If you were to take him up by the heels and shake him
for a week, you couldn't shake sixpence out of him. How can he keep
him? It appears to me the poor buy the poor here, and that they all
starve together.' Says I, 'there was a very good man once lived to
Liverpool, so good, he said he hadn't sinned for seven years; well
he put a mill-dam across the river, and stopped all the fish from
goin' up, and the court fined him fifty pounds for it, and this
good man was so wrathy, he thought he should feel better to swear
a little, but conscience told him it was wicked. So he compounded
with conscience, and cheated the devil, by callin' it a "dam fine
business." Now, friend Porter, if this is your poor law, it is a
damn poor law, I tell you, and no good can come of such hard-hearted
doin's. It's no wonder your country don't prosper, for who ever heerd
of a blessin' on such carryins on as this?' Says I, 'Did you ever
hear tell of a sartin rich man, that had a beggar called Lazarus laid
at his gate, and how the dogs had more compassion than he had, and
came and licked his sores? 'cause if you have, look at that forehanded
and 'sponsible man there, deacon Westfall, and you see the rich man.
And then look at that 'ere pauper, dragged away in that ox-cart from
his wife for ever, like a feller to States' Prison, and you see
Lazarus.
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