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THE PROPOSAL IS FOR A PENSION OFFICE
That an office be erected in some convenient place, where shall be a secretary, a clerk, and a searcher, always attending.
That all sorts of people who are labouring people and of honest repute, of what calling or condition soever, men or women (beggars and soldiers excepted), who, being sound of their limbs and under fifty years of age, shall come to the said office and enter their names, trades, and places of abode into a register to be kept for that purpose, and shall pay down at the time of the said entering the sum of sixpence, and from thence one shilling per quarter, shall every one have an assurance under the seal of the said office for these following conditions:
1. Every such subscriber, if by any casualty (drunkenness and quarrels excepted) they break their limbs, dislocate joints, or are dangerously maimed or bruised, able surgeons appointed for that purpose shall take them into their care, and endeavour their cure gratis.
2. If they are at any time dangerously sick, on notice given to the said office able physicians shall be appointed to visit them, and give their prescriptions gratis.
3. If by sickness or accident, as aforesaid, they lose their limbs or eyes, so as to be visibly disabled to work, and are otherwise poor and unable to provide for themselves, they shall either be cured at the charge of the office, or be allowed a pension for subsistence during life.
4. If they become lame, aged, bedrid, or by real infirmity of body are unable to work, and otherwise incapable to provide for themselves, on proof made that it is really and honestly so they shall be taken into a college or hospital provided for that purpose, and be decently maintained during life.
5. If they are seamen, and die abroad on board the merchants’ ships they were employed in, or are cast away and drowned, or taken and die in slavery, their widows shall receive a pension during their widowhood.
6. If they were tradesmen and paid the parish rates, if by decay and failure of trade they break and are put in prison for debt, they shall receive a pension for subsistence during close imprisonment.
7. If by sickness or accidents they are reduced to extremities of poverty for a season, on a true representation to the office they shall be relieved as the governors shall see cause.
It is to be noted that in the fourth article such as by sickness and age are disabled from work, and poor, shall be taken into the house and provided for; whereas in the third article they who are blind or have lost limbs, &c., shall have pensions allowed them.
The reason of this difference is this:
A poor man or woman that has lost his hand, or leg, or sight, is visibly disabled, and we cannot be deceived; whereas other infirmities are not so easily judged of, and everybody would be claiming a pension, when but few will demand being taken into a hospital but such as are really in want.
And that this might be managed with such care and candour as a design which carries so good a face ought to be, I propose the following method for putting it into practice:
I suppose every undertaking of such a magnitude must have some principal agent to push it forward, who must manage and direct everything, always with direction of the governors.
And first I will suppose one general office erected for the great parishes of Stepney and Whitechapel; and as I shall lay down afterwards some methods to oblige all people to come in and subscribe, so I may be allowed to suppose here that all the inhabitants of those two large parishes (the meaner labouring sort, I mean) should enter their names, and that the number of them should be 100,000, as I believe they would be at least.
First, there should be named fifty of the principal inhabitants of the said parishes (of which the church-wardens for the time being, and all the justices of the peace dwelling in the bounds of the said parish, and the ministers resident for the time being, to be part) to be governors of the said office.
The said fifty to be first nominated by the Lord Mayor of London for the time being, and every vacancy to be supplied in ten days at farthest by the majority of voices of the rest.
The fifty to choose a committee of eleven, to sit twice a week, of whom three to be a quorum; with a chief governor, a deputy-governor, and a treasurer.
In the office, a secretary with clerks of his own, a registrar and two clerks, four searchers, a messenger (one in daily attendance under salary), a physician, a surgeon, and four visitors.
In the hospital, more or less (according to the number of people entertained), a housekeeper, a steward, nurses, a porter, and a chaplain.
For the support of this office, and that the deposit money might go to none but the persons and uses for whom it is paid, and that it might not be said officers and salaries was the chief end of the undertaking (as in many a project it has been), I propose that the manager or undertaker, whom I mentioned before, be the secretary, who shall have a clerk allowed him, whose business it shall be to keep the register, take the entries, and give out the tickets (sealed by the governors and signed by himself), and to enter always the payment of quarterage of every subscriber. And that there may be no fraud or connivance, and too great trust be not reposed in the said secretary, every subscriber who brings his quarterage is to put it into a great chest, locked up with eleven locks, every member of the committee to keep a key, so that it cannot be opened but in the presence of them all; and every time a subscriber pays his quarterage, the secretary shall give him a sealed ticket thus [Christmas 96] which shall be allowed as the receipt of quarterage for that quarter.
