuch as any Person that wears Silk or Hair that is brought from beyond Sea in Exchange for our Woollen Cloth may be truly said to wear twice as much as he that has nothing but Woollen upon his Back I desire also that it may be considered that although it matters not how great a price is paid for what is worn of the Wollen Manufacture among our selves yet if we shall not be able to send it abroad at a reasonable price we shall put other Countreys upon seeking out other Commodities that will be cheaper which may prove very mischievous There is no great danger that ever our making of Linnen Cloth should do the Woollen much harm unless we could make it cheaper than we have it from other places and then if we furnished them with Linnen to as good advantage as Woollen the matter would be much the same But lastly I am not fond of one Employment for our Poor more than for another let but our idle People be employed and the Trade of Begging supprest and I shall have attained my End for this I am sure is a far greater Evil to the Nation and every way more mischievous than the setting them to make Linnen-Cloth or any other thing would be Nay I am very confident I conceive upon good grounds that it were much better for the Nation to employ the poor to pick Straws if there were no better Employment for them than to let them live in Sloth and Idleness because what they got by their Labours would go much farther than so much given them for doing nothing all the idle person hath to do is to spend what you give him which he will quickly do when that is all his Business but he that is employed hath something else to mind neither will his Wants be so many as the others nor himself in half so much danger as the idle Person whose Head is the Devils Anvil where he forges all his Instruments of Death and by being altogether at Leisure may even be said to tempt the Devil himself to fall upon him being ready for want of other or better Business to do any thing which either the Devil or his own wicked heart can suggest to him or set him upon But there is one Objection more which I have lately met with which I cannot well pass over and that is this Obj. Though it cannot be denied but that in the general the Employment of the Poor is a very good Work yet it may not be convenient to set up any Manufacture in this City for the doing of it least by this means you drain the Countreys of all their poor People and in time so fill the City and Suburbs with them that all the Manufactures in England shall not be enough to employ them and also because by Experience it is found that all those Places where there is any Manufacture set up are much fuller of poor people than any other And lastly because it is not convenient that the making and Consumption of any Commodity should be in one and the same place To which I answer first that if the Employment of the Poor be good in any place it is so here both because they are more in number in this City and Suburbs than in any other Places and because if they are here suffered to be idle they will have more Temptations and Opportunities to do mischief than they will have any where else As to what is objected that by the setting up of any Manufacture here for the Employment of the Poor you will drein the Countreys of all their poor People and at last so fill the City and Suburbs with them that all the Manufactures of England shall not be enough to supply them I answer first that there will need no more work to employ them in the City than in the Country so that if all the Manufactures in England will not employ them here neither will they do it in the Country But Secondly I desire it may be considered that where there is one person comes to this City to find Work there is two comes to beg or to do worse so that if due care were taken to employ all persons that were idle and the Laws put in Execution against Beggars a great many persons would soon leave the City and return to their own Countries where they might have near as much Money for their work or at least more meat for their Money and till this easie and gainful though wicked Trade of Begging shall be supprest I do not expect to see fewer but more Beggars every day It is well known that of late years many persons have come from the farthest parts of this Nation to set up this Trade here and if speedy Care be not taken to prevent it this City and Suburbs will drain all the poor people of England unto them Begging being here a better Trade than any where else and greater Encouragement given to it As to that part of the Objection which saith that those Towns where there is any Manufacture set up are fuller of poor People than any other places the Answer is easie First Because those places have abundantly more People in them than any other all Manufactures being carried on chiefly by the Poor and not only by the Rich so necessary are the Poor to the carrying on of any Manufacture that the one would cease without the other But let it also be considered that as in these Places there are the poorest so also here are the richest and as there are in these places more poor People than in others so also there are more rich People than in those places where there is no Manufacture the Trade of such places being very little Let any one compare the Trade of Colchester with the Trade of Ipswich and he shall find that where the Town of Ipswich gets one penny the Town of Colchester gets twelve pence and for every twelve pence returned in Ipswich there is near twenty shillings returned in Colchester Let the Poor of any place be never so many provided they work and do not eat the Bread of Idleness the place will be the richer for them and the Trade far the better For these People must eat and drink and wear Clothes as well tho' not so good as those that are richer and by these the Trade will be much increased and the Inhabitants made much richer than otherwise they would be A multitude of poor People well employed would be like a multitude of Bees in a Hive which would much sooner fill it with Honey than if they were fewer I would gladly know how our poor People shall be provided for if Begging must not be allowed nor Working encouraged for fear of bringing more poor People among us Put the case this were an Evil which yet I cannot allow must we not do good to our own Poor for fear it should bring the Poor of other places among us For my part
