The Querist | Page 6

pubic act without
an end, a view, a plan?
54. Qu. Whether by how much the less particular folk think for
themselves, the public be not so much the more obliged to think for
them?
55. Qu. Whether cunning be not one thing and good sense another? and
whether a cunning tradesman doth not stand in his own light?
56. Qu. Whether small gains be not the way to great profit? And if our
tradesmen are beggars, whether they may not thank themselves for it?
57. Qu. Whether some way might not be found for making criminals
useful in public works, instead of sending them either to America, or to
the other world?
58. Qu. Whether we may not, as well as other nations, contrive
employment for them? And whether servitude, chains, and hard labour,
for a term of years, would not be a more discouraging as well as a more
adequate punishment for felons than even death itself?
59. Qu. Whether there are not such things in Holland as bettering
houses for bringing young gentlemen to order? And whether such an
institution would be useless among us?
60. Qu. Whether it be true that the poor in Holland have no resource
but their own labour, and yet there are no beggars in their streets?

61. Qu. Whether he whose luxury consumeth foreign products, and
whose industry produceth nothing domestic to exchange for them, is
not so far forth injurious to his country?
62. Qu. Whether, consequently, the fine gentlemen, whose employment
is only to dress, drink, and play, be not a pubic nuisance?
63. Qu. Whether necessity is not to be hearkened to before convenience,
and convenience before luxury?
64. Qu. Whether to provide plentifully for the poor be not feeding the
root, the substance whereof will shoot upwards into the branches, and
cause the top to flourish?
65. Qu. Whether there be any instance of a State wherein the people,
living neatly and plentifully, did not aspire to wealth?
66. Qu. Whether nastiness and beggary do not, on the contrary,
extinguish all such ambition, making men listless, hopeless, and
slothful?
67. Qu. Whether a country inhabited by people well fed, clothed and
lodged would not become every day more populous? And whether a
numerous stock of people in such circumstances would? and how far
the product of not constitute a flourishing nation; our own country may
suffice for the compassing of this end?
68. Qu. Whether a people who had provided themselves with the
necessaries of life in good plenty would not soon extend their industry
to new arts and new branches of commerce?
69. Qu. Whether those same manufactures which England imports from
other countries may not be admitted from Ireland? And, if so, whether
lace, carpets, and tapestry, three considerable articles of English
importation, might not find encouragement in Ireland? And whether an
academy for design might not greatly conduce to the perfecting those
manufactures among us?

70. Qu. Whether France and Flanders could have drawn so much
money from England for figured silks, lace, and tapestry, if they had
not had academies for designing?
71. Qu. Whether, when a room was once prepared, and models in
plaster of Paris, the annual expense of such an academy need stand the
pubic in above two hundred pounds a year?
72. Qu. Whether our linen-manufacture would not find the benefit of
this institution? And whether there be anything that makes us fall short
of the Dutch in damasks, diapers, and printed linen, but our ignorance
in design?
73. Qu. Whether those specimens of our own manufacture, hung up in a
certain public place, do not sufficiently declare such our ignorance? and
whether for the honour of the nation they ought not to be removed?
74. Qu. Whether those who may slight this affair as notional have
sufficiently considered the extensive use of the art of design, and its
influence in most trades and manufactures, wherein the forms of things
are often more regarded than the materials?
75. Qu. Whether there be any art sooner learned than that of making
carpets? And whether our women, with little time and pains, may not
make more beautiful carpets than those imported from Turkey? And
whether this branch of the woollen manufacture be not open to us?
76. Qu. Whether human industry can produce, from such cheap
materials, a manufacture of so great value by any other art as by those
of sculpture and painting?
77. Qu. Whether pictures and statues are not in fact so much treasure?
And whether Rome and Florence would not be poor towns without
them?
78. Qu. Whether they do not bring ready money as well as jewels?
Whether in Italy debts are not paid, and children portioned with them,
as with gold and silver?

79. Qu. Whether it would