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mine, not only after it has ceased to be his, but almost as soon as
commences so to be. I think there were to have been eight Penitentiary
houses in the whole kingdom. I thus get his success in all the eight
paying for it only in the one, and in that not more than it was necessary
to pay for it.
+
X
+ But, "Contractors," you
will say, perhaps, at
least if you don't, there others
are enough that will, are
a good for nothing set
of people: and why should
"we be fleeced by them:
"One of them perjured
"himself not long ago, and
"we put him into the
"pillory. They are the same
"sort of gentry that are
"called Farmers General
" in France, and Publicans
"in the Gospel, where they
"are ranked with sinners
"and nobody likes them
"any where." All this to
be sure is very true. But,
if you put one of them into
the pillory, you put
another of them into the
Post-Office: and if in the
devoted city, five righteous
would have screened the
whole gang from the
perdition called for by the
enormities of ninety five
unrighteous, why should
not the merits of a Palmer
be enough to make up for
the demerits of a whole
tribe of Atkinsons.
Gentlemen in general, as I
have had manifold occasion
to observe, love close
reasoning, and here they
have it. It might be
thought straying from
the point, if I ventured
to add, that Gentlemen in
the corn trade, or in any
other trade, have not
commonly quite so many
witnesses to their bargains,
as my Contractor would
have to the management
of his house. X
If not dele
at least shod be
in some aspects
altered
Letter 10th
In my last I troubled you with my sentiments on the durat
of the first contract, and the great article of publicity in the management,
which was my motive for admitting of a duration so unlimit.
But long before my Contractor and I had come to any settlement ab
these points, he would have found various questions to propose to me.
thing he would not fail to say to me is — "What trades may I put my
"men to when I have got them?" My answer is soon given — Any
whatever that you have a mind to and that you can persuade them
engage in. Now consider turn their hands to. Now, Sir, let us think for a moment, if you please, what trades
most may be most for his advantage to put them to, and what it is therefor
most likely he should be disposed to put them to.
That he may get a the better view of them, I first throw draw them
four classes. In the first I place those, who already are possessed of business
capable of being carried on with advantage in the prison: In the
those trained up to businesses, capable of being carried on with
advantage which, though not capable in themselves of being carried on
within such limits, yet, by the similarity of operation, have a tende
to render it more or less easy for a man to learn some of those other
businesses which are. In the third rank, I would place such as had been
trained up indeed to industry, but to branches which have no such
tendency as I have just mentioned: such for as instance as Porters, Coal-heavers,
Gardeners and Husbandmen. In the last I would place Gentlemen
brought up to the profession of thieving, and other Gentlemen who are too
so to have ever been brought up to any kind of industry. Some
for these different classes I may as well endeavor to find as not:
names they must have when they get into their house, and if I perform
not that business myself, somebody else must do it for me. I will call
them the good hands, the capable hands, the promising hands, and the drones. and the raw hands. The
capable hands will of course be the more valuable, the nearer the
businesses they they understand approach to those of the good ones; in other
words, the less difficulty there would be in teaching the latter the
businesses of the former. The same observation of course applies to the
promising hands: in as far as the advantage, which the one possess
habit, the others may appear to possess by disposition. Lower down
in the scale of detail I will not attempt to lead you.
You have a very pretty law in England, for enriching the country,
by keeping boys backward, and preventing men every man from
following the trades they could get most by. If I was jealous of Prussia's
getting too rich, and being able to buy too many of our goods, I would try
to get that such a law, as that introduced among these stupid People here, who have never
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