The Querist Part 10

164. Qu. Whether men's counsels are not the result of their knowledge and their principles?

165. Qu. Whether an a.s.sembly of freethinkers, pet.i.t maitres, and smart Fellows would not make an admirable Senate?

166. Qu. Whether there be not labour of the brains as well as of the hands, and whether the former is beneath a gentleman?

167. Qu. Whether the public be more interested to protect the property acquired by mere birth than that which is the Mediate fruit of learning and vertue?

168. Qu. Whether it would not be a poor and ill-judged project to attempt to promote the good of the community, by invading the rights of one part thereof, or of one particular order of men?

169. Qu. Whether the public happiness be not proposed by the legislature, and whether such happiness doth not contain that of the individuals?

170. Qu. Whether, therefore, a legislator should be content with a vulgar share of knowledge? Whether he should not be a person of reflexion and thought, who hath made it his study to understand the true nature and interest of mankind, how to guide men's humours and pa.s.sions, how to incite their active powers, how to make their several talents co-operate to the mutual benefit of each other, and the general good of the whole?

171. Qu. Whether it doth not follow that above all things a gentleman's care should be to keep his own faculties sound and entire?

172. Qu. Whether the natural phlegm of this island needs any additional stupefier?

173. Qu. Whether all spirituous liquors are not in truth opiates?

174. Qu. Whether our men of business are not generally very grave by fifty?

175. Qu. Whether there be really among us any parents so silly, as to encourage drinking in their children?

176. Qu. Whence it is, that our ladies are more alive, and bear age so much better than our gentlemen?

177. Qu. Whether all men have not faculties of mind or body which may be employed for the public benefit?

178. Qu. Whether the main point be not to multiply and employ our people?

179. Qu. Whether hearty food and warm clothing would not enable and encourage the lower sort to labour?

180. Qu. Whether, in such a soil as ours, if there was industry, there could be want?

181. Qu. Whether the way to make men industrious be not to let them taste the fruits of their industry? And whether the labouring ox should be muzzled?

182. Qu. Whether our landlords are to be told that industry and numbers would raise the value of their lands, or that one acre about the Tholsel is worth ten thousand acres in Connaught?

183. Qu. Whether our old native Irish are not the most indolent and supine people in Christendom?

184. Qu. Whether they are yet civilized, and whether their habitations and furniture are not more sordid than those of the savage Americans?

185. Qu. Whether this be altogether their own fault?

186. Qu. Whether it be not a sad circ.u.mstance to live among lazy beggars? And whether, on the other hand, it would not be delightful to live in a country swarming, like China, with busy people?

187. Qu. Whether we should not cast about, by all manner of means, to excite industry, and to remove whatever hinders it? And whether every one should not lend a helping hand?

188. Qu. Whether vanity itself should not be engaged in this good work? And whether it is not to be wished that the finding of employment for themselves and others were a fas.h.i.+onable distinction among the ladies?

189. Qu. Whether idleness be the mother or the daughter of spleen?

190. Qu. Whether it may not be worth while to publish the conversation of Ischomachus and his wife in Xenophon, for the use of our ladies?

191. Qu. Whether it is true that there have been, upon a time, one hundred millions of people employed in China, without the woollen trade, or any foreign commerce?

192. Qu. Whether the natural inducements to sloth are not greater in the Mogul's country than in Ireland, and yet whether, in that suffocating and dispiriting climate, the Banyans are not all, men, women, and children, constantly employed?

193. Qu. Whether it be not true that the great Mogul's subjects might undersell us even in our own markets, and clothe our people with their stuffs and calicoes, if they were imported duty free?

194. Qu. Whether there can be a greater reproach on the leading men and the patriots of a country, than that the people should want employment? And whether methods may not be found to employ even the lame and the blind, the dumb, the deaf, and the maimed, in some or other branch of our manufactures?

195. Qu. Whether much may not be expected from a biennial consultation of so many wise men about the public good?

196. Qu. Whether a tax upon dirt would not be one way of encouraging industry?

197. Qu. Whether it may not be right to appoint censors in every parish to observe and make returns of the idle hands?

198. Qu. Whether a register or history of the idleness and industry of a people would be an useless thing?

199. Qu. Whether we are apprized, of all the uses that may be made of political arithmetic?

200. Qu. Whether it would be a great hards.h.i.+p if every parish were obliged to find work for their poor?

201. Qu. Whether children especially should not be inured to labour betimes?

202. Qu. Whether there should not be erected, in each province, an hospital for orphans and foundlings, at the expense of old bachelors?

203. Qu. Whether it be true that in the Dutch workhouses things are so managed that a child four years old may earn its own livelihood?

204. Qu. What a folly is it to build fine houses, or establish lucrative posts and large incomes, under the notion of providing for the poor?

205. Qu. Whether the poor, grown up and in health, need any other provision but their own industry, under public inspection?

206. Qu. Whether the poor-tax in England hath lessened or increased the number of the poor?

207. Qu. Why the workhouse in Dublin, with so good an endowment, should yet be of so little use? and whether this may not be owing to that very endowment?

208. Qu. Whether that income might not, by this time, have gone through the whole kingdom, and erected a dozen workhouses in every county?

209. Qu. Whether workhouses should not be made at the least expense, with clay floors, and walls of rough stone, without plastering, ceiling, or glazing?

210. Qu. Whether the tax on chairs or hackney coaches be not paid, rather by the country gentlemen, than the citizens of Dublin?

211. Qu. Whether it be an impossible attempt to set our people at work, or whether industry be a habit which, like other habits, may by time and skill be introduced among any people?

212. Qu. Whether all manner of means should not be employed to possess the nation in general with an aversion and contempt for idleness and all idle folk?

213. Qu. Whether it would be a hards.h.i.+p on people dest.i.tute of all things, if the public furnished them with necessaries which they should be obliged to earn by their labour?