Pauperism, that degree of poverty for which public relief is provided. Extreme poverty must always have existed, and among communities in any degree civilized has been provided for by law and social customs. The Mosaic jubilee was an ingenious plan for preventing pauperism by a redistribution of land and a cancelling of debts every 50 years. In the Grecian states institutions of various kinds .provided for the relief of the poor, and the same is most probably true of the Roman republic and empire. It is true that in the ancient communities, as in some modern ones, slavery in a measure took the place of pauperism; and at Rome the system of clients and patrons did something to relieve the poor without expense to the state. But in Rome during the historical" period the relief of the poor was commonly one of the most important functions of the state, as it is now in England and other European countries. The favorite method of performing this function was by a cheap sale or an actual gift of corn to the people, under the so-called " corn laws " (leges frumentarim), first formally enacted at the instance of Caius Gracchus, in 123 B. 0. Two years later the patricians revoked this Sempronian law, but it was reenacted in 73 B. 0., under the consuls Oassius and Teren-tius. Cato of Utica caused it to be amended a dozen years later, and at the time of Caesar's Gallic wars, Glodius made the distribution of corn wholly gratuitous.
When Csesar became dictator, he found 320,000 persons receiving this charity; he reduced their number to 150,-000, but even this was probably one tenth of the whole population. The civil war raised the number again to 300,000, which Augustus reduced to 200,000. Under the Antonines there were sometimes 500,000, but then the whole population had greatly increased. Aurelian gave the poor bread and pork instead of the unground wheat, and in course of time the distributions were extended from Rome to Constantinople, Alexandria, and Antioch. Mendicancy was common under the emperors. In all the early Christian societies it became a rule to apply that part of the church revenue which remained, over and above what was necessary for the maintenance of the clergy and the expenses of public worship, to the support of the needy. This was called the patrimony of the poor, and it was shared even with the heathen. The first Christian emperor, in making Constantinople the chief centre of the gratuitous distribution of bread and grain, did not interfere with the eleemosynary laws in existence among the various churches.
Julian the Apostate maintained the customary distributions, and reproached his pagan subjects with not emulating the generous charity of " the Galileans," who " support not only their own but the heathen poor." These annual gratuities became so important that Theodosius the Younger made a special law to regulate them; and any interruption in these supplies produced wide-spread misery, as happened in Africa when that province was cut off from the empire after its conquest by Genseric. Beneficent institutions were multiplied everywhere after the 4th century both by the charity of the sovereigns and that of private individuals. Monastic establishments were also multiplied throughout the East and West; and thus almsgiving soon became an abuse, and mendicity an evil which Charlemagne and other princes after him tried in vain to check. - History of the Modern Poor Laws. By poor laws are here understood legislative enactments levying a rate in aid of persons unable to work or to find employment. There is no record of any such legislative measure of a general character in any European country before the 16th cen-. tury. In England, in Saxon times, the householder was bound to provide for his laborers, and men who had no master were assigned to some householder.
After the feudal times, bv the common law, the poor were to be sustained in each parish by its pastor and inhabitants, so that none should die of hunger. A similar customary law existed everywhere on the continent. The earliest laws relating to the poor throughout Christendom were directed against beggary and vagrancy; they are anterior even to Charlemagne. The church assisted the legislator to arrest and localize the growing evil of mendicity. Thus the second council of Tours in 567 decreed that every city should make provision for its own poor, and that in every parish thereof the rector and parishioners should support their own paupers. In England more than a hundred laws against beggary and vagrancy were enacted successively till after the reign of Henry VIII., and enforced with extreme rigor. Still the evil grew. It was very great before the reformation, and was still greater afterward; but the suppression of the monasteries, though one of the causes, was not the chief cause of the increase of pauperism under the Tudors. As to the poor laws properly so called, the first recorded instance of a rate in aid appraised and collected in England for the relief of the poor is that of a manor in Cambridge then and now belonging to Merton college.
