What the loss on such a balance might amount to, _communibus annis_, I would leave to a special jury of sufferers in the same traffick, to determine; --but let it be what it would, the honest gentleman bore it for many years without a murmur, till at length, by repeated ill accidents of the kind, he found it necessary to take the thing under consideration; and upon weighing the whole, and summing it up in his mind, he found it not only disproportioned to his other expences, but withal so heavy an article in itself, as to disable him from any other act of generosity in his parish: Besides this, he considered that with half the sum thus galloped away, he could do ten times as much good; --and what still weighed more with him than all other considerations put together, was this, that it confined all his charity into one particular channel, and where, as he fancied, it was the least wanted, namely, to the child-bearing and child-getting part of his parish; reserving nothing for the impotent, --nothing for the aged, --nothing for the many comfortless scenes he was hourly called forth to visit, where poverty, and sickness, and affliction dwelt together.

Despite the cost of this, the honest gentleman bore it for many years without a murmur, till at length, after repeated ill accidents of this kind, he found it necessary to consider the matter. Upon weighing up the whole, he found it so heavy a cost as to disable him from any other act of generosity in his parish. He considered that with half the sum thus galloped away, he could do ten times as much good; but as it was, it confined all charity into the child-bearing part of his parish, where he fancied it was least needed; leaving nothing for the aged, or poor, or sick.
