While it operated beneficially to the lower classes of the people and to the State, it would relieve Parochial Officers of a very irksome and laborious task, perhaps the most disagreeable that is attached to the office of an Overseer in the Metropolis. To give this branch of Police vigor and effect, the aid of the Legislature would be necessary; which would be easily obtained when the measure itself was once thoroughly understood, and it could not then fail to be as popular as it would unquestionably be useful. They who from their habits of life have few opportunities of considering the state of the Poor, are apt to form very erroneous opinions on the subject. By _the Poor_ we are not to understand the whole mass of the people who support themselves by labour; for those whose necessity compels them to exercise their industry, become by their poverty the actual pillars of the State. Labour is absolutely requisite to the existence of all Governments; and as it is from the Poor only that labour can be expected, so far from being an evil they become, under proper regulations, an advantage to every Country, and highly deserve the fostering care of every Government. It is not _Poverty_ therefore, that is in itself an evil, while health, strength, and inclination, afford the means of subsistence, and while work is to be had by all who seek it.--The evil is to be found only in _Indigence_, where the strength fails, where disease, age, or infancy, deprives the individual of the means of subsistence, or where he knows not how to find employment when willing and able to work. In this view _the Poor_ may be divided into five Classes:-- _The first Class_ comprehends what may be denominated _the useful Poor_, who are able and willing to work--who have already been represented as the pillars of the State, and who merit the utmost attention of all Governments, with a direct and immediate view of preventing their _poverty_ from descending unnecessarily into _indigence_. As often as this evil is permitted to happen, the State not only loses an useful subject, but the expence of his maintenance must be borne by the Public.--The great art, therefore, in managing the affairs of the Poor, is to establish Systems whereby the poor man, verging upon indigence, may be propped up and kept in his station. Whenever this can be effected, it is done upon an average at one-tenth of the expence at most that must be incurred by permitting a family to retrograde into a state of indigence, where they must be wholly maintained by the Public, and where their own exertions cease in a great measure to be useful to the Country.