minister, than a number of beggars which do not belong to his district,
whom he hath no obligation to take care of, who are no part of his
flock, and who take the bread out of the mouths of those, to whom it
properly belongs. When I mention this abuse to any minister of a
city-parish, he usually lays the fault upon the beadles, who he says are
bribed by the foreign beggars; and, as those beadles often keep
ale-houses, they find their account in such customers. This evil might
easily be remedied, if the parishes would make some small addition to
the salaries of a beadle, and be more careful in the choice of those
officers. But, I conceive there is one effectual method, in the power of
every minister to put in practice; I mean, by making it the interest of
all his own original poor, to drive out intruders: for, if the
parish-beggars were absolutely forbidden by the minister and
church-officers, to suffer strollers to come into the parish, upon pain
of themselves not being permitted to beg alms at the church-doors, or at
the houses and shops of the inhabitants; they would prevent interlopers
more effectually than twenty beadles.
And, here I cannot but take notice of the great indiscretion in our
city-shopkeepers, who suffer their doors to be daily besieged by crowds
of beggars, (as the gates of a lord are by duns,) to the great disgust
and vexation of many customers, whom I have frequently observed to go to
other shops, rather than suffer such a persecution; which might easily
be avoided, if no foreign beggars were allowed to infest them.
Wherefore, I do assert, that the shopkeepers, who are the greatest
complainers of this grievance, lamenting that for every customer, they
are worried by fifty beggars, do very well deserve what they suffer,
when a 'prentice with a horse-whip is able to lash every beggar from the
shop, who is not of the parish, and does not wear the badge of that
parish on his shoulder, well fastened and fairly visible; and if this
practice were universal in every house to all the sturdy vagrants, we
should in a few weeks clear the town of all mendicants, except those who
have a proper title to our charity: as for the aged and infirm, it would
be sufficient to give them nothing, and then they must starve or follow
their brethren.
It was the city that first endowed this hospital, and those who
afterwards contributed, as they were such who generally inhabited here;
so they intended what they gave to be for the use of the city's poor.
The revenues which have since been raised by parliament, are wholly paid
by the city, without the least charge upon any other part of the
kingdom; and therefore nothing could more defeat the original design,
than to misapply those revenues on strolling beggars, or bastards from
the country, which bear no share in the charges we are at.
If some of the out-parishes be overburthened with poor, the reason must
be, that the greatest part of those poor are strollers from the country,
who nestle themselves where they can find the cheapest lodgings, and
from thence infest every part of the town, out of which they ought to be
whipped as a most insufferable nuisance, being nothing else but a
profligate clan of thieves, drunkards, heathens, and whore-mongers,
fitter to be rooted out of the face of the earth, than suffered to levy
a vast annual tax upon the city, which shares too deep in the public
miseries, brought on us by the oppressions we lye under from our
neighbours, our brethren, our countrymen, our fellow protestants, and
fellow subjects.
Some time ago I was appointed one of a committee to inquire into the
state of the workhouse; where we found that a charity was bestowed by a
great person for a certain time, which in its consequences operated
very much to the detriment of the house: for, when the time was elapsed,
all those who were supported by that charity, continued on the same foot
with the rest of the foundation; and being generally a pack of
profligate vagabond wretches from several parts of the kingdom,
corrupted all the rest; so partial, or treacherous, or interested, or
ignorant, or mistaken are generally all recommenders, not only to
employments, but even to charity itself.
I know it is complained, that the difficulty of driving foreign beggars
out of the city is charged upon the _bellowers_ (as they are called) who
find their accounts best in suffering those vagrants to follow their
trade through every part of the town. But this abuse might easily be
remedied, and very much to the advantage of the whole city, if better
salaries were given to those who execute that office in the several
parishes, and would make it their interest to clear the town of those
caterpillars, rather than hazard the loss of an employment that would
give them an honest livelyhood. But, if that would fail, yet a general
resolution of never giving charity to a street beggar out of his own
parish, or without a visible badge, would infallibly force all vagrants
to depart.