This manor in 1319 was, together with other Cambridge parishes, subjected to an agistment for the relief of the sufferers by a famine then prevalent. The first known English statute for the relief of the disabled poor was that of 12 Richard II., c. 7 (1388). That of 27 Henry VIII., c. 25 (1535), first made compulsory assistance incumbent on each locality; the parishes were obliged to provide for the disabled poor by a fund raised by voluntary contribution or alms, and to find work for the able-bodied. This disposition was confirmed by 1 Edward VI., c. 3(1547). By 5 Elizabeth c. 3 (1563), all who refused to contribute voluntarily to the parish poor fund were to be compelled by the magistrates, who were empowered to tax the recusants and even to imprison them. In 1573 another law authorized the justices to assess all parishioners, and houses of refuge were ordered to be provided for the helpless poor. Finally, in 1601, came the statute known as 43 Elizabeth, which served as a basis for all subsequent legislation levying a rate in aid of the poor.
For this purpose a tax was imposed on every parishioner, and a board of overseers was to be named by the local justices to aid the churchwardens in applying the poor fund to the relief of the helpless, the apprenticing of children, and the providing of work for the able-bodied. This was completed in 1662 by the statute 14 Charles II., c. 12, known as "the law of settlement and removal," which will be more fully explained hereafter; it aimed at determining the parish or locality in which every pauper should be relieved. Thus relief to the poor and the prevention of mendicity were made a parochial function and duty; and subsequent legislation till the year 1723 was only directed at so checking the powers of the overseers of the poor by the action of the local justices as to prevent the former from being either too liberal or too stringent, with a view of preventing the increase of pauperism. The act of 1723 (9 George I., c. 7), authorizing several parishes to unite in maintaining a workhouse and otherwise providing for their paupers, was the first step toward centralization.
This law was relaxed by that of 1795 (36 George III., c. 23), and still more by that of 1814 (55 George III., c. 137). But pauperism and the taxes necessary for its support increased so alarmingly, that in 1817 the fear was expressed by a royal commission of inquiry that the assessment would end in swallowing up the profits of the land. After several other parliamentary inquiries, the basis of a new system of public relief was laid by the law of 1834 (4 and 5 William IV., c. 76) and by that of 1835 (5 and 6 William IV., c. 69). By these acts the superintendence of public charity was centralized in the three capitals of the United Kingdom, and the local service of the poor in parish unions created for that purpose. This system was at first put on trial for five years, and then continued by successive enactments. Retaining the best features of the act of 1601, it provides for a central board of three commissioners for the general superintendence and control of all bodies charged with the management of funds for the relief of the poor. Subordinate to these are nine district commissioners, and the whole are subject to the direction of the secretary of state for the home department.
The commissioners are empowered to order workhouses to be erected or hired, enlarged or altered, with the consent of a majority of the board of guardians. They may unite a number of parishes in a poor-law union, for the purpose of a more economical and effective administration, but in such a way that each parish shall defray the actual cost of the support of its own poor. The parishes composing a poor-law union elect their board of guardians, without the consent of a majority of whom money cannot be raised for building purposes; but the masters of the workhouses, and other paid officers, are under the orders of the commissioners, and removable by them. No wages are paid to the poor out of the poor rates, and except in extraordinary cases relief is only given to the able-bodied poor and their families within the walls of the workhouse, where labor is required of them in return for it. The provisions in regard to illegitimate children are intended to materially check bastardy. The putative father, if prosecuted, is required to pay the sum fixed by law 2s. 6d. per week) to the union instead of the mother, and the mother and child are received into the workhouse. The children of paupers are educated in workhouse schools.
