One great cause of the increase of mendicity is the increase of
unproductive labourers, as a state becomes more wealthy, who, dying
before their children are able to provide for themselves, increase the
number of the indigent. Men living by active industry naturally marry
at an early age; menial servants, revenue officers, and all those who
administer to the gratifications of a wealthy and luxurious people,
marry later in life; and besides their not having an industrious example
to set before their children, are torn from them sooner, by the course
of things.

---
{136} If one of the brute creation is in want, it will supply that where
it is most easily to be had, physical difficulty is the only one it knows;
bodily pain the only one it feels. But men are different, they often
undergo great want amongst strangers, to avoid more insufferable
feelings amongst friends.
-=-

[end of page #158]

It has been noticed, that, in every society, as wealth increases
hospitality dies away. And those good offices interchanged between
man and man, to which life owes many of its comforts in a less
advanced state of society, and which protect individuals from the
frowns of fortune, gradually disappear. The social feelings become
less active, and men turn selfish and interested, thinking for
themselves, and careless for the community; while, on the other hand,
the causes for poverty increase; on the other, the means of relief are
misapplied, neglected, or squandered away. The funds that ought to be
administered with disinteredness and integrity are committed to the