There is generally a vagabond spirit in beggars, which ought to be
discouraged and severely punished. It is owing to the same causes that
drove them into poverty; I mean, idleness, drunkenness, and rash
marriages without the least prospect of supporting a family by honest
endeavours, which never came into their thoughts. It is observed, that
hardly one beggar in twenty looks upon himself to be relieved by
receiving bread or other food; and they have in this town been
frequently seen to pour out of their pitcher good broth that hath been
given them, into the kennel; neither do they much regard clothes, unless
to sell them; for their rags are part of their tools with which they
work: they want only ale, brandy, and other strong liquors, which cannot
be had without money; and, money as they conceive, always abounds in the
metropolis.
I had some other thoughts to offer upon this subject. But, as I am a
desponder in my nature, and have tolerably well discovered the
disposition of our people, who never will move a step towards easing
themselves from any one single grievance; it will be thought, that I
have already said too much, and to little or no purpose; which hath
often been the fate, or fortune of the writer,
J. SWIFT.
April 22,
1737.
CONSIDERATIONS
ABOUT MAINTAINING THE POOR.
NOTE.
The text of this short paper is taken from Deane Swift's edition,
which was followed by Sir Walter Scott.
[T. S.]
CONSIDERATIONS ABOUT MAINTAINING THE POOR.
We have been amused, for at least thirty years past, with numberless
schemes, in writing and discourse, both in and out of Parliament, for
maintaining the poor, and setting them to work, especially in this city:
most of which were idle, indigested, or visionary; and all of them
ineffectual, as it has plainly appeared by the consequences. Many of
those projectors were so stupid, that they drew a parallel from Holland
to England, to be settled in Ireland; that is to say, from two countries
with full freedom and encouragement for trade, to a third where all kind
of trade is cramped, and the most beneficial parts are entirely taken
away. But the perpetual infelicity of false and foolish reasoning, as
well as proceeding and acting upon it, seems to be fatal to this
country.
For my own part, who have much conversed with those folks who call
themselves merchants, I do not remember to have met with a more ignorant
and wrong-thinking race of people in the very first rudiments of trade;
which, however, was not so much owing to their want of capacity, as to
the crazy constitution of this kingdom, where pedlars are better
qualified to thrive than the wisest merchants. I could fill a volume
with only setting down a list of the public absurdities, by which this
kingdom has suffered within the compass of my own memory, such as could
not be believed of any nation, among whom folly was not established as a
law. I cannot forbear instancing a few of these, because it may be of
some use to those who shall have it in their power to be more cautious
for the future.
The first was, the building of the barracks; whereof I have seen above
one-half, and have heard enough of the rest, to affirm that the public
has been cheated of at least two-thirds of the money raised for that
use, by the plain fraud of the undertakers.
Another was the management of the money raised for the Palatines; when,
instead of employing that great sum in purchasing lands in some remote
and cheap part of the kingdom, and there planting those people as a
colony, the whole end was utterly defeated.
A third is, the insurance office against fire, by which several thousand
pounds are yearly remitted to England, (a trifle, it seems, we can
easily spare,) and will gradually increase until it comes to a good
national tax: for the society-marks upon our houses (under which might
properly be written, "The Lord have mercy upon us!") spread faster and
farther than the colony of frogs.[192] I have, for above twenty years
past, given warning several thousand times to many substantial people,
and to such who are acquainted with lords and squires, and the like
great folks, to any of whom I have not the honour to be known: I
mentioned my daily fears, lest our watchful friends in England might
take this business out of our hands; and how easy it would be to prevent
that evil, by erecting a society of persons who had good estates, such,
for instance, as that noble knot of bankers, under the style of "Swift
and Company." But now we are become tributary to England, not only for
materials to light our own fires, but for engines to put them out; to
which, if hearth-money be added, (repealed in England as a grievance,)
we have the honour to pay three taxes for fire.
