Page:A short history of social life in England.djvu/296

"I affirm," says Defoe, "of my own knowledge, that when I have wanted a man for labouring work and offer 9s, a week to strolling fellows at my door, they have frequently told me to my face that they could get more a-begging"—a sentence which might have been written to-day, with the substitution of a higher wage. His explanation rings only too true. "Where an Englishman earns his 20s. a week and but just lives, as we call it, a Dutchman grows rich and leaves his children in very good condition. We are the most lazy, indigent nation in the world. There is nothing more frequent than for an Englishman to work till he has got his pockets full of money and then go and be idle, or perhaps drunk, till it is all gone and perhaps himself in debt, and … he'll tell you honestly he will drink as long as it lasts and then go and work for more." Above a thousand families, he further asserts, known to himself, go systematically in rags, their children wanting for bread, whose fathers can earn 15s. to 20s. a week, but will not work. The first workhouses in England were practically houses of correction, founded for the purpose of employing the unemployed; but in this capacity they signally failed, and we are still searching