careful Perusal of everything which I could find that hath been written on this Subject, from the Original Institution in the 43d. of _Elizabeth_ to this Day." Such was the laborious preparation, extending presumably over many months, which the author of _Tom Jones_, and the first wit of his day, devoted to solving this vast problem of social reform. Fielding was far too well skilled in the art of effective construction to present the public with undigested note-books from his voluminous reading. His scheme, based on all the laws, and upon all the comments on all the laws, regarding the poor, enacted and made for two hundred years, is a marvel of conciseness and practical detail; and, together with an _Introduction_ and an _Epilogue_, does but occupy the ninety pages of a two-shilling pamphlet. The pamphlet was published at the end of January 1753, with the title _A Proposal for making an effectual Provision for the Poor, for amending their Morals, and for rendering them useful Members of the Society. To which is added a Plan of the Buildings proposed, with proper Elevations ... By Henry Fielding, Esq.; Barrister-at-Law, and one of His Majesty's Justices of the Peace for the County of Middlesex_. The dedication, dated January 19, is to Henry Pelham, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, and from it we learn that Fielding had personally mentioned his scheme to this Minister. The Introduction presents an eloquent appeal for some effectual remedy for the intolerably diseased state of the body politic as regarded the distresses and vices of the poor, their unseen sufferings no less than their frequent misdeeds. Fielding protests against the popular ignorance of these sufferings in words that might have been spoken by some pleader for the East End 'Settlements' of to-day. "If we were," he declares, "to make a Progress through the Outskirts of this Town, and look into the Habitations of the Poor, we should there behold such Pictures of human Misery as must move the Compassion of every Heart that deserves the Name of human. What indeed must be his Composition who could see whole Families in Want of every Necessary of Life, oppressed with Hunger, Cold, Nakedness, and Filth, and with Diseases, the certain Consequence of all these; what, I say, must be his Composition, who could look into such a Scene as this, and be affected only in his Nostrils?" As an instance of Fielding's personal knowledge of the London slums of his day, a reference made by Mr Saunders Welch to their joint work is of interest. Writing in the same year, 1753, he mentions assisting "Mr Henry Fielding in taking from under one roof upwards of seventy lodgers of both sexes." [2]