A fourth was the knavery of those merchants, or linen-manufacturers, or
both, when, upon occasion of the plague at Marseilles, we had a fair
opportunity of getting into our hands the whole linen-trade of Spain;
but the commodity was so bad, and held at so high a rate, that almost
the whole cargo was returned, and the small remainder sold below the
prime cost.
So many other particulars of the same nature crowd into my thoughts,
that I am forced to stop; and the rather because they are not very
proper for my subject, to which I shall now return.
Among all the schemes for maintaining the poor of the city, and setting
them to work, the least weight has been laid upon that single point
which is of the greatest importance; I mean, that of keeping foreign
beggars from swarming hither out of every part of the country; for,
until this be brought to pass effectually, all our wise reasonings and
proceedings upon them will be vain and ridiculous.
The prodigious number of beggars throughout this kingdom, in proportion
to so small a number of people, is owing to many reasons: to the
laziness of the natives; the want of work to employ them; the enormous
rents paid by cottagers for their miserable cabins and potatoe-plots;
their early marriages, without the least prospect of establishment; the
ruin of agriculture, whereby such vast numbers are hindered from
providing their own bread, and have no money to purchase it; the mortal
damp upon all kinds of trade, and many other circumstances, too tedious
or invidious to mention.
And to the same causes we owe the perpetual concourse of foreign beggars
to this town, the country landlords giving all assistance, except money
and victuals, to drive from their estates those miserable creatures they
have undone.
It was a general complaint against the poor-house, under its former
governors, "That the number of poor in this city did not lessen by
taking three hundred into the house, and all of them recommended under
the minister's and churchwardens' hands of the several parishes": and
this complaint must still continue, although the poor-house should be
enlarged to contain three thousand, or even double that number.
The revenues of the poor-house, as it is now established, amount to
about two thousand pounds a-year; whereof two hundred allowed for
officers, and one hundred for repairs, the remaining seventeen hundred,
at four pounds a-head, will support four hundred and twenty-five
persons. This is a favourable allowance, considering that I subtract
nothing for the diet of those officers, and for wear and tear of
furniture; and if every one of these collegiates should be set to work,
it is agreed they will not be able to gain by their labour above
one-fourth part of their maintenance.
At the same time, the oratorial part of these gentlemen seldom vouchsafe
to mention fewer than fifteen hundred or two thousand people, to be
maintained in this hospital, without troubling their heads about the
fund. * * * *
ON BARBAROUS DENOMINATIONS
IN IRELAND.
SIR,
I have been lately looking over the advertisements in some of your
Dublin newspapers, which are sent me to the country, and was much
entertained with a large list of denominations of lands, to be sold or
let. I am confident they must be genuine; for it is impossible that
either chance or modern invention could sort the alphabet in such a
manner as to make those abominable sounds; whether first invented to
invoke or fright away the devil, I must leave among the curious.
If I could wonder at anything barbarous, ridiculous, or absurd, among
us, this should be one of the first. I have often lamented that
Agricola, the father-in-law of Tacitus, was not prevailed on by that
petty king from Ireland, who followed his camp, to come over and
civilize us with a conquest, as his countrymen did Britain, where
several Roman appellations remain to this day, and so would the rest
have done, if that inundation of Angles, Saxons, and other northern
people, had not changed them so much for the worse, although in no
comparison with ours. In one of the advertisements just mentioned, I
encountered near a hundred words together, which I defy any creature in
human shape, except an Irishman of the savage kind, to pronounce;
neither would I undertake such a task, to be owner of the lands, unless
I had liberty to humanize the syllables twenty miles round. The
legislature may think what they please, and that they are above copying
the Romans in all their conquests of barbarous nations; but I am
deceived, if anything has more contributed to prevent the Irish from
being tamed, than this encouragement of their language, which might be
easily abolished, and become a dead one in half an age, with little
expense, and less trouble.
