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46 DUBLIN CORPORATION FOR THE RELIEF OF THE POOR. Observations on the State and Condition of the Poor, under the Institution, for their Relief. Dublin: Printed by William Wilson, 1775 An overview of the Dublin workhouse First edition. The Dublin Corporation for the Relief of the Poor founded the House of Industry, a workhouse and hospital, in November 1773, admitting 1,338 people by March 1775, both freely and compelled. The pamphlet outlines the state of the Corporation in 1775, its inhabitants, capital stock, and operations. The pamphlet justifies the beneficial effects of the institution, in freeing the public from the nuisance of beggars, and converting “vagrants from idleness and intemperance, to sobriety and industry” (p. 10). As with other workhouses of the time, a distinction was drawn between the deserving poor, and the idle poor, the former to be helped and the latter to be punished: “to make it a terror and place of punishment to the sturdy and idle, and render it, at the same time, a comfortable asylum for the aged, infirm, and helpless” (p. 6). It notes that putting the poor to work is “not so much for the sake of what they can earn, as with a view to subject them to
discipline” (p. 12). Four tables at the end give the capital stock and expenditure of the institution. Of particular note is the concluding page, a table of the daily breakfast and dinners given to the inhabitants, based on their respective classes of industrious poor, aged poor, diseased poor, and lazy poor – the last given roughly only two-thirds the quantity of food accorded to the first. Octavo (191 × 125 mm). Recent quarter calf, red morocco label, marbled sides, vellum tips. Complete with half-title. Binding fine, minor finger-soiling and creasing at page extremities, pagination sometimes slightly shaved. A very good copy. ¶ ESTC T178265. £1,250 [150995] 47 DUCPÉTIAUX, Édouard. De la peine de mort. Brussels: H. Tarlier, Libraire-Éditeur, 1827 First edition of the Belgian journalist and prison reformer’s first book, written when he was 23. Ducpétiaux earned himself a name and an official position as inspector general of prisons on the strength of this passionate and ambitious plea for the abolition of capital punishment, arguing instead for a prison system centred on the moral improvement of the prisoner.
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WEALTH AND WELFARE
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