( 162 )
¬iii the very next moment, be fully qualified to condemn the absurd and disgraceful system of your laws. — It was an insult, (though I am sure not intended,) to ask me what England would do in a condition to which she never can be reduced. — England would never have per- mitted her houses of charity, if a mistaken policy had erected them, to be converted into the haunts of vagabonds and prostitutes to knot and gender in, throwing the whole burthen of their debaucheries upon the industrious classes of her people — England would laugh to scorn the laboured system of folly you have described, bringing no comfort to the necessitous, whilst it swallows up, in many instances, the entire property on which it professes to be a tax — England, instead of setting up courts through- out the whole country to play at foot-ball with the unhappy, whom she meant to protect, driving them to and fro from one part of the kingdom to the other — England would begin by confining public charity to those who were real objects of charitable support ; and, wise in ¬all ¬