Note. – The reason why every subscriber shall take a receipt or ticket for his quarterage is because this must be the standing law of the office – that if any subscribers fail to pay their quarterage, they shall never claim after it until double so much be paid, nor not at all that quarter, whatever befalls them.
The secretary should be allowed to have 2d. for every ticket of entry he gives out, and ld. for every receipt he gives for quarterage, to be accounted for as follows:
One-third to himself in lieu of salary, he being to pay three clerks out of it.
One-third to the clerks and other officers among them.
And one-third to defray the incident charge of the office.
All the charge being thus paid out of such a trifle as ld. per quarter, the next consideration is to examine what the incomes of this subscription may be, and in time what may be the demands upon it.
Note. – Any persons may pay 2s. up to 5s. quarterly, if they please, and upon a claim will be allowed in proportion.
To assign what shall be the charge upon this, where contingency has so great a share, is not to be done; but by way of political arithmetic a probable guess may be made.
It is to be noted that the pensions I propose to be paid to persons claiming by the third, fifth, and sixth articles are thus: every person who paid 1s. quarterly shall receive 12d. weekly, and so in proportion every 12d. paid quarterly by any one person to receive so many shillings weekly, if they come to claim a pension.
The first year no claim is allowed; so the bank has in stock completely £22,500. From thence we are to consider the number of claims.
Sir William Petty, in his “Political Arithmetic,” supposes not above one in forty to die per annum out of the whole number of people; and I can by no means allow that the circumstances of our claims will be as frequent as death, for these reasons:
1. Our subscriptions respect all persons grown and in the prime of their age; past the first, and providing against the last, part of danger (Sir William’s account including children and old people, which always make up one-third of the bills of mortality).
2. Our claims will fall thin at first for several years; and let but the money increase for ten years, as it does in the account for three years, it would be almost sufficient to maintain the whole number.
3. Allow that casualty and poverty are our debtor side; health, prosperity, and death are the creditor side of the account; and in all probable accounts those three articles will carry off three fourth-parts of the number, as follows: If one in forty shall die annually (as no doubt they shall, and more), that is 2,500 a year, which in twenty years is 50,000 of the number; I hope I may be allowed one-third to be out of condition to claim, apparently living without the help of charity, and one third in health and body, and able to work; which, put together, make 83,332; so it leaves 16,668 to make claims of charity and pensions in the first twenty years, and one-half of them must, according to Sir William Petty, die on our hands in twenty years; so there remains but 8,334.
But to put it out of doubt, beyond the proportion to be guessed at, I will allow they shall fall thus:
The first year, we are to note, none can claim; and the second year the number must be very few, but increasing: wherefore I suppose
To carry on the calculation.
By this computation the stock is increased above the charge in five years £89,379 15s. 6d.; and yet here are sundry articles to be considered on both sides of the account that will necessarily increase the stock and diminish the charge:
Besides this, the interest of the quarterage, which is supposed in the former account to lie dead till the year is out, which cast up from quarter to quarter, allowing it to be put out quarterly, as it may well be, amounts to, by computation for five years, £5,250.
From the fifth year, as near as can be computed, the number of pensioners being so great, I make no doubt but they shall die off the hands of the undertaker as fast as they shall fall in, excepting, so much difference as the payment of every year, which the interest of the stock shall supply.
For example:
This also is to be allowed – that all those persons who are kept by the office in the house shall have employment provided for them, whereby no persons shall be kept idle, the works to be suited to every one’s capacity without rigour, only some distinction to those who are most willing to work; the profits of the said work to the stock of the house.
Besides this, there may great and very profitable methods be found out to improve the stock beyond the settled interest of 7 per cent., which perhaps may not always be to be had, for the Exchequer is not always borrowing money; but a bank of £80,000, employed by faithful hands, need not want opportunities of great, and very considerable improvement.
Also it would be a very good object for persons who die rich to leave legacies to, which in time might be very well supposed to raise a standing revenue to it.
I will not say but various contingencies may alter the charge of this undertaking, and swell the claims beyond proportion further than I extend it; but all that, and much more, is sufficiently answered in the calculations by above £80,000 in stock to provide for it.
As to the calculation being made on a vast number of subscribers, and more than, perhaps, will be allowed likely to subscribe, I think the proportion may hold good in a few as well as in a great many; and perhaps if 20,000 subscribed, it might be as effectual. I am indeed willing to think all men should have sense enough to see the usefulness of such a design, and be persuaded by their interest to engage in it; but some men have less prudence than brutes, and will make no provision against age till it comes; and to deal with such, two ways might be used by authority to compel them.