In two years after its passage this law had reduced the cost of the relief of the poor 40 per cent. A similar system was introduced into Ireland in the first year of Queen yictoria, and by 10 and 11 Victoria, c. 90, a central board of commissioners was established, distinct from the English board, but with analogous powers. There are about 180 poor-law unions in Ireland, supporting by assessment infirmaries, hospitals, and workhouses. There are besides numerous free institutions maintained by private charity. In Scotland the old system of parish relief continued in force till 1845, when a special statute, 8 and 9 Victoria, c. 83, established a central board called the board of supervision, which has control of the parochial or union boards, as in England. No relief is afforded by the Scotch law to able-bodied adults. The mode of assessment defined by 24 and 25 Victoria, c. 37, leaves it optional to each board to have one half the poor rate paid by owners of land and one half by occupiers, or by the latter and all other inhabitants. In 1854, 194 parishes still retained the old voluntary system, and 689 had adopted the new. In England, on the contrary, the poor rate is levied by the churchwardens and overseers on the occupiers of land, after such rate has been confirmed by the justices.
This is a specific sum in the pound according to the annual value of the land. Thereby the rate becomes a tax on the occupier, and not primarily on the owner. The law of settlement and removal also differs in Scotland from that which prevails in England. In the former a settlement can be acquired by a residence of five years. Children enjoy the settlement of their parents, and wives that of their husbands; and in default of these the birth settlement is always allowed. In England the law of settlement, based on the act of 1662, and subsequently modified, has given rise to much costly litigation and occasioned great hardship to the poor. Its object is to determine the particular parish among the 600 in England and Wales bound to support a pauper, and to which such pauper can be removed in case of necessity. Edward V. was the first to add a law of removal to the old law of settlement, enjoining that the impotent poor should be conveyed from constable to constable to their birthplace, or to the place in which they had dwelt for the last three years, there to be settled and maintained by charity.
A settlement is at present acquired by birth, by parentage, by marriage, by residing as an indentured apprentice for 40 days in a parish, by renting a tenement for £40 and paying the poor rate on such rent for one year, and by acquiring in a parish an estate worth £30 and residing on the same for 40 days. A woman acquires by marriage the settlement of her husband, and should he have none she retains her maiden settlement. Till 1834 it was customary to remove the impotent poor to their place of settlement as determined by law. Subsequently, but before 1850, it was enacted that no person should be removed from a parish after a residence therein of five years. At present no pauper who has been allowed to reside for one year in a parish ,or union is removable therefrom. The chief difference in the law of settlement before and since 1834 is that formerly a settlement was acquired by the exercise in any parish of a public annual office, such as that of constable, sexton, sheriff, overseer, etc, by hiring or service and a residence of 40 days in a parish in such quality, and by indenture as a sea apprentice; while the new law, by making the impotent pauper irremovable from a parish in which he has been allowed to reside for one year, thereby grants him a settlement for all practical purposes, while it is very difficult for a healthy workman to acquire a good new settlement, or to lose his old settlement when it happens to be a bad one. - The history of pauper legislation in France before the .close of the 16th century does not differ materially from that of England for the same period.
During the middle ages it required the united efforts of the civil and ecclesiastical authorities to repress or restrain mendicity. As in England, the principle acted upon was that each city, parish, or district should support its own paupers, and that they should be sent there for relief. The edict of King John II. in 1350 is the basis of all subsequent legislation in France tending to alleviate distress or restrain mendicancy. The wars and disorders of the 16th century having given rise to a great increase of pauperism, various measures were adopted by the government and the provincial and municipal authorities to meet the exigencies of the case. The first ins'titution resembling our modern central poor boards was Vaumone generate established in Lyons in 1531. This served as a model for the organization of le grand bureau des pauvres in Paris in 1544, which continued in existence till May, 1791. This board was empowered by Francis I. to levy a poor rate on all property, lay and ecclesiastical; and this poor rate, the first ever raised in France, was confirmed by Henry II. in 1551, and again by the famous edict of Moulins in 1566, which made it obligatory on all the communes of France to establish similar boards, and to assess all property holders for their support.
