1 805.) MSCEI ANE, 133

whom all Subscriptions are to be paid, and on whom the Committee Shall draw for all necessary expences.

(Signed) JOHN WARDE, Chairman.

That the Thanks of this Meeting be given to John Warde, Esq. for his willingness in taking the chair, and his candid and impartial conduct therein.

.====zzzzauiſtimeeemmemmuoomom AN ACCOUNT OF THE HOUSES OF INDUSTRY IN FLANDERS.

At Strasbyrgh, and in mozst of the great towns throughout Flanders, houses of industry are established, with a view to exturpate idleness, beggary, and vagabonds. These workhouses are, in every respect, master-pieces of moral and political egonomy.

In one of the larged of the Suppressed convents, they have fixed in the kitchen a kiln to prepare cheap soups.. In the rooms ofthe ground-floor are Set up looms for weaving. In the galleries and Sleep» ing rooms are placed wheels and machines for SpiNDING, and, where the size will admit it, they form eating rooms, and rezerve a Part for Chambers, in which<ome Slight works, Such as plaiting of straw, and making hats, may be performed; or for correction.

Ateight in the morning the gates are opened, and there enter men and women of every age, who have no work in the town; mothers with their families; Servants out of place; labourers who have no master; and children, whose fathers and mothers, begause of. the labours necessary for their Sübsistence, cannot have an eye over them. After this voluntary entrance, the police officers. traverse the town, and Send every beggar and idle pers6n they meet with to the house of industry.;

As they pass over the threshold of the door, an account is taken of them for a share in the distribution of the Soup, bread, and water. There is no need of Strength or talent to give a right to this barely Receszary retreshment, but afterwards Every person who is able is put to work, and receives wages and an augmentation of food. His pay is „Proportioned to his CaPpacity; but nevertheless, it is fixed below what is given in private mannfactories, that the baitof a little higher wages may rouse the workman, and engage him, by removing to a manu- factory, to leave his place vacant in the workhouse, The workmen are ranged in tWo rows; an inSpector overgees very room. The fol- Jowing arrangement is what I have geen in maßy of these houses of industry.

A woman enters with four or five children: the eldest Sits down at the wheel and Spins; the Second, at Some Steps distance, picks wool or cotton; the third, whose arms cannot reach 10 wrn the wheel, with one hand, and to stretch out the other to Carry the thread round the bobbin, moves the wheel, while a little gomrade carries the wool or cotton to the other end of the beam; the fourth child, scarcely two years old; is in a cradle, which the mother rocks with her foot-; the üfth hangs at the breast, and She Supports it with her left hand, while with her right 5he turns a Spindle. In some houses of industry, that the children might not disturb the workmen, they are put alto- gether, in the winter, into a chamber, and, in the Summer, into a garden, where their laughs and cries drown one another's nolse, In