An act of parliament, abstractedly considered, is a dead matter:  it cannot operate of itself:  like a plaister, it must be applied to the evil, or that evil will remain.  We vainly expect a law to perform the intended work; if it does not, we procure another to make it.  Thus the canal, by one act in 1767, hobbled on, like a man with one leg; but a second, in 1770, furnished a pair.  The lamp act, procured in 1769, was worn to rags, and mended with another in 1773; and this second has been long out of repair, and waits for a third.

We carry the same spirit into our bye-laws, and with the same success.  Schemes have been devised, to oblige every man to pay levies; but it was found difficult to extract money from him who had none.

In 1754, we brought the manufacture of pack-thread into the workhouse, to reduce the levies; the levies increased.  A spirited overseer afterwards, for the same reason, as if poverty was not a sufficient stigma, badged the poor; the levies still increased.

The advance of bread in 1756, induced the officers to step out of the common track, perhaps, out of their knowledge; and, at the expence of half a levy, fit up an apparatus for grinding corn in the house:  thus, by sacrificing half one levy, many would be saved.  However, in the pursuit, many happened to be lost.  In 1761, the apparatus was sold at a farther loss; and the overseers sheltered themselves under the charge of idleness against the paupers.

In 1766, the spinning of mop-yarn was introduced, which might, with attention, have turned to account; but unfortunately, the yarn proved of less value than the wool.

Others, with equal wisdom, were to ease the levies, by feeding a drove of pigs, which, agreeable to their own nature—­ran backwards.—­Renting a piece of ground, by way of garden, which supplied the house with a pennyworth of vegetables, for two-pence, adding a few cows, and a pasture; but as the end of all was loss, the levies increased.

In 1780, two collectors were appointed, at fifty guineas each, which would save the town many a hundred; still the levies increased.

A petition is this sessions presented, for an Act to overturn the whole pauper system (for our heads are as fond of new fashions, in parochial government, as in the hats which cover them) to erect a superb workhouse, at the expence of 10,000_l_. with powers to borrow 15,000_l_. which grand design is to reduce the levies one third.—­The levies will increase.

The reasons openly alledged are, “The Out-pensioners, which cost 7000_l_. a year, are the chief foundation of our public grievances:  that the poor ought to be employed in the house, lest their morals become injured by the shops; which prevents them from being taken into family service; and, the crowded state of the workhouse.”—­But whether the pride of an overseer, in perpetuating his name, is not the pendulum which set the machine in motion?  Or, whether a man, as well as a spider, may not create a place, and, like that—­fill it with himself?