by Daniel Defoe
it.
Pounds s. d.
If 100,000 persons subscribe, they
pay down at their entering each
6d., which is 2,500 0 0
And the first year's payment is in
stock at 1s. per quarter 20,000 0 0
It must be allowed that under three
months the subscriptions will not
be well complete; so the payment
of quarterage shall not begin but
from the day after the books are
full, or shut up; and from thence
one year is to pass before any
claim can be made; and the money
coming in at separate times, I
suppose no improvement upon it for
the first year, except of the
2,500 pounds, which, lent to the king
on some good fund at 7 pounds per cent.
interest, advances the first year 175 0 0
The quarterage of the second year,
abating for 1,000 claims 19,800 0 0
And the interest of the first year's
money at the end of the second year,
lent to the king, as aforesaid, at
7 per cent. interest, is 1,774 10 0
The quarterage of the third year, abating
for claims 19,400 0 0
The interest of former cash to the end of
the third year 3,284 8 0
==============
Income of three years 66,933 18 0
Note.--Any persons may pay 2s. up to 5s. quarterly, if they please,
and upon a claim will be allowed in proportion.
To assign what shall be the charge upon this, where contingency has
so great a share, is not to be done; but by way of political
arithmetic a probable guess may be made.
It is to be noted that the pensions I propose to be paid to persons
claiming by the third, fifth, and sixth articles are thus: every
person who paid 1s. quarterly shall receive 12d. weekly, and so in
proportion every 12d. paid quarterly by any one person to receive so
many shillings weekly, if they come to claim a pension.
The first year no claim is allowed; so the bank has in stock
completely 22,500 pounds. From thence we are to consider the number
of claims.
Sir William Petty, in his "Political Arithmetic," supposes not above
one in forty to die per annum out of the whole number of people; and
I can by no means allow that the circumstances of our claims will be
as frequent as death, for these reasons:
1. Our subscriptions respect all persons grown and in the prime of
their age; past the first, and providing against the last, part of
danger (Sir William's account including children and old people,
which always make up one-third of the bills of mortality).
2. Our claims will fall thin at first for several years; and let
but the money increase for ten years, as it does in the account for
three years, it would be almost sufficient to maintain the whole
number.
3. Allow that casualty and poverty are our debtor side; health,
prosperity, and death are the creditor side of the account; and in
all probable accounts those three articles will carry off three
fourth-parts of the number, as follows: If one in forty shall die
annually (as no doubt they shall, and more), that is 2,500 a year,
which in twenty years is 50,000 of the number; I hope I may be
allowed one-third to be out of condition to claim, apparently living
without the help of charity, and one third in health and body, and
able to work; which, put together, make 83,332; so it leaves 16,668
to make claims of charity and pensions in the first twenty years,
and one-half of them must, according to Sir William Petty, die on
our hands in twenty years; so there remains but 8,334.
But to put it out of doubt, beyond the proportion to be guessed at,
I will allow they shall fall thus:
The first year, we are to note, none can claim; and the second year
the number must be very few, but increasing: wherefore I suppose
One in every 500 shall claim the second year, Pounds
which is 200; the charge whereof is 500
One in every 100 the third year is 1,000; the charge 2,500
Together with the former 200 500
======
3,500
To carry on the calculation.
Pounds s. d.
We find the stock at the end of the third year 66,933 18 0
The quarterage of the fourth year, abating as
before 19,000 0 0
Interest of the stock 4,882 17 6
The quarterage of the fifth year 18,600 0 0
Interest of the stock 6,473 0 0
================
115,889 15 6
The charge 3,000 0 0
2,000 to fall the fourth year 5,000 0 0
And the old continued 3,500 0 0
2,000 the fifth year 5,000 0 0
The old continued 11,000 0 0
===============
27,500 0 0
By this computation the stock is increased above the charge in five
years 89,379 pounds 15s. 6d.; and yet here are sundry articles to be
considered on both sides of the account that will necessarily
increase the stock and diminish the charge:
First, in the five years' time 6,200 having
claimed charity, the number being abated
for in the reckoning above for stock, it
may be allowed new subscriptions will be
taken in to keep the number full, which
in five years amounts to 3,400 0 0
Their sixpences is 115 0 0
===============
3,555 0 0
Which added to 115,889 pounds 15s. 6d. augments
be stock to 119,444 15 6
Six thousand two hundred persons claiming
help, which falls, to be sure, on the aged
and infirm, I think, at a modest computation,
in five years' time 500 of them may be dead,
which, without allowing annually, we take
at an abatement of 4,000 pounds out of the
charge 4,000 0 0
Which reduces the charge to 23,500 0 0
Besides this, the interest of the quarterage, which is supposed in
the former account to lie dead till the year is out, whic
h cast up
from quarter to quarter, allowing it to be put out quarterly, as it
may well be, amounts to, by computation for five years, 5,250
pounds.