How is it possible that a gentleman who lives in those parts where the
_town-lands_ (as they call them) of his estate produce such odious
sounds from the mouth, the throat, and the nose, can be able to repeat
the words without dislocating every muscle that is used in speaking, and
without applying the same tone to all other words, in every language he
understands; as it is plainly to be observed not only in those people of
the better sort who live in Galway and the Western parts, but in most
counties of Ireland?
It is true, that, in the city parts of London, the trading people have
an affected manner of pronouncing; and so, in my time, had many ladies
and coxcombs at Court. It is likewise true, that there is an odd
provincial cant in most counties in England, sometimes not very pleasing
to the ear; and the Scotch cadence, as well as expression, are offensive
enough. But none of these defects derive contempt to the speaker:
whereas, what we call the _Irish brogue_ is no sooner discovered, than
it makes the deliverer in the last degree ridiculous and despised; and,
from such a mouth, an Englishman expects nothing but bulls, blunders,
and follies. Neither does it avail whether the censure be reasonable or
not, since the fact is always so. And, what is yet worse, it is too well
known, that the bad consequence of this opinion affects those among us
who are not the least liable to such reproaches, farther than the
misfortune of being born in Ireland, although of English parents, and
whose education has been chiefly in that kingdom.
I have heard many gentlemen among us talk much of the great convenience
to those who live in the country, that they should speak Irish. It may
possibly be so; but I think they should be such who never intend to
visit England, upon pain of being ridiculous; for I do not remember to
have heard of any one man that spoke Irish, who had not the accent upon
his tongue easily discernible to any English ear.
But I have wandered a little from my subject, which was only to propose
a wish that these execrable denominations were a little better suited to
an English mouth, if it were only for the sake of the English lawyers;
who, in trials upon appeals to the House of Lords, find so much
difficulty in repeating the names, that, if the plaintiff or defendant
were by, they would never be able to discover which were their own
lands. But, besides this, I would desire, not only that the appellations
of what they call _town-lands_ were changed, but likewise of larger
districts, and several towns, and some counties; and particularly the
seats of country-gentlemen, leaving an _alias_ to solve all difficulties
in point of law. But I would by no means trust these alterations to the
owners themselves; who, as they are generally no great clerks, so they
seem to have no large vocabulary about them, nor to be well skilled in
prosody. The utmost extent of their genius lies in naming their country
habitation by a hill, a mount, a brook, a burrow, a castle, a bawn, a
ford, and the like ingenious conceits. Yet these are exceeded by others,
whereof some have contrived anagramatical appellations, from half their
own and their wives' names joined together: others only from the lady;
as, for instance, a person whose wife's name was Elizabeth, calls his
seat by the name of _Bess-borow_. There is likewise a famous town, where
the worst iron in the kingdom is made, and it is called _Swandlingbar_:
the original of which name I shall explain, lest the antiquaries of
future ages might be at a loss to derive it. It was a most witty conceit
of four gentlemen, who ruined themselves with this iron project. _Sw._
stands for _Swift_,[193] _And_, for _Sanders_, _Ling_ for _Davling_ and
_Bar._ for _Barry_. Methinks I see the four loggerheads sitting in
consult, like _Smectymnuus_, each gravely contributing a part of his own
name, to make up one for their place in the ironwork; and could wish
they had been hanged, as well as undone, for their wit. But I was most
pleased with the denomination of a town-land, which I lately saw in an
advertisement of Pue's paper: "This is to give notice, that the lands of
_Douras, alias_ WHIG-_borough_," &c. Now, this zealous proprietor,
having a mind to record his principles in religion or loyalty to future
ages, within five miles round him, for want of other merit, thought fit
to make use of this expedient: wherein he seems to mistake his account;
for this distinguishing term, whig, had a most infamous original,
denoting a man who favoured the fanatic sect, and an enemy to kings, and
so continued till this idea was a little softened, some years after the
