A poor man may marry with little or no prospect of being able to support a family in independence.

They may be said therefore in some measure to create the poor which they maintain, and as the provisions of the country must, in consequence of the increased population, be distributed to every man in smaller proportions, it is evident that the labour of those who are not supported by parish assistance will purchase a smaller quantity of provisions than before and consequently more of them must be driven to ask for support.
Secondly, the quantity of provisions consumed in workhouses upon a part of the society that cannot in general be considered as the most valuable part diminishes the shares that would otherwise belong to more industrious and more worthy members, and thus in the same manner forces more to become dependent.

If the poor in the workhouses were to live better than they now do, this new distribution of the money of the society would tend more conspicuously to depress the condition of those out of the workhouses by occasioning a rise in the price of provisions.
Fortunately for England, a spirit of independence still remains among the peasantry.

The poor laws are strongly calculated to eradicate this spirit.

They have succeeded in part, but had they succeeded as completely as might have been expected their pernicious tendency would not have been so long concealed.
Hard as it may appear in individual instances, dependent poverty ought to be held disgraceful.