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There are journeymen shoemakers in London who earn forty pounds

a-year, and there is scarce an industrious workman of any kind in

that metropolis who does not earn more than twenty. This last

sum, indeed, does not exceed what is frequently earned by common

labourers in many country parishes. Whenever the law has

attempted to regulate the wages of workmen, it has always been

rather to lower them than to raise them. But the law has, upon

many occasions, attempted to raise the wages of curates, and, for

the dignity of the church, to oblige the rectors of parishes to

give them more than the wretched maintenance which they

themselves might be willing to accept of.