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But it would be otherwise in a country where the funds destined

for the maintenance of labour were sensibly decaying. Every year

the demand for servants and labourers would, in all the different

classes of employments, be less than it had been the year before.

Many who had been bred in the superior classes, not being able to

find employment in their own business, would be glad to seek it

in the lowest. The lowest class being not only overstocked with

its own workmen, but with the overflowings of all the other

classes, the competition for employment would be so great in it,

as to reduce the wages of labour to the most miserable and scanty

subsistence of the labourer. Many would not be able to find

employment even upon these hard terms, but would either starve,

or be driven to seek a subsistence, either by begging, or by the

perpetration perhaps, of the greatest enormities.