" Did the magistrates examine you upon your oath ?—They did ; and I told them I had removed him out of Bloomsbury-square, three days before, in consequence of great complaints of the inhabitants, . that those persons were suffered to be about.
" You stated upon your oath, to the magistrate, that you believed him to be a common vagrant ?— Yes ; he paused a quarter of an hour upon it; and he said, the prison was so full of people that he thought it not right to commit him there. He talk- ed of sending him to. the New Prison, and the clerk' said it must be the House of Correction. I told him I should not object, if he thought proper to discharge him, which he did. The magistrate told me, if I saw him again, I might bring him. I could have taken four beggars up on Sunday, but if we take them down they discharge them. ' " That is the practice of the magistrates ?—It is. I have taken many and tinny down, and they have been discharged ; and my brother beadles will give the same testimony." Mr Mills, a gentleman who had been Overseer of the parish of St Giles, stated, " We used to take them to the magistrates, and take the recourse the law provided ; but, in fact, the magistrates them selves would have loaded the prison, they were so numerous. In our parish there was no end to the commitments which would have taken place. I have sat with my brother officers from two o'clock in the afternoon till eight in the evening, constantly re lieving those persons." It thus, we think, sufficiently appears, that the law for the compulsive prevention of beggary can not be executed, or, more accurately speaking, it is unfit for execution; it cannot be executed producing a much greater quantity of evil than it 'seeks to remedy; and therefore the magistrates take upon them, without scruple, to violate it, and leave it without execution.
Of the things to be done, one, then, most obvi ously suggested, is a review of the existing laws which relate to beggary ; the repeal of all the enactments, which are ill adapted to the object in view ; and the passing of other enactments which may possess the greatest practicable degree of adaptation and effici ency. Into the detail of these enactments, it is not
here the intention to enter, because they must em brace the provision which is made for the destitute ; the questions relating to which, we reserve for the article on the Pooa.
Another of the remedial operations, importunate ly demanded, is to make provision immediately for the careful and efficient education of the whole mass of the population, down to the lowest individual. On the potent connection between good education, and that sort of conduct which keeps people above the level of mendicity, as well as on the mode in which education should be provided, our sentiments will be given with more propriety on another occasion.
As the tendency in population to increase faster than food, produces a greater number of individuals than can be fed,—as this is the grand parent of indi gence, and the most prolific of all the sources of evil to the labouring portion of mankind, take all possible measures for preventing so rapid a multi. plication ; and let no mere prejudice, whether reli gious or political, restrain your hands in so benefi cent and meritorious an undertaking. It would be easy to offer, suggestions on this head, if we were not entirely precluded from going into detail. IV is abundantly evident, in the meantime, that indirect methods can alone avail ; the passions to be com bated cannot be destroyed ; nor, to the produCtion of effects of any considerable magnitude, resisted. With a little ingenuity they may, however, be elud ed, and, instead of spending themselves in hurtful, made to spend themselves in harmless channels. This it is the business of skilful legislation to effect.
In cutting off other causes, cut off Ireland ; we do not mean literally ; but what we mean is, that the mode of governing Ireland should be so reformed, as to make it able to send to England something better than a mass of beggars nearly equal to all her own.
Make a law to prohibit all modes of paying the people, which have an affinity with yielding to the cravings of a beggar.