Under Francis I. and his two immediate successors workshops had been established for the employment of pauper mechanics, and several public works undertaken by the government to afford labor* to other classes of the able-bodied poor. Nevertheless in 1610 Paris contained 30,000 beggars. Louis XIII., Aug. 27, 1612, decreed the erection in Paris of a number of establishments, half hospitals, half workshops, three of which were opened soon afterward. This project was not fully executed till 1653, when the poor in Paris numbered upward of 40,000, and Louis XIV. established the vast organization known as the " general hospital" to check or remedy the alarming increase of pauperism. To the board of administration appointed by the king were subjected not only the poorhouses and hospitals opened by Louis XIII., but several new ones. The workshops were directed and handicrafts taught by 52 skilled workmen selected by the Parisian trades. In 1657 there were 5,000 persons in these institutions, and 10,000 in 1662. In the latter year this system of relief and compulsory labor was extended to all cities and large towns in the kingdom.
But pauperism had gone on increasing so fearfully in the last years of the reign of Louis XIV., that in 1719 the regency government decreed that all vagrants and able-bodied paupers should be sent to the colonies.
This scheme was soon abandoned, and the authorities fell back on the old system of forced labor in institutions called "houses of correction." Louis XVI. in 1777 decreed the erection of a large number of these; but he soon found himself powerless to realize his designs. A great and sincere effort was made by the national assembly in 1791 to find an effective remedy for French pauperism. In March, 1793, after a succession of expensive experiments, it was decreed that central almshouses (depots de mendicite) should be established at the national expense, to which all able-bodied beggars without exception were to be sent; but it was only by the law of July, 1808, that this measure received a thorough execution. This law enacted that a central almshouse should be erected and maintained by the government in every department. In a short time 59 of these departmental almshouses were opened, calculated to accommodate 22,500 paupers; but only 33 were applied to their original purpose, and even these gradually became asylums for the insane and incurable, or were converted into jails. These almshouses were entirely neglected under the restoration.
After the revolution of 1830 the causes and remedies of pauperism were once more thoroughly investigated by legislative commissions, and the system of departmental almshouses was revived on the principle that in future paupers should be incited to support themselves by their labor. Pauperism declined rapidly in consequence till 1848, when the withdrawal of government aid from the departmental almshouses was considered a virtual abrogation of the law of 1808. Under the second empire the central almshouses were favored by the government, while in the cities and communes local boards of charity (bureaux de bienfai-sance) were established, with funds raised by voluntary contributions. In this way in 1860 upward of 1,300 institutions supplied relief to the impotent adult poor; foundlings, orphans, and abandoned children being provided for in appropriate asylums. The war of 1870-'71 increased destitution and disease enormously, while the public resources were proportionately lessened. In 1872, besides several new hospitals and asylums erected by private munificence, France possessed 46 departmental almshouses, and 12,867 local boards of charity.
The minister of the interior has the general control of all charitable institutions in France, besides directing more immediately certain large establishments of a special character. The charities of Paris are controlled by a director acting under a council composed of eminent laymen and clergymen, the president of which is the prefect of the Seine. The local boards of each city arrondissement distributes relief supplementary to that bestowed in the public hospitals and asylums; and the society of St. Vincent de Paul is very efficient in discovering hidden distress and distributing private alms. The communal or parish boards are composed of the mayor and pastor, assisted by some of the principal parishioners; and every means is taken by them to stimulate the generosity of the citizens. - As Belgium was under French rule in 1808, the law establishing departmental depots de mendicite applied to that country, and is still in force there. These, together with the numerous religious establishments, and a few free pauper colonies supported by private associations, afford considerable relief to the large pauper population.