From the fifth year, as near as can be computed, the number of
pensioners being so great, I make no doubt but they shall die off
the hands of the undertaker as fast as they shall fall in,
excepting, so much difference as the payment of every year, which
the interest of the stock shall supply.
For example: Pounds s. d.
At the end of the fifth year the stock in hand 94,629 15 6
The payment of the sixth year 20,000 0 0
Interest of the stock 5,408 4 0
==================
120,037 19 6
Allow an overplus charge for keeping in the house,
which will be dearer than pensions, 10,000
pounds per annum 10,000 0 0
Charge of the sixth year 22,500 0 0
Balance in cash 87,537 19 6
==================
120,037 19 6
This also is to be allowed--that all those persons who are kept by
the office in the house shall have employment provided for them,
whereby no persons shall be kept idle, the works to be suited to
every one's capacity without rigour, only some distinction to those
who are most willing to work; the profits of the said work to the
stock of the house.
Besides this, there may great and very profitable methods be found
out to improve the stock beyond the settled interest of 7 per cent.,
which perhaps may not always be to be had, for the Exchequer is not
always borrowing money; but a bank of 80,000 pounds, employed by
faithful hands, need not want opportunities of great, and very
considerable improvement.
Also it would be a very good object for persons who die rich to
leave legacies to, which in time might be very well supposed to
raise a standing revenue to it.
I will not say but various contingencies may alter the charge of
this undertaking, and swell the claims beyond proportion further
than I extend it; but all that, and much more, is sufficiently
answered in the calculations by above 80,000 pounds in stock to
provide for it.
As to the calculation being made on a vast number of subscribers,
and more than, perhaps, will be allowed likely to subscribe, I think
the proportion may hold good in a few as well as in a great many;
and perhaps if 20,000 subscribed, it might be as effectual. I am
indeed willing to think all men should have sense enough to see the
usefulness of such a design, and be persuaded by their interest to
engage in it; but some men have less prudence than brutes, and will
make no provision against age till it comes; and to deal with such,
two ways might be used by authority to compel them.
1. The churchwardens and justices of peace should send the beadle
of the parish, with an officer belonging to this office, about to
the poorer parishioners to tell them that, since such honourable
provision is made for them to secure themselves in old age from
poverty and distress, they should expect no relief from the parish
if they refused to enter themselves, and by sparing so small a part
of their earnings to prevent future misery.
2. The churchwardens of every parish might refuse the removal of
persons and families into their parish but upon their having entered
into this office.
3. All persons should be publicly desired to forbear giving
anything to beggars, and all common beggars suppressed after a
certain time; for this would effectually suppress beggary at last.
And, to oblige the parishes to do this on behalf of such a project,
the governor of the house should secure the parish against all
charges coming upon them from any person who did subscribe and pay
the quarterage, and that would most certainly oblige any parish to
endeavour that all the labouring meaner people in the parish should
enter their names; for in time it would most certainly take all the
poor in the parish off of their hands.
I know that by law no parish can refuse to relieve any person or
family fallen into distress; and therefore to send them word they
must expect no relief, would seem a vain threatening. But thus far
the parish may do: they shall be esteemed as persons who deserve no
relief, and shall be used accordingly; for who indeed would ever
pity that man in his distress who at the expense of two pots of beer
a month might have prevented it, and would not spare it?
As to my calculations, on which I do not depend either, I say this:
if they are probable, and that in five years' time a subscription of
a hundred thousand persons would have 87,537 pounds 19s. 6d. in
cash, all charges paid, I desire any one but to reflect what will
not such a sum do. For instance, were it laid out in the Million
Lottery tickets, which are now sold at 6 pounds each, and bring in 1
pound per annum for fifteen years, every 1,000 pounds so laid out
pays back in time 2,500 pounds, and that time would be as fast as it
would be wanted, and therefore be as good as money; or if laid out
in improving rents, as ground-rents with buildings to devolve in
time, there is no question but a revenue would be raised in time to
maintain one-third part of the number of subscribers, if they should
come to claim charity.
