Such is the irresistible power of example!--Those who know how
to manage this mighty engine and have opportunities of employing
it with effect, may produce the most miraculous changes, in the
manners, disposition, and character, even of whole nations.
In furnishing raw materials to the Poor to work, it will be
necessary to use many precautions to prevent frauds and abuses,
not only on the part of the Poor, who are often but too much
disposed to cheat and deceive whenever they find opportunities,
but also on the part of those employed in the details of this
business:--but the fullest information having already been given
in my First Essay, of all the various precautions it had been
found necessary to take for the purposes in question in the House
of Industry at Munich, it is not necessary for me to enlarge upon
the subject in this place, or to repeat what has already been
said upon it elsewhere.
With regard to the manner in which good and wholesome food for
feeding the Poor may be prepared in a public kitchen, at a cheap
rate, I must refer my reader to my Essay on Food; where he will
find all the information on that subject which he can require.
--In my Essay on Clothing, he will see how good and comfortable
clothing may be furnished to the Poor at a very moderate
expence; and in that on the Management of Heat, he will find
particular directions for the Poor for saving fuel.
I cannot finish this Essay, without taking notice of a difficulty
which frequently occur in giving employment to the Poor, that of
disposing to advantage of the produce of their labour:--This is
in all cases a very important object; and too much attention
cannot be paid to it.--A spirit of industry cannot be kept up by
making it advantageous to individuals to be industrious; but
where the wages which the labourer has a right to expect are
refused, it will not be possible to prevent his being discouraged
and disgusted.--He may perhaps be forced for a certain time to
work for small wages, to prevent starving, if he has not the
resource of throwing himself upon the parish, which he most
probably would prefer doing, should it be in his option; but he
will infallibly conceive such a thorough dislike to labour,
that he will become idle and vicious, and a permanent and heavy
burden on the public.
If "a labourer is worthy of his hire," he is peculiarly so,
where that labourer is a poor person, who, with all his
exertions, can barely procure the first necessaries of life;
and whose hard lot renders him an object of pity and compassion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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