The adminiftration of thofe countries difplays, in this in*
ftance, more humanity than judgment.
Biit bedde the ftate of beggary, which is brought ofi
by a fptrit of idlenefs, there muft ncceffarily be poor peo-
pie without number in every place, where there are multi-
tudes of men, who have no prote6^ion againft mifery but
in their labour. For all thefe unfortunate people, a day
of ficknefs is a day of indigence. Every old man is poor.
£^ery man who is difabled either by accident or by natural
deformity, old or young, is a poor man. Every labourer,



1^ BISTORT OFSBTTLEMEMTS AND TWJLOE Book XII.
every foldier» eveiy failort wko bath -either got no employ-
men t, or is unable to ferve, is a poor man* Poverty begets
poverty ; were it only from the impoifibility that indigent
perfons (hould give any kind of education^ or fumiih any
employnsent to their children. A great conflagration^ mn
inundation, a hail ftorm, a long and rigorous winter, an
epidemical diforder, a famine^ a war, great and fudden re-
du^ioDS of rent, bankruptcies, bad, and evea ibmettnies
.good (^erations of finance^ the invention of a new machine :
every caufe, in a word, which deprives the cttisea of his
ftate, and which fufpends, or fuddenly dimtsiihes, the daily
.labours, occafions an incredible number of people to be re-
duced to poverty in an inftant.