1. The churchwardens and justices of peace should send the beadle of the parish, with an officer belonging to this office, about to the poorer parishioners to tell them that, since such honourable provision is made for them to secure themselves in old age from poverty and distress, they should expect no relief from the parish if they refused to enter themselves, and by sparing so small a part of their earnings to prevent future misery.
2. The churchwardens of every parish might refuse the removal of persons and families into their parish but upon their having entered into this office.
3. All persons should be publicly desired to forbear giving anything to beggars, and all common beggars suppressed after a certain time; for this would effectually suppress beggary at last.
And, to oblige the parishes to do this on behalf of such a project, the governor of the house should secure the parish against all charges coming upon them from any person who did subscribe and pay the quarterage, and that would most certainly oblige any parish to endeavour that all the labouring meaner people in the parish should enter their names; for in time it would most certainly take all the poor in the parish off of their hands.
I know that by law no parish can refuse to relieve any person or family fallen into distress; and therefore to send them word they must expect no relief, would seem a vain threatening. But thus far the parish may do: they shall be esteemed as persons who deserve no relief, and shall be used accordingly; for who indeed would ever pity that man in his distress who at the expense of two pots of beer a month might have prevented it, and would not spare it?
As to my calculations, on which I do not depend either, I say this: if they are probable, and that in five years’ time a subscription of a hundred thousand persons would have £87,537 19s. 6d. in cash, all charges paid, I desire any one but to reflect what will not such a sum do. For instance, were it laid out in the Million Lottery tickets, which are now sold at £6 each, and bring in £1 per annum for fifteen years, every £1,000 so laid out pays back in time £2,500, and that time would be as fast as it would be wanted, and therefore be as good as money; or if laid out in improving rents, as ground-rents with buildings to devolve in time, there is no question but a revenue would be raised in time to maintain one-third part of the number of subscribers, if they should come to claim charity.
And I desire any man to consider the present state of this kingdom, and tell me, if all the people of England, old and young, rich and poor, were to pay into one common bank 4s. per annum a head, and that 4s. duly and honestly managed, whether the overplus paid by those who die off, and by those who never come to want, would not in all probability maintain all that should be poor, and for ever banish beggary and poverty out of the kingdom.
OF WAGERING
Wagering, as now practised by politics and contracts, is become a branch of assurances; it was before more properly a part of gaming, and as it deserved, had but a very low esteem; but shifting sides, and the war providing proper subjects, as the contingencies of sieges, battles, treaties, and campaigns, it increased to an extraordinary reputation, and offices were erected on purpose which managed it to a strange degree and with great advantage, especially to the office-keepers; so that, as has been computed, there was not less gaged on one side and other, upon the second siege of Limerick, than two hundred thousand pounds.
How it is managed, and by what trick and artifice it became a trade, and how insensibly men were drawn into it, an easy account may be given.
I believe novelty was the first wheel that set it on work, and I need make no reflection upon the power of that charm: it was wholly a new thing, at least upon the Exchange of London; and the first occasion that gave it a room among public discourse, was some persons forming wagers on the return and success of King James, for which the Government took occasion to use them as they deserved.
I have heard a bookseller in King James’s time say, “That if he would have a book sell, he would have it burnt by the hand of the common hangman;” the man, no doubt, valued his profit above his reputation; but people are so addicted to prosecute a thing that seems forbid, that this very practice seemed to be encouraged by its being contraband.
The trade increased, and first on the Exchange and then in coffee-houses it got life, till the brokers, those vermin of trade, got hold of it, and then particular offices were set apart for it, and an incredible resort thither was to be seen every day.
These offices had not been long in being, but they were thronged with sharpers and setters as much as the groom-porters, or any gaming-ordinary in town, where a man had nothing to do but to make a good figure and prepare the keeper of the office to give him a credit as a good man, and though he had not a groat to pay, he should take guineas and sign polities, till he had received, perhaps, £300 or £400 in money, on condition to pay great odds, and then success tries the man; if he wins his fortune is made; if not, he’s a better man than he was before by just so much money, for as to the debt, he is your humble servant in the Temple or Whitehall.
But besides those who are but the thieves of the trade, there is a method as effectual to get money as possible, managed with more appearing honesty, but no less art, by which the wagerer, in confederacy with the office-keeper, shall lay vast sums, great odds, and yet be always sure to win.
