[I.] The class of Beggars to which the Old Man here described belongs will probably soon be extinct.

It consisted of poor, and mostly old and infirm persons, who confined themselves to a stated round in their neighbourhood, and had certain fixed days, on which, at different houses, they regularly received alms, sometimes in money, but mostly in provisions.
490.

*_Ibid._ Observed, and with great benefit to my own heart, when I was a child.
Written at Racedown and Alfoxden in my 23d year.

The political economists were about that time beginning their war upon mendicity in all its forms, and by implication, if not directly, on alms-giving also.
This heartless process has been carried as far as it can go by the AMENDED Poor Law Bill, tho' the inhumanity that prevails in this measure is somewhat disguised by the profession that one of its objects is to throw the poor upon the voluntary donations of their neighbours, that is, if rightly interpreted, to force them into a condition between relief in the Union Poor House and alms robbed of their Christian grace and spirit, as being forced rather from the avaricious and selfish; and all, in fact, but the humane and charitable are at liberty to keep all they possess from their distressed brethren.
491.

_The Farmer of Tilsbury Vale_.
With this picture, which was taken from real life, compare the imaginative one of 'The Reverie of Poor Susan,' and see (to make up the deficiencies of the class) 'The Excursion' _passim_.
492.