And I desire any man to consider the present state of this kingdom,
and tell me, if all the people of England, old and young, rich and
poor, were to pay into one common bank 4s. per annum a head, and
that 4s. duly and honestly managed, whether the overplus paid by
those who die off, and by those who never come to want, would not in
all probability maintain all that should be poor, and for ever
banish beggary and poverty out of the kingdom.
OF WAGERING.
Wagering, as now practised by politics and contracts, is become a
branch of assurances; it was before more properly a part of gaming,
and as it deserved, had but a very low esteem; but shifting sides,
and the war providing proper subjects, as the contingencies of
sieges, battles, treaties, and campaigns, it increased to an
extraordinary reputation, and offices were erected on purpose which
managed it to a strange degree and with great advantage, especially
to the office-keepers; so that, as has been computed, there was not
less gaged on one side and other, upon the second siege of Limerick,
than two hundred thousand pounds.
How it is managed, and by what trick and artifice it became a trade,
and how insensibly men were drawn into it, an easy account may be
given.
I believe novelty was the first wheel that set it on work, and I
need make no reflection
upon the power of that charm: it was wholly
a new thing, at least upon the Exchange of London; and the first
occasion that gave it a room among public discourse, was some
persons forming wagers on the return and success of King James, for
which the Government took occasion to use them as they deserved.
I have heard a bookseller in King James's time say, "That if he
would have a book sell, he would have it burnt by the hand of the
common hangman;" the man, no doubt, valued his profit above his
reputation; but people are so addicted to prosecute a thing that
seems forbid, that this very practice seemed to be encouraged by its
being contraband.
The trade increased, and first on the Exchange and then in coffee-
houses it got life, till the brokers, those vermin of trade, got
hold of it, and then particular offices were set apart for it, and
an incredible resort thither was to be seen every day.
These offices had not been long in being, but they were thronged
with sharpers and setters as much as the groom-porters, or any
gaming-ordinary in town, where a man had nothing to do but to make a
good figure and prepare the keeper of the office to give him a
credit as a good man, and though he had not a groat to pay, he
should take guineas and sign polities, till he had received,
perhaps, 300 pounds or 400 pounds in money, on condition to pay
great odds, and then success tries the man; if he wins his fortune
is made; if not, he's a better man than he was before by just so
much money, for as to the debt, he is your humble servant in the
Temple or Whitehall.
But besides those who are but the thieves of the trade, there is a
method as effectual to get money as possible, managed with more
appearing honesty, but no less art, by which the wagerer, in
confederacy with the office-keeper, shall lay vast sums, great odds,
and yet be always sure to win.
For example: A town in Flanders, or elsewhere, during the war is
besieged; perhaps at the beginning of the siege the defence is
vigorous, and relief probable, and it is the opinion of most people
the town will hold out so long, or perhaps not be taken at all: the
wagerer has two or three more of his sort in conjunction, of which
always the office-keeper is one; and they run down all discourse of
the taking the town, and offer great odds it shall not be taken by
such a day. Perhaps this goes on a week, and then the scale turns;
and though they seem to hold the same opinion still, yet underhand
the office-keeper has orders to take all the odds which by their
example was before given against the taking the town; and so all
their first-given odds are easily secured, and yet the people
brought into a vein of betting against the siege of the town too.
Then they order all the odds to be taken as long as they will run,
while they themselves openly give odds, and sign polities, and
oftentimes take their own money, till they have received perhaps
double what they at first laid. Then they turn the scale at once,
and cry down the town, and lay that it shall be taken, till the
length of the first odds is fully run; and by this manage, if the
town be taken they win perhaps two or three thousand pounds, and if
it be not taken, they are no losers neither.
It is visible by experience, not one town in ten is besieged but it
is taken. The art of war is so improved, and our generals are so
wary, that an army seldom attempts a siege, but when they are almost
sure to go on with it; and no town can hold out if a relief cannot
be had from abroad.
Now, if I can by first laying 500 pounds to 200 pounds with A, that
the town shall not be taken, wheedle in B to lay me 5,000 pounds to
2,000 pounds of the same; and after that, by bringing down the vogue
of the siege, reduce the wagers to even-hand, and lay 2,000 pounds
with C that the town shall not be taken; by this method, it is plain
-
If the town be not taken, I win 2,200 pounds and lose 2,000 pounds.
If the town be taken, I win 5,000 pounds and lose 2,500 pounds.