to follow the Advice of our blessed Lord and Saviour who saith Luke 14. 13. When thou makest a Feast call the Poor the Maimed the Lame and the Blind for they cannot recompence thee but thou shalt be recompenced at the Resurrection of the Just And this course of giving a Badg to your own Poor Neighbours by which they might be known and resolving to relieve no others unless there were not enough of these in which case some from other Parishes might be allowed to come in like manner tho at first sight it may seem to have little in it yet if duely practiced would be found of very great moment and productive of many goods effects insomuch that it is impossible it should fail unless the Parish fail in their promise For first of all by this means you will in a short time clear your Parish of all those idle Beggars that daily infest it to the great trouble of all House-keepers whose doors are seldom quiet from one or other of them to the great Disturbance of the whole Family it being in some places almost one bodies work to give them answers Then this will tend to the quiet of all Passengers that shall have occasion to go through your Parish who are wont to be haunted with those evil Spirits from one end of the street to the other and if by accident they meet with any one by the way with whom they have occasion to speak and shall make the least halt they must in their own defence give them something to be gone or else they will hear all they say or by their begging hinder them from saying any thing this is a thing so well known to all that live in or frequent the City that I need not say more concerning it Now by means of a Badge the Parish will know whom they relieve and when it shall come to be known that they have resolved to relieve at their doers no other but their own poor Neighbours as it will in a short time the common Beggars will know better how to employ their time than in visiting such places where nothing is to be got And while this Parish of Aldersgate took the course prescribed them I my self have taken a Friend and gone through the chief places of this Parish and have not found one Beggar in it I must confess of late they have been something remiss in the Prosecution of the Methods agreed upon but I doubt not they will fall upon it again For I hear instead of Badges made of Bays they have made some of Brass and resolve to give the poor aged and impotent People new-coats all made of gray Cloth to put them upon that so the Parish may the better know their own poor People that are appointed to take such Relief as they have to give at their doors and then I am sure what I now tell you was done will be done again Obj. But here it will be objected That some Parishes are so full of poor People who are not able to work that they are not able to relieve one quarter of them in this kind Answ To which I answer That there are several Parishes and some Wards within the City of London which have very few or no poor People in them wherefore I humbly propose that by the Allowance of the Lord Mayor c. it may be permitted to those poor Parishes to send daily some of their poorest People for Relief As for Example Suppose the Parish of Algate which is very full of poor people should be permitted to send such a number of them into the Ward of Langbourn with a Badge of the Parish by which they might be known at such an hour of the day to receive what Bread and Meat they had to give and this Ward desired by the Alderman Deputy or Common-counsel-man of every Precinct to give their broken Victuals only to these persons this in a short time would have the like Effect in this Ward as it had in the parish aforesaid yet least it should be found troublesome to the Ward that these poor people should be ranging about it from one end to another it might with ease be ordered that every Precinct should have such a number allotted according to it's Bigness or Smallness to receive their Fragments by which means the Ward should be more quiet and the Streets rid of those multitude of Beggars which are every day found in them to the great trouble of the People and the Dishonour of the Government as hath been said And till some such Course as this was taken I would advise every Family that have broken Bread and Meat to bestow that they would not throw it away upon those common Beggars that come to their doors every day who many times are too fine mouthed to eat any of it themselves unless a choice Bit now and then and either throw away the rest or sell it unto others but rather to invite two or three poor Families to come for ir at such times as you should apppint which would be a great Comfort to them This is the way which I have taken for many years last past so that now my door is seldom troubled by common Beggars on this account From what hath been said I suppose it will appear very practicable to bring all the Parishes in England into such a Method that no poor Body should want Work or be permitted to beg otherwise than by the allowance of the Parish which yet I would not have called by this Term For what hath been done in one Parish may be done in every one if the Circumstances are the same But 't is like some will still object and say that this of Aldersgate Parish is a rich Parish and the Poor very few in it to what there are in others so that what is related may with greater ease be effected here than where the Poor are more numerous Ans To this I say it is very true there are several Rich Men in this Parish and the Poor of this Parish tho' many are not yet so many as in some others yet even here there are many poor People and their Children that do spin Flax and Hemp tho' they are not all Pensioners to the Parish nor I hope ever will be it being my design to prevent that as much as I can But over and besides those of this Parish there are above 1500 more out of other Parishes in and about the City of London some of which do constantly follow this Employment and others only when they have no better As suppose a poor Woman that goeth three days in a week to wash or Scour abroad or one that is imploy'd in Nurse-keeping three or four months in a year or a poor Market-woman that attends three or four Mornings in a Week with her Basket and all the rest of the time these folks have little or nothing else to do but by means of this Spinning are not only kept within doors