Numb. 210.
P.P. London
THE
Moderate Intelligencer:
Impartially communicating Martiall
Affairs to the KINGDOM of
ENGLAND.
From Thursday, March 22. to Thursday March 29. 1649.
THere's much more requisite to set poor on work then encouraging
the rich and middle sort, by affording the first honour
and trust, the latter case and peace: And first, care must be
had to afford the poor a full employment all the yeare, and
cut off such livelyhood as gives them food in the Sommer, and
little or none in the Winter, which is condition of many
hundreds of thousands in England, yet such is the conceit of
many to potition the Parl for such accommodations for theme
This experience hath and doth tell, that men and women are
apt to quiesce, of left to themselves, so much as will maintain the poorest life, whereas
the Brute will seeke out the best accommodation for it selfe, this must not be understood
of the beggar onely (or the name more proper Englands shame) who live better
then the other, though both barely and idlely, but of those who choose rather to starve
then beg' and truly both at this time swarm more then ever, the first by reason of the
scarcenesse and deernesse of commodities, insomuch that a third part of the people of
most Parishes, stand in need of reliefe, who before did not receive unlesse under some
heavie afsliction of sicknesse or losse, this might have been prevented, and hereafter may,
and many kept alive, who are, and are like, before harvest to be at deaths doore, or dead,
for want of food: that this is Probable; know, that very many thousand families have
no worke, and those who have, can hardly by their labour get head
onely: for the other,