This happens only in so large a place as London, where people
are not known. What we are told about the great sums got by begging is
not true: the trade is overstocked. And, you may depend upon it, there
are many who cannot get work. A particular kind of manufacture fails:
those who have been used to work at it, can, for some time, work at
nothing else. You meet a man begging; you charge him with idleness:
he says, "I am willing to labour. Will you give me work?"--"I
cannot."--"Why, then you have no right to charge me with idleness."' We
left Mr. Strahan's at seven, as Johnson had said he intended to go to
evening prayers. As we walked along, he complained of a little gout
in his toe, and said, 'I shan't go to prayers to-night; I shall go
to-morrow: Whenever I miss church on a Sunday, I resolve to go another
day. But I do not always do it.' This was a fair exhibition of that
vibration between pious resolutions and indolence, which many of us have
too often experienced.
I went home with him, and we had a long quiet conversation.
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