After the poor abandoned woman came five or six tall vigorous men. They were in the flower of youth; they had an air or almost insulting firmness. They complained that the administrators of their community refused to give them work, or, if no work was available, benefits.
Lord X, whom I accompanied, told me, "You have just seen a small sample of some of the numerous abuses caused by the Poor Laws. This old man who came forward first probably has enough to live on, but he thinks he has the right to demand that one support him in comfort, and he does not blush to ask for public charity, which has lost its painful and humiliating stigma among the people. That young woman, who looks honest and unhappy, would certainly be helped by her father-in-law if the Poor Laws did not exist, but interest silences in the latter the cry of shame and he unloads onto the public a debt that he himself should discharge. As for the youths who came forward last, I know them; they live in my village: they are very dangerous citizens, delinquents in fact; they will dissipate in a few moments the money they earn because they know that the State will come to their aid; so you see that the at the first difficulty, which was their own fault, they came to us."
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