It is a melancholy object to those, who walk through this great town, or travel in the country, when they see the streets, the roads andcabbin-doors crowded with beggars of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags, and importuning every passenger foran alms. These mothers instead of being able to work for their honestlivelihood, are forced to employ all their time in stroling to begsustenance for their helpless infants who, as they grow up, either turnthieves for want of work, or leave their dear native country, to fightfor the Pretender in Spain, or sell themselves to the Barbadoes.I think it is agreed by all parties, that this prodigious number ofchildren in the arms, or on the backs, or at the heels of their mothers, and frequently of their fathers, is in the present deplorable state ofthe kingdom, a very great additional grievance; and therefore whoevercould find out a fair, cheap and easy method of making these childrensound and useful members of the common-wealth, would deserve so well ofthe publick, as to have his statue set up for a preserver of the nation.But my intention is very far from being confined to provide only for thechildren of professed beggars: it is of a much greater extent, and shalltake in the whole number of infants at a certain age, who are born ofparents in effect as little able to support them, as those who demandour charity in the streets. As to my own part, having turned my thoughts for many years, upon thisimportant subject, and maturely weighed the several schemes ofour projectors, I have always found them grossly mistaken in theircomputation. It is true, a child just dropt from its dam, may besupported by her milk, for a solar year, with little other nourishment: at most not above the value of two shillings, which the mother maycertainly get, or the value in scraps, by her lawful occupation ofbegging; and it is exactly at one year old that I propose to provide forthem in such a manner, as, instead of being a charge upon their parents, or the parish, or wanting food and raiment for the rest of their lives, they shall, on the co