erted in promoting the continuation of the Hu, mane Society, which, though under Royal Patronage, derives very small pecuniary aid from the publick, compared with some Institutions of less importance; nor has the Legislature granted it a farthing; though, as the Doctor once observed to me, there are benefactions recorded in the Journals of the House of Commons for a Veterinary College, to recover horses from diseases *.

Sermons, and an annual dinner, with a procession of those recovered from death by the Society, are substituted to obtain contributions; and I am happy to add, that they have always amounted, with other voluntary gifts, to a sum which has enabled the Governors to render thousands of persons supremely blest by the restoration of their relatives from the relentless grave.

Similar Institutions now existing throughout Europe and America, are strong proofs of the honours due to the founders, Hawes and Coganhonours to be paid by posterity.

A most melancholy circumstance occurred in 1777, which deprived the inhabitants of London of one of the best orators in the cause of benevolence they had ever possessed. The reader must be aware that I allude to the ignominious death of Dr. Dodd, whose conduct cannot but be allowed to have been inconsistent beyond parallel; a

*The worthy Doctor died in December 1808. See a Tribute to his Memory in Gent. Mag. vol, LXXVIII. p. 1121. teacher

teacher of the most exalted benevolence, and one who practised it to the degree he taught; and yet a luxurious spendthrift, and a violator of the penal laws of his country, to support unjustifiable extravagance and splendour of living. When we reflect on the thousands of pounds his exertions have collected, and will yet collect, for the relief of penitent Prostitutes, in the establishment (in conjunction with Mr. Dingley) of the Magdalen hospital, and the Society for the relief of prisoners confined for Small Debts; besides those, the fruits of his preaching on numerous occasions; we cannot but lament that mercy was withheld which a Nation solicited. His was a singular case-but enough--Justice required his life; and Death,' the portion of forgery, closed the scene.

We have now arrived at a period within the recollection of most of my readers; it will not therefore be necessary to notice every Institution existing at present, the result of recent exertion; they are numerous beyond all former example. From the temporary relief afforded during severe winters, and the charities even to passing mendicancy, with that to individuals advertising for assistance, up to the incorporated Societies for constant duration; all are successful, and none more so than the Patriotic Fund, established for relieving and rewarding military and naval sufferings and merit.

Exclusive

Exclusive of the various means, described in the preceding pages, for effecting the great work of alleviating the wants of mankind, there are others of established and permanent operation. I mean, the constant charitable bequests, continued even from the establishment of masses for the repose of the souls of the testators. In those the poor were always remembered; but the Protestant, more disinterested, has long given the whole of his money to the wretched, and required no prayers in return. Were I to collect the items of bequests from the days of Henry VIII. to the present moment, this work would not contain them, and the reader would barely credit the enormous amount: and yet this is independent of the Alms-houses and Hospitals which we meet with in every direction, where many thousands are absolutely supported by the benevolence of those who have very long since paid the debt of

nature,

Such are the effects of the general charity of the Natives of London; such their attempts to smooth the path of life, and to render the person those services which are necessary to maintain its dignity and proportion. I am now compelled to turn from this grateful scene, and to exhibit what has been done by depravity and laxity of manners, to shorten life, and destroy the fine proportions of the Citizen.

CHAP.

CHAP. II.

ANECDOTES OF DEPRAVITY, FROM 1700 TO 1800.

MANKIND may be universally divided into two classes, the honest and dishonest; for I admit of no medium. That those distinctions have existed from the very remotest periods, I believe no one. will deny; therefore it is perfectly natural to suppose, that depraved and idle wretches, who would rather steal the effects of another than labour to acquire property for themselves, have infested London, from the hour in which an hundred persons inhabited it in huts or caverns. How those depredators on Society were treated by the Cits of very very very antient times is not worth enquiry; but that death was often inflicted cannot be doubted; and that might be effected by twenty different methods. Strangulation was certainly used before the time of Henry I. in London: punishment for crimes of inferior magnitude are always

always species of torture; to repeat the probable modes would be far from pleasant.

Whatever may have been the other inventions of the idle to obtain bread, that of begging in all its ramifications was the most antient; the fraternity of mendicants have resisted every attempt to dissolve their body, nor will they vanish till the last day shall remove every living creature from the surface of the earth. After the establishment of Christianity, flocks of Christians determined to devote themselves to the service of the Lord in their way, and work no more; such were some orders of Monks and Friars mendicants! The. monasteries afterwards, acting upon a mistaken idea of charity, gave alms, and fed the poor and idle indiscriminately at their gates: thus a wretch might invigorate his body with the viands of the Abbots and Monks in the day, and pass the night in attacks upon the defenceless traveller, perhaps. often relieved in presence of the depredator by the blind religious.

In vain have the Monarch, the Law, and the Judge, from the days of the Aborigines down to the present moment, exerted their authority and terrors; and I am compelled, for brevity's sake, to confine myself to the disgraceful acts of a single century: To mention the numbers who were condemned at the Old Bailey in 14 years from 1700, will be sufficient, without particularizing their crimes.