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"which is the Enemy of every Virtue; and for the Nourish-
"ment of Industry, the Conqueror of all Vice."

BUT this is not all.Your Committee find, under the Second
Head of Enquiry, that the Charter gives a discretionary Power
to the Governors, to appoint and remove Officers, to prescribe
and alter Rules and Regulations as Circumstances shall require.
And they are fully warranted in adding, that, however
necessary and useful Arts-masters and Apprentices might be
in Times less enlightened, and in the Infancy of the Arts;
yet that now they are neither necessary nor useful; and,
upon the present Establishment, not in the least within
the Intent; of the Charter. Nothing indeed can be more
objectionable than the present very defective and expensive
Mode of educating a few Boys, chiefly, from the Country,
to inferior Trades; for no good Purpose whatsoever, except
it be praise-worthy to see those very Boys become Beadles or
Fire Porters, or follow some mean Occupation; which the
Committee have in most Instances to be the Case,
soon after the usual Gifts have been received. In Fact,
Experience and Common Sense revolt at the very Idea of
educating and employing a Number of Youths, not merely
in the Metropolis, but as it were under the very Roof with

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Prostitutes and Vagrants of the most abandoned Characters,
with whom the utmost Precaution and Vigilance have hitherto
proved insufficient to prevent and Intercourse; so that even if
Apprentices were now thought Objects of the Charity (which
the Committee cannot perceive or admit) it would be an
obvious and an easy Improvement, to bind them to useful
Trades with different Masters out of the House; and incite
them to Excellence and good Behaviour, by the Rewards
which the well intentioned Benevolence of such Individuals
as FOWKES and LOCK has enabled and directed the Gover-
nors to bestow at their Discretion. Under such a Regulation,
four times the Number might be well educated at the same
Expence which is now incurred; and the extensive and
numerous Apartments in the Hospital, now occupied by
Arts-masters and their Lodgers, and repaired to the
minutest Item by the Charity, at an enormous Expence,
might be most usefully employed, according to the improved
Practice of the best Workhouse, or Houses of industry, in fur-
nishing the Means of Labour for the original Objects, and, as
the Committee think, the only proper Objects of the Institu-
tion; of whom, perhaps none call more loudly for Attention
than Prisoners discharged every Sessions at the Old-Bailey; for,
how much so ever they may be disposed to Work, they have
insurmountable

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insurmountable Difficulty in procuring Employment; and, it
is to be feared, are thus again unhappily driven to im-
proper Courses.

IT would not be doing Justice to the benevolent Intentions
of our Ancestors, if your Committee omitted to mention,
that many liberal Donations have been made, with a View to
this very desirable Object. Of these the most considerable,
as well as the most distinguished, was a Legacy of £2000. by
Sir JAMES CAMBELL< no role > in 1641, which he limited by his Will,
to the express Purpose of setting Poor People to work,
especially such as should be from Time to Time delivered
out of Newgate ; and a Part of that very Sum was actually
expended in enlarging th Buildings at Bridewell , and mak-
ing greater Convenience for Labour.

IT would be taking up unnecessarily the Time of the
Court, and would even be an Affront to the good Sense of the
Governors, were the Committee to enlarge upon the proba-
ble salutary Consequences of the Reform suggested to the
Police of this great City; and there does not seem to be any
Thing like a solid Objection to its immediate Adoption in the
fullest Extent, except the Existence of the present Arts-masters
and their Apprentices; the former of whom may have

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Notice to quit Houses so soon as the Boys allotted to
them respectively shall have compleated their Apprenticeships.

THE various other Regulations, which this new Arrange-
ment will render necessary, will be a subsequent Considera-
tion; and may with greater Propriety be digested by the
Prison Committee, under particular Instructions from the
Court, to carry the Plan recommended into immediate
Execution, and to form Rules and Orders adapted thereto.
And so thoroughly is your Committee impressed with the
Utility as well as Necessity of thus recurring to the first Prin-
ciples and Objects of the Charity; that they recommend in
the most serious and earnest Manner the Appointment of the
Committee for those Purposes, at the very first Court, as
the only effectual Means of accomplishing the original chari-
table Views of the Institution of Bridewell Hospital .

UNDER these Sentiments, the Committee have omitted in
their Report any Observation or Opinion on such Rules and
Orders as immediately relate to the Prisons, Arts-masters,
and their Apprentices.

HAVING thus disposed of the two first preliminary
Enquiries; the Committee proceeded next to inform them-
selves,