Poor Laws. He says, "It must be a matter of astonishment that in a country where the poor are beyond all comparison more liberally provided for than in any other part of the habitable globe there should be found more beggars, more distress and miserable objects than are to be seen throughout all the states of Europe." He quotes, though not to agree with him, the opinion of a Mr Shaw—a forerunner of Mr Bernard Shaw?—which is to this effect: "There are few, if any, nations where the poor are more neglected or in a more scandalous nasty condition than in England, whether this is owing to that natural inbred cruelty for which Englishmen are so much noted amongst foreigners or to that medley of religions which are so plentifully sown and so carefully cherished, amongst us, who think it enough to take care of themselves and take a secret pride and pleasure in the poverty and distresses of those of another persuasion." Fielding, like Defoe, is of opinion that the cause of the evil is to be found in the "improper regulating" of the poor. He says that the second object of the 43rd Elizabeth, namely the employment of those able to work, has never been carried out. "To say the truth, as this law hath been perverted in execution it were perhaps to be wished that it had never been made." Unlike Defoe he believes that it is possible to find work for the poor, though he admits its great difficulty. In a subsequent pamphlet he produced a scheme for the construction of huge workhouses which does not appear to have received any attention from the legislature. Of the existing poor rate he says that it is a question whether the rich or poor are more dissatisfied since " the plunder of the one sends so little to the real advantage of the other, for while a million yearly is raised from the former many of the latter are starved, many more languish on in want and misery." In another
