see so cheerfully engaged in that interesting scene of industry,
by far the greater part were, five years ago, the most miserable
and most worthless of beings,--common beggars in the streets.

An account of the means employed in bringing about this change
cannot fail to be interesting to every benevolent mind; and this
is what has encouraged me to lay these details before the public.

By far the greater number of the poor people to be taken care of
were not only common beggars, but had been up from their very
infancy in that profession; and were so attached to their
indolent and dissolute way of living, as to prefer it to all
other situations. They were not only unacquainted with all kinds
of work, but had the most insuperable aversion to honest labour;
and had been so long familiarized with every crime, that they had
become perfectly callous to all sense of shame and remorse.

With persons of this description, it is easy to be conceived that
precepts;--admonitions;--and punishments, would be of little or
no avail. But where precepts fail, HABITS may sometimes be
successful.

To make vicious and abandoned people happy, it has generally been
supposed necessary, FIRST to make them virtuous. But why not
reverse this order? Why not make them first HAPPY, and then
virtuous? If happiness and virtue be INSEPARABLE the end will be
as certainly obtained by the one method as by the other; and it
is most undoubtedly much easier to contribute to the happiness
and comfort of persons in a state of poverty and misery, than,
by admonitions and punishments, to reform their morals.