Such, doubtless, is the fatal conduct of those who are induced by
mistaken compassion to lavish their alms upon Beggars, and
obstruct the relief of the really indigent.--Alms that frustrate
a good and useful institution cannot be meritorious, or
acceptable to God: and no maxim is less founded in truth, than
that the merit of the giver is undiminished by the unworthiness
of the object.-- The truly distressed are too bashful to mix with
the herd of common Beggars; necessity, it is true, will sometimes
conquer their timidity, and compel them publicity to solicit
charity; but their modest appeal is unheard or unnoticed, whilst
a dissolute vagabond, who exhibits an hypocritical picture of
distress,--a drunken wretch, who pretends to have a numerous
family and to be persecuted by misfortune,--or an impudent
unfeeling women, who excites pity by the tears and cries of a
poor child whom she has hired perhaps for the purpose, and
tortured into suffering, steps daringly forward to intercept the
alms of the charitable; and the well-intentioned gift which
should relieve the indigent is the prize of impudence and
imposition, and the support of vice and idleness.--What then
is left for the modest object of real distress, but to retire
dispirited and hide himself in the obscurity of his cottage,
there to languish in misery, whilst the bolder Beggar consumes
the ill-bestowed gift in mirth and riot? And, yet, the charitable
donor flatters himself that he has performed an exemplary duty!
We earnestly entreat every citizen and inhabitant of this
capital, each in his respective station, no longer to countenance
mendicity by such a misapplication of their well-meant charity;
contributing thus to augment the fatal consequences of the evil
itself, as well as to impede the relief of the real necessitous.
We are firmly persuaded, that by pointing out to our
fellow-citizens a method by which they may exercise their
benevolence towards the indigent and distressed in a meritorious
manner, we shall gratify their pious zeal and humanity, and at
the same time essentially promote the honour and safety of the
state, and the interests of sound morality and religion.
And this is the sole object of the Military Workhouse, which has
been instituted by the command of his Electoral Highness, where,
from this time forward, all who are able to work may find
employment and wages, and will be cloathed and fed.--THERE will
be the really indigent find a secure asylum, and those
unfortunate persons who are a prey to sickness and infirmity,
or are worn out with age, will be effectually relieved.--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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