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English Colonies in America: The colonies under the House of Hanover.
English Colonies in America The colonies under the House of Hanover Author:John Andrew Doyle Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: EXPENDITURE ON PUBLIC PURPOSES. 13 which New England, in all things else so un-Hellenic, had a touch of the old Greek spirit, had scarcely abated. Thus with E... more »xpends- most of the paths of luxury blocked, with but little public" temptation to that vanity which finds expression in purpo.es. the foundation of a family, the New England merchant easily fell into a course which has been among the most precious and honorable traditions of his country. The building in 1740 by Peter Faneuil, the chief merchant of Boston, of the public hall which bore his name, and which figured in so many stirring scenes of civic life, is only the most conspicuous of many recognitions of such public service as an undefined but manifest duty.1 Another like instance is the establishment in 1735 of a workhouse, not by a rate but by public subscription. One hundred and twenty-two names appear in the list of contributors, in sums ranging from five pounds to a hundred.1 This workhouse was to supplement an earlier almshouse. In the records of the town meetings for 1712 we find a committee reporting that the workhouse which was intended for the deserving poor was long used for sturdy beggars, for whom a house of correction was better suited, and in the following year an order was made that the overseers of the poor should receive no one in the almshouse unless he was a legitimate object of charity.' It is clear that during the first half of the eighteenth century there was a real danger lest the rapid material and intellectual Relations progress of Boston should create a gulf between the ton"nd urban life of the capital and the rural life of the rest country. of the community. The records more than once disclose a sense of jealousy and antagonism. In 1733 some of the adjacent towns ask to be set off as ...« less