Revolution, and during a part of her late Majesty's reign. After which
it was in disgrace until the Queen's death, since which time it hath
indeed flourished with a witness: But how long will it continue so, in
our variable scene, or what kind of mortal it may describe, is a
question which this courtly landlord is not able to answer; and
therefore he should have set a date on the title of his borough, to let
us know what kind of a creature a whig was in that year of our Lord. I
would readily assist nomenclators of this costive imagination, and
therefore I propose to others of the same size in thinking, that, when
they are at a loss about christening a country-seat, instead of
straining their invention, they would call it _Booby-borough_,
_Fool-brook_, _Puppy-ford_, _Coxcomb-hall_, _Mount-loggerhead_,
_Dunce-hill_; which are innocent appellations, proper to express the
talents of the owners. But I cannot reconcile myself to the prudence
of this lord of WHIG-_borough_, because I have not yet heard, among the
Presbyterian squires, how much soever their persons and principles are
in vogue, that any of them have distinguished their country abode by the
name of _Mount-regicide_, _Covenant-hall_, _Fanatic-hill_,
_Roundhead-bawn_, _Canting-brook_, or _Mont-rebel_, and the like; because
there may probably come a time when those kind of sounds may not be so
grateful to the ears of the kingdom. For I do not conceive it would be a
mark of discretion, upon supposing a gentleman, in allusion to his name,
or the merit of his ancestors, to call his house _Tyburn-hall_.
But the scheme I would propose for changing the denominations of land
into legible and audible syllables, is by employing some gentlemen in
the University; who, by the knowledge of the Latin tongue, and their
judgment in sounds, might imitate the Roman way, by translating those
hideous words into their English meanings, and altering the termination
where a bare translation will not form a good cadence to the ear, or be
easily delivered from the mouth. And, when both those means happen to
fail, then to name the parcels of land from the nature of the soil, or
some peculiar circumstance belonging to it; as, in England, _Farn-ham_,
_Oat-lands_, _Black-heath_, _Corn-bury_, _Rye-gate_, _Ash-burnham_,
_Barn-elms_, _Cole-orton_, _Sand-wich_, and many others.
I am likewise apt to quarrel with some titles of lords among us, that
have a very ungracious sound, which are apt to communicate mean ideas to
those who have not the honour to be acquainted with their persons or
their virtues, of whom I have the misfortune to be one. But I cannot
pardon those gentlemen who have gotten titles since the judicature of
the peers among us has been taken away, to which they all submitted with
a resignation that became good Christians, as undoubtedly they are.
However, since that time, I look upon a graceful harmonious title to be
at least forty _per cent._ in the value intrinsic of an Irish peerage;
and, since it is as cheap as the worst, for any Irish law hitherto
enacted in England to the contrary, I would advise the next set, before
they pass their patents, to call a consultation of scholars and musical
gentlemen, to adjust this most important and essential circumstance. The
Scotch noblemen, though born almost under the north pole, have much more
tunable appellations, except some very few, which I suppose were given
them by the Irish along with their language, at the time when that
kingdom was conquered and planted from hence; and to this day retain the
denominations of places, and surnames of families, as all historians
agree.[194]
I should likewise not be sorry, if the names of some bishops' sees were
so much obliged to the alphabet, that upon pronouncing them we might
contract some veneration for the order and persons of those reverend
peers, which the gross ideas sometimes joined to their titles are very
unjustly apt to diminish.
SPEECH DELIVERED BY DEAN SWIFT
TO AN ASSEMBLY OF MERCHANTS MET AT THE GUILDHALL,
TO DRAW UP A PETITION TO THE LORD LIEUTENANT
ON THE LOWERING OF COIN,
APRIL 24TH, 1736.
NOTE.
Writing to Sheridan, under date April 24th, 1736, in a letter
written partly by herself and partly by Swift, Mrs. Whiteway,
Swift's housekeeper, refers to the occasion of this speech in the
following words:
"The Drapier went this day to the Tholsel[195] as a merchant, to
sign a petition to the government against lowering the gold, where
we hear he made a long speech, for which he will be reckoned a
Jacobite. God send hanging does not go round." (Scott's edition,
vol. xviii., p. 470. 1824.)