For example: A town in Flanders, or elsewhere, during the war is besieged; perhaps at the beginning of the siege the defence is vigorous, and relief probable, and it is the opinion of most people the town will hold out so long, or perhaps not be taken at all: the wagerer has two or three more of his sort in conjunction, of which always the office-keeper is one; and they run down all discourse of the taking the town, and offer great odds it shall not be taken by such a day. Perhaps this goes on a week, and then the scale turns; and though they seem to hold the same opinion still, yet underhand the office-keeper has orders to take all the odds which by their example was before given against the taking the town; and so all their first-given odds are easily secured, and yet the people brought into a vein of betting against the siege of the town too. Then they order all the odds to be taken as long as they will run, while they themselves openly give odds, and sign polities, and oftentimes take their own money, till they have received perhaps double what they at first laid. Then they turn the scale at once, and cry down the town, and lay that it shall be taken, till the length of the first odds is fully run; and by this manage, if the town be taken they win perhaps two or three thousand pounds, and if it be not taken, they are no losers neither.
It is visible by experience, not one town in ten is besieged but it is taken. The art of war is so improved, and our generals are so wary, that an army seldom attempts a siege, but when they are almost sure to go on with it; and no town can hold out if a relief cannot be had from abroad.
Now, if I can by first laying £500 to £200 with A, that the town shall not be taken, wheedle in B to lay me £5,000 to £2,000 of the same; and after that, by bringing down the vogue of the siege, reduce the wagers to even-hand, and lay £2,000 with C that the town shall not be taken; by this method, it is plain —
If the town be not taken, I win £2,200 and lose £2,000.
If the town be taken, I win £5,000 and lose £2,500.
This is gaming by rule, and in such a knot it is impossible to lose; for if it is in any man’s or company of men’s power, by any artifice to alter the odds, it is in their power to command the money out of every man’s pocket, who has no more wit than to venture.
OF FOOLS
Of all persons who are objects of our charity, none move my compassion like those whom it has pleased God to leave in a full state health and strength, but deprived of reason to act for themselves. And it is, in my opinion, one of the greatest scandals upon the understanding of others to mock at those who want it. Upon this account I think the hospital we call Bedlam to be a noble foundation, a visible instance of the sense our ancestors had of the greatest unhappiness which can befall humankind; since as the soul in man distinguishes him from a brute, so where the soul is dead (for so it is as to acting) no brute so much a beast as a man. But since never to have it, and to have lost it, are synonymous in the effect, I wonder how it came to pass that in the settlement of that hospital they made no provision for persons born without the use of their reason, such as we call fools, or, more properly, naturals.
We use such in England with the last contempt, which I think is a strange error, since though they are useless to the commonwealth, they are only so by God’s direct providence, and no previous fault.
I think it would very well become this wise age to take care of such; and perhaps they are a particular rent-charge on the great family of mankind, left by the Maker of us all, like a younger brother, who though the estate be given from him, yet his father expected the heir should take some care of him.
If I were to be asked, Who ought in particular to be charged with this work? I would answer in general those who have a portion of understanding extraordinary. Not that I would lay a tax upon any man’s brains, or discourage wit by appointing wise men to maintain fools; but, some tribute is due to God’s goodness for bestowing extraordinary gifts; and who can it be better paid to than such as suffer for want of the same bounty?
For the providing, therefore, some subsistence for such that natural defects may not be exposed:
It is proposed that a fool-house be erected, either by public authority, or by the city, or by an Act of Parliament, into which all that are naturals or born fools, without respect or distinction, should be admitted and maintained.
For the maintenance of this, a small stated contribution, settled by the authority of an Act of Parliament, without any damage to the persons paying the same, might be very easily raised by a tax upon learning, to be paid by the authors of books:
Reprinted copies the same rates.
This tax to be paid into the Chamber of London for the space of twenty years, would, without question, raise a fund sufficient to build and purchase a settlement for this house.
I suppose this little tax being to be raised at so few places as the printing-presses, or the licensers of books, and consequently the charge but very small in gathering, might bring in about £1,500 per annum for the term of twenty years, which would perform the work to the degree following:
The house should be plain and decent (for I don’t think the ostentation of buildings necessary or suitable to works of charity), and be built somewhere out of town for the sake of the air.
The building to cost about £1,000, or, if the revenue exceed, to cost £2,000 at most, and the salaries mean in proportion.
Here I suppose £1,500 per annum revenue, to be settled upon the house, which, it is very probable might be raised from the tax aforesaid. But since an Act of Parliament is necessary to be had for the collecting this duty, and that taxes for keeping of fools would be difficultly obtained, while they are so much wanted for wise men, I would propose to raise the money by voluntary charity, which would be a work that would leave more honour to the undertakers than feasts and great shows, which our public bodies too much diminish their stocks with.
But to pass all suppositious ways, which are easily thought of, but hardly procured, I propose to maintain fools out of our own folly. And whereas a great deal of money has been thrown about in lotteries, the following proposal would very easily perfect our work.
