proposition was favorably received, but, as Colonel Thompson was a half-pay officer of the English crown, he needed to have the permission of the king before making a Continental engagement. He therefore returned to England in 1784, and received not only the king's permission, but also the honor of knighthood and the continuance of his half-pay, and he returned to Munich the same year as Sir Benjamin Thompson. A splendid field was now before him, and he entered upon a series of the most remarkable labors, to which he devoted himself with great assiduity. "These labors ranged from subjects of the homeliest nature in their bearings upon the thrift, economy, and comfort of life for the poorest classes, through enterprises of wide-extended and radical reform, and comprehensive benevolence, up to the severest tests and experiments in the interests of practical science." . . . . "The elector was from first to last his constant friend, never thwarting him, never holding back his aid; but, on the contrary, ready always to advance every plan of his, and to espouse his views when questioned or opposed by other counselors."
It is impossible, in this brief sketch, even to enumerate the extensive and important measures of public beneficence and social amelioration which Sir Benjamin projected and successfully carried out. He reorganized the entire military establishment of Bavaria, introduced not only a simpler code of tactics and a new system of order, discipline, and economy, among the troops and industrial schools for the soldiers' children, but greatly improved the construction and modes of manufacture of arms and ordnance. He devoted himself to various ameliorations, such as improving the construction and arrangement of the dwellings of the working-classes, providing for them a better education, organizing houses of industry, introducing superior breeds of horses and cattle, and promoting landscape-gardening, which he did by converting an old abandoned hunting-ground, near Munich, into a park, where, after his departure, the inhabitants erected a monument to his honor. He moreover suppressed the system of beggary, which had grown into a recognized profession in Bavaria and become an enormous public evil—one of the most remarkable social reforms on record. Mendicity in Bavaria was at that time "a stupendous and organized system of abuses, which, gradually growing upon the tolerance of the government and people, had reached such proportions and had established itself with such a vigorous power of mischief as to be acquiesced in as irremediable. Beggars and vagabonds, the larger part of whom were also thieves, swarmed all over the country, especially in the cities. These were not only natives, but foreigners. They were of both sexes and all ages; they strolled in all directions, lining the highways, levying contributions with clamorous demands, entering houses, stores, and workshops, to rob, interrupting the devotions of the churches with their exactions, and extorting everywhere, through fear, what they failed to get by
