it for the purposes of begging, and neglect their work in proportion as they are successful in preying upon the feelings of a generous public. I have known instances of my own work people, who have left good looms of work to go out begging. Some time back in Old Broad-street, leading to the Royal Exchange, where there are a number of merchants living, who walk about four o'clock towards the Exchange; coming towards Spitalfields I met a woman as I was crossing the street in a hurry; she had an infant in her arms, and asked charity: I looked her in the face, and she was very much confused; she and her husband worked for me at the time; he had a good loom's work, and she silk winding, which I was at the time very much in want of. I took an opportunity to reason with her on the impropriety of her conduct, leaving work and employing her time in that manner; and her excuse was, that owing to some circumstances, they had not been able to make up the money for their rent; and that she came out, with the approbation of her husband, a few hours in a day, to get up the money, which she could do much quicker than by working; but she promised me she would go home, and never attempt it again. If we were to suffer our poor to go out of the workhouse, as they do in many parishes, instead of keeping them close, the greatest part of them would, by telling artful tales, get a considerable sum of money, which would be employed for the purposes of debauchery or intoxication. We and endeavour to make our workhouse an house of industry; for every one there has something or another to do, and we keep them close to work, although they could not earn us a shilling a week: we conceive it to be conducive to their morals. That is generally' known among the poor; were it not for that, perhaps our house would have as many again inhabitants of the worst description. We never let them go out of the workhouse but on a Saturday afternoon, then they return at a certain time; and, too frequently, in that little time, many of them will beg, and some of them be so intoxicated, that they do not get home till the next morning. The master has a positive order not to suffer one of them to come in if they exceed their time; they are then obliged to keep out, and make a fresh application to the churchwardens or overseers to come in again, or to go to a magistrate, and then they are subject to the same provision. on Do you allow them to go out a Sunday? They are permitted to go to a place of worship: we feel a difficulty in forcing them all to go to Church. There was a woman, who used to go to a chapel in the City-road, as she said: one of our overseers was coming out in the evening after service, when he heard a voice, ery common thing for them to hire or borrow children to go out begging and if you meet with a woman who appears to have twins, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred they are not her own, or not both her own. I have known a woman sit for ten years with twins, and they never exceeded the same age. The children grew no older?No, they did not. Those mendicants employ a certain portion of their time in finding out the committee days of the respective parishes, when they meet and relieve their out-door poor; and it is very well known they go to one vestry on a Monday, a second on Tuesday, and a third on Wednesday, and so on. They will tell such tales of distress, which appear so interesting to Gentlemen not deeply versed in their duplicity, that they are sure to gain upon their feelings, and they get Is. or 1s. 6d. or 2s. 6d. from each. We have sent to a neighbouring parish one of our overseers, and have detected some of our paupers, residing within our parish, who were relieved weekly by us, going to another parish. Do they get relief from an individual officer, or from the parish fund?-From the parish fund; and they will go to the churchwardens or overseers, or see the wives of the churchwardens or overseers, taking a child, perhaps; and they will pinch the child, and play all sorts of tricks to move pity, and get relief in this way as parishioners. When there are women who have children, I am persuaded that frequently they are pinched; and if their persons were examined, there will be found to be a black mark, where they had been so pinched to excite pity. These people get much more than they could get by honest industry, ten or twenty shillings a day sometimes. Has it fallen within your knowledge that they have got to that amount? Yes, more than that; for they appear frequently in a state of intoxication two or three days in a week; and they will have rump steaks and oyster sauce in a morning frequently; they live extremely well. There is one house in Whitechapel called the Beggar's Opera, where a great number of them go. We are too strict in our parish to be imposed upon by them: it is a rule with us, never to relieve any person that applies, in the first instance, as a casual pauper for temporary relief; but we take down their name and their residence; and the overseer whose turn it is for the week, calls the next day, and relieves them at their own habitation. That plan was first adopted when I was overseer; and I think, in five cases out of ten, we found that we had false directions, and that there were no such persons living there. Some time after we had come to this resolution, a woman came down with two children, and, notwithstanding our resolution, she completely duped us all. She came in about five o'clock in the evening. The master of the workhouse seemed very much touched with her affecting tale: she stated, that she was the daughter of the Rev. Mr. Davis, a Baptist Minister at Reading. I had been at Reading some time before, having some children edu cated cated there, and had heard the name. I put the question to her: "If you are the daughter of a gentleman so respectable, how came you in this distress?" She stated, "I formed a connection against the will of my parents; they talked to me; but my affections got the better of my judgment, and I married an apothecary against the will of my father. He went into business, and, living too fast, and getting into company, we got into embarrassed circumstances, and he was made a bankrupt; he was recommended to come to London, and Mr. Sheriff Perring got him a place as purser of a man of war: he went to Yarmouth; was drafted thence to Copenhagen, and there was cut in two by a chain-shot." (This was about a few weeks after the news of the victory at Copenhagen came over.) "I was then in a state of pregnancy, and having applied to a friend, he directed me to go to the Lyingin-Charity; they took me in, and I was delivered of this infant six weeks back. I came away two days ago; they told me I could have no parochial relief there, but that I had better go to the parish where I had lodged previous to my coming into the Asylun. I went back and slept at such a house last night;" a place I knew to be let out to beggars. "I am going home to my father this evening: I read my sin in my punishment. I only want a trifle to get a bed upon the road: the waggoner will take me down; and whatever trifle you lend me shall be remitted, with many thanks by my father." She gave me such an affecting description, as drew the tear of sympathy from every person : we gave her half a guinea, and some provisions, and sent her off to the