| Citation |
NHG-P.768.016
28 Mar 1768:41,42 (597)
London, December 22. We are informed from good hands, that
a French nobleman of great sagacity and penetration, who
spent some months of the last winter in our metropolis, has
lately laid before his most christian majesty, and his chief
council, a scheme for the destruction of all the capital
manufactures of London; founded on the observations he made,
during his residence amongst us, on the humours of our
common people; their disposition to idleness; their appetite
for novelty, and their want of a police, to enforce industry
and labour. The plan is no more than this: To employ abut
three or four hundred vagabonds, with dogs, fiddlers, bears,
monkies, parrots, birds of all colours, &c. &c. to disperse
themselves daily about all the streets of London, occupied
principally by our manufactures; which, by exciting the
curiosity of the nobility, and gratifying their love of
idleness cannot fail, in a short time, according to this
nobleman's concept, of annihilating our manufactures, and
thereby rendering our common people an absolute burden on
the whole community.
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