In Holland the chief features of the system of public assistance are the three pauper colonies of Amsterdam, Middelburg, and Groningen, in which all vagrant and able-bodied paupers are forced to work for their own support. There are besides free pauper colonies for destitute families, which are supported by private charity. In the Scandinavian kingdoms the ancient methods of parochial relief have been but little interfered with. The established church is still the principal minister of charity, the government only coming to the assistance of the parochial administration to check vagrancy and provide compulsory employment for the able-bodied. In Denmark assistance is given chiefly in the form of loans, which the poor are expected to repay by their labor. Throughout the German empire the laws against mendicity and vagrancy are strictly enforced. The ancient methods of parish relief are maintained, central workhouses and almshouses exist in every province, and the hospitals, asylums, etc, are aided by government grants. In most provinces a poor tax is raised by compulsory assessments, in others the property holders assess themselves; but if they do it too lightly, the rate is increased by the government.
In the Austrian empire public assistance is also organized on the communal or municipal basis. The system of relief in general use outside of Hungary was first introduced in Bohemia in 1779 by Count Bouquoy, and was afterward sanctioned and propagated by the emperor Joseph II. The parish boards or " institutes of the poor " (Armen-Instituten) are composed of the pastor, two overseers or "fathers of the poor" (Armenvater), and an auditor, who is accountable to the parishioners. These confine themselves chiefly, and in many places exclusively, to relieving the impotent, and supporting lunatic asylums, lying-in and foundling hospitals, and orphanages. Switzerland in 1643 agreed upon a general law of settlement and removal, each canton binding itself to support its own poor, and mendicancy and vagrancy being severely punished. By the federal law of 1850 each commune is obliged to provide aid for the impotent and work for the able-bodied. Young people of both sexes are to be apprenticed out when unprovided for by their parents, and these are held responsible for the conduct of children under 14, and masters for that of their apprentices. - In European countries professing the Roman Catholic religion, the church until quite recently was the great administrator of public charity through her numerous institutions of beneficence and her religious orders.
Since the suppression of these in Spain, Portugal, and Italy, no legislative provision resembling a regular poor-law system has been in operation. In Rome while under pontifical rule a "commission of relief "was intrusted with the direction of public charities. It was composed of a cardinal-president and 15 members. The city was divided into 12 districts, each of them being under the immediate superintendence of a member of the committee. In each parish within the district was a local board composed of the parish priest, two deputies (one a layman, the other a lady), chosen for two years, and a salaried secretary and treasurer. Alms were given in money, tools, and raiment. In Spain the hospitals and asylums formerly endowed for lunatics, the blind, and deaf and dumb, as well as for foundlings, etc, are still maintained by the government. Before the late revolutions the public treasury gave to each province a stated yearly sum in aid of the poor, the provinces themselves being bound to double this amount by voluntary or compulsory assessment. - British Poor-Law Statistics. Mr. N. W. Senior, who was one of the most active promoters of the poor-law amendment act of 1834, has pointed out the fact that the compulsory charity of England, from the time of Lord Bacon to that of the younger Pitt, was so cautiously administered by the parochial authorities, under the rigid law of settlement, and after the reign of George I. by the use of the workhouse test, that pauperism did not increase inordinately, in proportion to the increase in population and wealth.
The able-bodied and industrious poor were not fed from the public revenues, as was the case during the wars with Napoleon, but it was the aged, the infantile, and the invalid poor who were relieved. The poor rate of England and "Wales in 1673 was estimated (perhaps too highly) at £840,000, the population then being 5,500,000, or about the present population of Ireland. Of these, Gregory King estimated in 1688 that no less than 1,300,000 were "cottagers and paupers," besides 30,000 vagrants; the poor rate he calculated then as £665,000. Probably those strictly to be called paupers, in 1688 were not more than 500,000, or one in 11. In 1698 Fletcher of Saltoun estimated the mendicant poor of Scotland at 200,000, and said that their average number in times past had been 100,000; the population of Scotland did not then probably exceed a million. From these figures, and from the statements of Sir Josiah Child and Defoe, we may infer that pauperism in Great Britain 200 years ago was as great an evil proportionately as it now is.