waggon immediately. I came home and informed Mrs. Hale, and she said the Rev. Mr. Davis had been dead some years; and that she had understood they never had but one child, and that was a boy. Finding we were duped, I sent for the beadle and constable, and sent to the Reading waggon; no such person came there. I applied at the Lying-in-Hospital, she had not been there: we then sent to the house where she said she had lodged, and no such person had lodged there. And four days afterwards this very woman was seen walking in the streets of London, by our vestry clerk, soliciting charity, with those two children, and taking money from a lady; and I have no doubt she is practising it to this day, if she is alive. I know many similar cases. But the result of all my observations is this, that there is scarcely a beggar, seeking relief in the streets, who is worthy of relief: whatever is given may be considered as a bounty for encouraging idleness. When the poor are driven to distress, and meet with any calamity that deprives them for a time from following their calling, they know what to do; they can have recourse to parochial relief; and they come to the churchwardens and overseers; and if they are not capable of getting work, we feel it our duty to give them relief, or take them into the house, and set them to work; but these people do not like the confinement; as soon as they they can get out they will do it, and go to begging again: they prefer that mode of living. Do you know the state of the village of Haggerstone, to which the last witness has alluded?-It is a place inhabited chiefly by brickmakers, of the very lowest class of society, and perhaps some of them of the very worst characters; so much so, that no man or woman towards dark will walk across that way towards Hackney, though it might be somewhat nearer ; and so bad, that if a thief was pursued and ran to Haggerstone, no constable or runner would go beyond a certain line; it has been called The City of Refuge. To have any moral improvement made on the face of society like that, such as has been spoken to by the last witness, must afford a striking proof of the beneficial consequences resulting from early instruction. If the public were once thoroughly convinced of the depravity of these people who beg, so as to withhold their benevolence from them; and each of the parishes were determined not to suffer them to beg, but to take care of them, the remedy, at once, would be commensurate with the evil. What is your opinion of the best means to be used to prevent Mendicity?-To take every possible means of informing the public, of what description these individuals are, and their sheer depravity; that they are not fit objects of their benevolence; that in no instance should an individual give any thing to a person that applied to him promiscuously in the streets; and for the church wardens, overseers, constables, and other efficient officers in their respective parishes, never to suffer a beggar to walk the streets, but if they do, to warn them; if they trespass a second time, take them before a magistrate, who will give the necessary instructions to pass them to their respective parishes, or commit them under the Vagrant Act to a week's imprisonment; and these measures, once adopted, I think the remedy would be commensurate with the evil. When these people are removed, do you think there would be any mode of preventing their return?-Supposing a vagrant residing in our parish was to be seen begging in our parish, we would take that man or woman before a magistrate, they would be passed home to their own parishes; if they belonged to our own parish, we should inquire into their case. If they had no work, and no probability of getting work at present, the magistrate would oblige us to take them into the workhouse, and to employ them, and to take the produce of their labour as a remuneration for the expense of their maintenance; consequently every poor person would be provided for, and would not be under the necessity of doing that which was morally wrong. If we could find their parishes, we should pass them home, if not, we must keep them. This the most virtuous of the poor have to submit to; and surely these persons could not find fault with being put on the same footing as others more virtuous than themselves. It is the custom of some of the parishes the great evil lies in persons not inquiring. Many persons would sooner give ten guineas than lose ten hours in inquiring into those cases. I said once to a gentleman, who had given to a charity I did not believe deserving, "How could a gentleman of your infornation, give to such a charity?" he said, "I had no time to think; if I see a few respectable names, I put my name down." Have you made any observations on the state of Sunday schools in your neighbourhood? parishes in the city, very opulent parishes, and who can afford to increase their parochial fund, if necessary, in order to save themselves trouble, to farm out their poor; and when they are farmed Fout in the suburbs of the city, Hoxton or Islington, for instance, it has been too often the case that the individual who farms the poor, has an interest very much to his advantage, to permit those people to go out; every day they go out in the morning, and are not at home to breakfast or dinner, nor cost the individual any O yes; there has been a great thing. There is no doubt there is an understanding between the farmers of these poor and the poor themselves: and the individual who receives six or seven, or eight shillings a week, for the board of these paupers, may give them two shillings, and let them have the week to beg in: in some instances they take lodgings out of the district where they are farmed, and come home only on certain days when they expect a muster, and that the parish officers will come and look at them. alteration in the moral condition of Spitalfields since their establishment: the character of the poor of Spitalfields is very different from what it was thirty or forty years ago; you never hear of any attempt to riot there. I know at one time there were individuals sent up from Nottingham, with a view to effect something like what they were doing there; and that they have been more than once excited to riot during the last war; and yet that they were always very quiet : great care is taken of their mental and moral improvement. And I believe no instance is to a poor congregate together in so small a space, with so little inconvenience to their neighbours. Do you think if vagrants were committed for a longer time than seven days, it would have any beneficial effect upon them?-be found where so multitudinous No, I do not apprehend that any fine or imprisonment, any provision for a time would have the effect of entirely meeting the evil; it might deter some of them: but the advantages arising from begging are such a temptation to the idle poor, not willing to work, that they would sooner be imprisoned three months in the year, than be deterred from the practice of begging the other nine: You have reason to think that the instruction given in those schools, has had an effect on the poor of that district?-No doubt of it, it leads them to better habits generally speaking. The poor who have had their children educated there, benefit very much by it themselves; even although they |