at the time of their entering 5s. down with 1s. 4d. per quarter,

  which is to the setting up and support of an office with clerks and

  all proper officers for the same; for there is no maintaining such

  without charge. They receive every one of them a certificate sealed

  by the secretary of the office, and signed by the governors, for the

  articles hereafter mentioned:

  If any one of the women become a widow at any time after six months

  from the date of her subscription, upon due notice given, and claim

  made at the office in form as shall be directed, she shall receive

  within six mouths after such claim made the sum of 500 pounds in

  money without any deductions, saving some small fees to the

  officers, which the trustees must settle, that they may be known.

  In consideration of this, every woman so subscribing obliges herself

  to pay, as often as any member of the society becomes a widow, the

  due proportion or share, allotted to her to pay towards the 500

  pounds for the said widow, provided her share does not exceed the

  sum of 5s.

  No seamen's or soldiers' wives to be accepted into such a proposal

  as this, on the account before mentioned, because the contingencies

  of their lives are not equal to others--unless they will admit this

  general exception, supposing they do not die out of the kingdom.

  It might also be an exception that if the widow that claimed had

  really, bona fide, left her by her husband to her own use, clear of

  all debts and legacies, 2,000 pounds, she should have no claim, the

  intent being to aid the poor, not add to the rich. But there lie a

  great many objections against such an article, as -

  1. It may tempt some to forswear themselves.

  2. People will order their wills so as to defraud the exception.

  One exception must be made, and that is, either very unequal matches

  (as when a woman of nineteen marries an old man of seventy), or

  women who have infirm husbands--I mean, known and publicly so; to

  remedy which two things are to be done:

  1. The office must have moving officers without doors, who shall

  inform themselves of such matters, and if any such circumstances

  appear, the office should have fourteen days' time to return their

  money and declare their subscriptions void.

  2. No woman whose husband had any visible distemper should claim

  under a year after her subscription.

  One grand objection against this proposal is, how you will oblige

  people to pay either their subscription or their quarterage.

  To this I answer, by no compulsion (though that might be performed

  too), but altogether voluntary; only with this argument to move it,

  that if they do not continue their payments, they lose the benefit

  of their past contributions.

  I know it lies as a fair objection against such a project as this,

  that the number of claims are so uncertain that nobody knows what

  they engage in when they subscribe, for so many may die annually out

  of two thousand as may make my payment 20 pounds or 25 pounds per

  annum; and if a woman happen to pay that for twenty years, though

  she receives the 500 pounds at last, she is a great loser; but if

  she dies before her husband, she has lessened his estate

  considerably, and brought a great loss upon him.

  First, I say to this that I would have such a proposal as this be so

  fair and so easy, that if any person who had subscribed found the

  payments too high and the claims fall too often, it should be at

  their liberty at any time, upon notice given, to be released, and

  stand obliged no longer; and, if so, volenti non fit injuria. Every

  one knows best what their own circumstances will bear.

  In the next place, because death is a contingency no man can

  directly calculate, and all that subscribe must take the hazard; yet

  that a prejudice against this notion may not be built on wrong

  grounds, let us examine a little the probable hazard, and see how

  many shall die annually out of 2,000 subscribers, accounting by the

  common proportion of burials to the number of the living.

  Sir William Petty, in his political arithmetic, by a very ingenious

  calculation, brings the account of burials in London to be one in

  forty annually, and proves it by all the proper rules of

  proportioned computation; and I will take my scheme from thence.

  If, then, one in forty of all the people in England die, that

  supposes fifty to die every year out of our two thousand

  subscribers; and for a woman to contribute 5s. to every one, would

  certainly be to agree to pay 12 pounds 10s. per annum. upon her

  husband's life, to receive 500 pounds when he died, and lose it if

  she died first; and yet this would not be a hazard beyond reason too

  great for the gain.

  But I shall offer some reasons to prove this to be impossible in our

  case: first, Sir William Petty allows the city of London to contain

  about a million of people, and our yearly bill of mortality never

  yet amounted to 25,000 in the most sickly years we have had (plague

  years excepted); sometimes but to 20,000, which is but one in fifty.

  Now it is to be considered here that children and ancient people

  make up, one time with another, at least one-third of our bills of

  mortality, and our assurances lie upon none but the middling age of

  the people, which is the only age wherein life is anything steady;

  and if that be allowed, there cannot die by his computation above

  one in eighty of such people every year; but because I would be sure

  to leave room for casualty, I will allow one in fifty shall die out

  of our number subscribed.

