decline, let him repose upon his fortune; if no such thing exists, let
him rest upon his friends, and if this prop fail, let the public nurse
him, with a tenderness becoming humanity.

We may observe, that the manufactures, the laborious part of mankind,
the poor's rates, and the number of paupers, will everlastingly go hand
in hand; they will increase and decrease together; we cannot annihilate
one, but the others will follow, and odd as the expression may sound, we
become rich by payment and poverty. If we discharge the poor, who shall
act the laborious part? Stop the going out of one shilling, and it will
prevent the coming in of two.

At the introduction of the poor's laws, under Elizabeth, two pence
halfpenny in the pound rent was collected every fortnight, for future
support: time has made an alteration in the system, which is now
six-pence in the pound, and collected as often as found necessary. The
present levy amounts to above 10,000_l_. per ann. but is not wholly
collected.

As the overseers are generally people of property, payment in advance is
not scrupulously observed.

It was customary, at the beginning of this admirable system of
jurisprudence, to constitute two overseers in each parish; but the
magnitude of Birmingham pleaded for four, which continued 'till the year
1720, when a fifth was established: in 1729 they were augmented to half
a dozen; the wishes of some, who are frighted at office, rise to the
word _dozen_, a number very familiar in the Birmingham art of reckoning:
but let it be remembered, that a vestry filled with overseers is not
calculated for the meridian of business; that the larger the body, the