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CHAP. XI..

The prominent Causes of the increase of Crimes reviewed and considered.-Imputable in the first instance to deficient Laws and an ill-regulated Police:-To the unfortunate habits of the lower orders of the People in feeding their families in Ale-houses. To the bad and immoral Education of Apprentices. To the number of individuals broke down by misfortunes arising from want of Industry. -To idle and profligate Menial Servants out of place. To the deplorable state of the lower orders of the Jews of the Dutch and German Synagogue. -To the depraved morals of Aquatic Labourers. To the Dealers in old Metals-Second-hand Ships' Stores-Rags-Old Furniture-Old Building Materials-Old Apparel: and Cart-keepers for removing these articles.-To disreputable Pawnbrokers.—And finally to ill-regulated Public-houses, and to the Superabundance of these receptacles of idleness and vice.-Concluding Reflections on the evils to the State and the Individual, which arise from the excesses of the Labouring People.

In contemplating the mass of turpitude which is developed in the preceding Chapters, and which exhibit afflicted Society, groaning under a pressure of evils and Public wrongs, which, but for the different

different views which have been taken of the subject, could not have been conceived to exist; it may be truly affirmed in the first instance, that much is to be imputed to deficient and ill-executed Laws, arising chiefly from the want of a proper System of Police.

Offences of every description have their origin in the vicious and immoral habits of the people, and in the facilities which the state of manners and society, particularly in vulgar life, afford in generating vicious and bad habits.

In tracing the progress of those habits which are peculiar to the lower orders of the Community in this great Metropolis, from infancy to the adult state, the cause will be at once discovered, why that almost universal profligacy prevails, which, by being productive of so much evil to the unfortunate Individuals as well as the Community at large, cannot be sufficiently deplored.

Before a child is perhaps able to lisp a sentence, it is carried by its ill-fated mother to the tap-room of an ale-house; in which are assembled multitudes of low company, many of whom have been perhaps reared in the same manner. The vilest and most profane and polluted language, accompanied by oaths and imprecations, is uttered in these haunts of idleness and dissipation.-Children follow their parents during their progress to maturity, and are al

*It is even a practice with not a few of the labouring families in the Eastern part of the Town, to take lodgings in Ale-houses. x 4

most

most the constant witnesses of their besotted cour -Reduced, from their unfortunate habits, to thenecessity of occupying a miserable half furnished lodging from week to week, there is no comfort at home-No knowledge of frugal cookery exists, by which a nourishing and palatable meal can be provided, and frequently a sufficiency of fuel for that purpose is not accessible.-A succedaneum is found in the ale-house at three times the expence.-A common fire is provided for the guests, calculated to convey that warmth which could not be obtained at home; and food * and liquor is furnished at an expence which too seldom leaves any part of the weekly earning for cloathing, and none at all for education.In this manner is a large proportion of what may be denominated the lowest classes of the people reared in the Metropolis; † and the result is, that while many

Such is the thoughtless improvidence of this class of the labouring people, that they are generally the first who indulge themselves by eating Oysters, Lobsters, and Pickled Salmon, &c. when first in Season, and long before these luxuries are considered as accessible to the middle ranks of the Community; whose manners are generally as virtuous as the others are depraved.

+ It is not to be inferred from this statement, that there are not to be found even among the lower classes of the labouring People in the Metropolis, many instances of honest and virtuous Poor, whose distresses are to be attributed to the calamity of a failure of employment, bad health, death of Parents or Children, and other causes which human prudence cannot prevent; and particularly where the want of opulent Inhabitants in several of the Eastern Parishes, renders it necessary to assess Indigence for the support of Poverty. To these Parishes and Hamlets the Poor resort,both from

the

many of the adults are lost to the state by premature death, from sottishness and irregularity, not a few of their offspring are never raised to manhood: But this is not all:-when by means of strong constitutions, they survive the shocks which nature has sustained in its progress to maturity under the influence of habits so exceedingly depraved, they are restrained by no principle of morality or religion,* (for the nature of their employments, and the impossibility of finding habitations any where else.-Theyhave perhaps no legal settlement where they reside, or the funds of the Parish can afford but a very scanty and inadequate relief. Depressed with sickness, and broke down and dispirited by extreme poverty, the little furniture and apparel of Man, Woman, and Child, is carried to the Pawn-broker's to obtain a scanty pittance for the immediate support of life, until at length there does not remain what is sufficient to cover nakedness. -In these miserable mansions the Author has himself frequently witnessed scenes of distress, which would rend the heart of the most unfeeling of the human species.-A temporary and partial expedient has, through the benevolence of the Publick, been administered in the excellent institutions of Soup-houses: but until the funds of the different Parishes can be made one Common Purse, and an intelligent management substituted in the place of an ignorant and incompetent superintendance, the evil will not diminish.To the opulent part of the Community the burden would never be felt. At present, where the most indigent are assessed, the rates are double and treble those in the rich Parishes.-It is principally to this cause, that Poverty is no where to be found in so great a degree, cloathed in the garb of the extremest misery and wretchedness, as in the Metropolis.-And it is to this cause also, joined to various others explained in this Chapter, that above Twenty Thousand miserable Individuals of various classes, rise up every morning without knowing how, or by what means they are to be supported, during the passing day; or where, in many instances, they are to lodge on the succeeding night.

*The Author has often had occasion to witness the extreme igno

rance

they know nothing of either), and only wait for opportunities, to plunge into every excess and every

crime.

Profligate and depraved as the lower orders of the People appear to have been for several centuries in this great Metropolis, it would seem that the practice of married females resorting to Public-houses, and mixing generally in tap-rooms with the idle and dissolute, is an evil habit of a very modern date; for the period is not even too remote to be recollected, since it was considered as disgraceful for Females who pretended to any degree of modesty to be seen in a Public-house. It is however now to be lamented that the obloquy of thus exposing themselves has as little influence, as the rude and obscene language they uniformly hear uttered.

Another cause of the increase of crimes, may be traced to the bad and immoral education of Apprentices to Mechanical employments.

Although many of their Masters may not be, and certainly are not, composed of the class whose manners have just been depicted, yet their habits lead them too generally to Public-houses, where no inconsiderable proportion of their earnings are expended; -where low gaming is introduced, producing ruin and distress to many families even among the inferior

rance of the younger part of this class, when called upon to give evidence in judicial proceedings.--Of the nature of an oath they had not the least conception,-nor even of the existence of a Supreme Being.

ranks,

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