  Secondly, it must be allowed that our payments falling due only on

  the death of husbands, this one in fifty must not be reckoned upon

  the two thousand, for it is to be supposed at least as many women

  shall die as men, and then there is nothing to pay; so that one in

  fifty upon one thousand is the most that I can suppose shall claim

  the contribution in a year, which is twenty claims a year at 5s.

  each, and is 5 pounds per annum. And if a woman pays this for

  twenty years, and claims at last, she is gainer enough, and no

  extraordinary loser if she never claims at all. And I verily

  believe any office might undertake to demand at all adventures not

  above 6 pounds per annum, and secure the subscriber 500 pounds in

  case she come to claim as a widow.

  I forbear being more particular on this thought, having occasion to

  be larger in other prints, the experiment being resolved upon by

  some friends who are pleased to think this too useful a project not

  to be put in execution, and therefore I refer the reader to the

  public practice of it.

  I have named these two cases as special experiments of what might be

  done by assurances in way of friendly society; and I believe I

  might, without arrogance, affirm that the same thought might be

  improved into methods that should prevent the general misery and

  poverty of mankind, and at once secure us against beggars, parish

  poor, almshouses, and hospitals; and by which not a creature so

&n
bsp; miserable or so poor but should claim subsistence as their due, and

  not ask it of charity.

  I cannot believe any creature so wretchedly base as to beg of mere

  choice, but either it must proceed from want or sordid prodigious

  covetousness; and thence I affirm there can be no beggar but he

  ought to be either relieved or punished, or both. If a man begs for

  more covetousness without want, it is a baseness of soul so

  extremely sordid as ought to be used with the utmost contempt, and

  punished with the correction due to a dog. If he begs for want,

  that want is procured by slothfulness and idleness, or by accident;

  if the latter, he ought to be relieved; if the former, he ought to

  be punished for the cause, but at the same time relieved also, for

  no man ought to starve, let his crime be what it will.

  I shall proceed, therefore, to a scheme by which all mankind, be he

  never so mean, so poor, so unable, shall gain for himself a just

  claim to a comfortable subsistence whosoever age or casualty shall

  reduce him to a necessity of making use of it. There is a poverty

  so far from being despicable that it is honourable, when a man by

  direct casualty, sudden Providence, and without any procuring of his

  own, is reduced to want relief from others, as by fire, shipwreck,

  loss of limbs, and the like.

  These are sometimes so apparent that they command the charity of

  others; but there are also many families reduced to decay whose

  conditions are not so public, and yet their necessities as great.

  Innumerable circumstances reduce men to want; and pressing poverty

  obliges some people to make their cases public, or starve; and from

  thence came the custom of begging, which sloth and idleness has

  improved into a trade. But the method I propose, thoroughly put in

  practice, would remove the cause, and the effect would cease of

  course.

  Want of consideration is the great reason why people do not provide

  in their youth and strength for old age and sickness; and the

  ensuing proposal is, in short, only this--that all persons in the

  time of their health and youth, while they are able to work and

  spare it, should lay up some small inconsiderable part of their

  gettings as a deposit in safe hands, to lie as a store in bank to

  relieve them, if by age or accident they come to be disabled, or

  incapable to provide for themselves; and that if God so bless them

  that they nor theirs never come to need it, the overplus may be

  employed to relieve such as shall.

  If an office in the same nature with this were appointed in every

  county in England, I doubt not but poverty might easily be

  prevented, and begging wholly suppressed.

  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.

&nbs
p; 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.

  Thus calculated. Per annum.

  100,000 subscribers paying 1d.

  each every quarter Pounds s. d.

  1,666 3 4

  =============

  One-third To the secretary

  per annum and

  three clerks 555 7 9

  Pounds per annum.

  { To a registrar 100 }

  { To a clerk 50 }

  { To four searchers 100 } 550 0 0

  One-third { To a physician 100 }

  { To a surgeon 100 }

  { To four visitors 100 }

  { To ten committee-men, }

  { 5s. each sitting, }

  { twice per week }

  One-third { is 260 }

  to incident{ To a clerk of }

  charges, { committees 50 }

  such as { To a messenger 40 } 560 15 7

  { A house for the office 40 }

  { A house for the }

  { hospital 100 }

  { Contingencies 70 }

  15s. 7d. ==============

  1,666 3 4

  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