The present text is based on the original edition of 1737 collated with that given by Sir Walter Scott.
A PROPOSAL FOR GIVING BADGES
TO THE BEGGARS IN ALL THE
PARISHES OF DUBLIN.
It hath been a general complaint, that the poor-house, especially since the new Constitution by Act of Parliament, hath been of no benefit to this city, for the ease of which it was wholly intended. I had the honour to be a member of it many years before it was new modelled by the legislature, not from any personal regard, but merely as one of the two deans, who are of course put into most commissions that relate to the city; and I have likewise the honour to have been left out of several commissions upon the score of party, in which my predecessors, time out of mind, have always been members.
The first commission was made up of about fifty persons, which were the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Sheriffs, and some few other citizens; the Judges, the two Archbishops, the two Deans of the city, and one or two more gentlemen. And I must confess my opinion, that the dissolving the old commission, and establishing a new one of nearly three times the number, have been the great cause of rendering so good a design not only useless, but a grievance instead of a benefit to the city. In the present commission all the city clergy are included, besides a great number of 'squires, not only those who reside in Dublin, and the neighbourhood, but several who live at a great distance, and cannot possibly have the least concern for the advantage of the city.
At the few general meetings that I have attended since the new Establishment, I observed very little was done, except one or two Acts of extreme justice, which I then thought might as well have been spared: and I have found the Court of Assistants usually taken up in little brangles about coachmen, or adjusting accounts of meal and small beer; which, however necessary, might sometimes have given place to matters of much greater moment, I mean some schemes recommended to the General Board, for answering the chief ends in erecting and establishing such a poor-house, and endowing it with so considerable a revenue: and the principal end I take to have been that of maintaining the poor and orphans of the city, where the parishes are not able to do it; and clearing the streets from all strollers, foreigners, and sturdy beggars, with which, to the universal complaint and admiration, Dublin is more infested since the Establishment of the poor-house, than it was ever known to be since its first erection.
As the whole fund for supporting this hospital is raised only from the inhabitants of the city, so there can be hardly any thing more absurd, than to see it mis-employed in maintaining foreign beggars and bastards, or orphans, whose country landlords never contributed one shilling towards their support. I would engage, that half this revenue, if employed with common care, and no very great degree of common honesty, would maintain all the real objects of charity in this city, except a small number of original poor in every parish, who might, without being burthensome to the parishioners, find a tolerable support.
I have for some years past applied myself to several Lord Mayors, and to the late Archbishop of Dublin[189], for a remedy to this evil of foreign beggars; and they all appeared ready to receive a very plain proposal, I mean, that of badging the original poor of every parish, who begged in the streets;[190] that the said beggars should be confined to their own parishes; that, they should wear their badges well sewn upon one of their shoulders, always visible, on pain of being whipped and turned out of town; or whatever legal punishment may be thought proper and effectual. But, by the wrong way of thinking in some clergymen, and the indifference of others, this method was perpetually defeated, to their own continual disquiet, which they do not ill deserve; and if the grievance affected only them, it would be of less consequence, because the remedy is in their own power. But all street-walkers, and shopkeepers bear an equal share in this hourly vexation.