But between 1792 and 1832 it was stimulated in England by a most imprudent administration of the original poor law of 1601. Certain acts passed in 1795-'6 at the instance of Mr. Pitt, allowing the parochial relief of " industrious " poor persons at their own houses, practically accomplished in a few years what the act 43d Elizabeth had not done in two centuries, and, in the words of Mr. Senior, " let in a flood of pauperism, which in the years succeeding the Napoleonic wars threatened the destruction of property and civilization." In France, during the revolution of 1792, the same laxity of poor-law administration prevailed, until checked by the prudent regulations of Napoleon, who recognized the principle, laid down by Child and Defoe, that the first duty of charitable administration is to prevent the need of charity. The division of landed property in the revolution has doubtless done much to check the growth of pauperism in France, more than the absence of a compulsory poor law, upon which many writers have commented. A poor law in itself neither increases nor diminishes pauperism, except as it is well or ill administered. There is no distinctive poor rate in France, yet the amount raised by taxation for public charity in that country is now more than 15,000,-000 francs yearly.
No country has had, for the past hundred years, so high a poor rate as England. In 1773, Lord Karnes estimated it at £3,000,000; but in fact it was only about £1,600,000 in 1776. In 1801 it was more than £4,000,000; in 1818, £7,870,801, the population at that time being 11,575,000, or something more than twice as many as in 1688, when Gregory King's tables were made out. Thus in 130 years the population had doubled and the outlay for the poor had nominally become ten times as great. This state of things alarmed the government, and from 1818 to 1834 persistent efforts were made to modify the poor laws, resulting (1834) in what has since been known as " the new poor law." Its first execution reduced the outlay for the poor from nearly £6,500,000 a year to £4,000,-000; but this has since risen to £8,000,000, though for 1874 it was but about £7,500,000, or less than in 1818, the population having in the mean time nearly doubled. The average yearly cost of pauperism in England in the ten years 1819-'29 was £6,300,000; 1829-'39, £5,700,000; 1839-'49, £5,200,000; 1849-'59, £5,500,000; 1859-'69, £6,500,000; since 1869, £7,750,000. The highest cost was in. 1872, £8,000,000; the lowest for 60 years was in 1837, £4,044,741. The number of paupers on a given day in England and Wales has sometimes been more than a million, but for several years it has been decreasing.
This decrease has taken place in spite of the abolition of many of those restrictions on the freedom of the poor which were formerly imposed by the "law of settlement." It was supposed that the increase of the " irremovable" poor, as they are called, would work an increase of actual pauperism, but such does not seem to be the case. - Relative Amount of Pauperism. In proportion to the population of England, there has been a great diminution of pauperism since 1870, when, with about 22,400,000 inhabitants, there were more than 1,000,000 paupers. At Christmas, 1873, there were but 781,470, of whom 106,879 were in London; and at Christmas, 1874, there were but 750,414 paupers in a population of more than 23,500,000, and 97,357 of these were in London. In four years, therefore, there was a decrease of more than 25 per cent, in all England and Wales, while in the same period the decrease in London had been 20 per cent. The cost of pauperism in the United Kingdom in 1870 was £9,593,000, or 6s. 4d. a head of the whole population.
In the United States in the same year, with a population about one fourth greater, the cost of pauperism did not exceed £3,000,000, or less than a third part of what was paid in England, Scotland, and Ireland. It may be noticed also that the number of paupers in the United States is much less in summer than in winter, while in England the season makes little difference in the number. Thus on July 1, 1873, there were supported and aided in England and Wales 822,000 persons, of whom 275,838 were children under 16, and 384,468 were aged and infirm adults. On Oct. 1, 1874, there were 721,000 paupers; on Nov. 1, 720,000; and on Dec. 25, 750,000. Here we see 100,000 more paupers receiving aid in midsummer of one year than in midwinter of the next year; a thing that certainly never happened in the United States, and but rarely in England. In ordinary years the number of the poor receiving aid in England is greatest in the latter part of January and early in February, and least in the early part of October. Thus, on Oct. 12, 1870, the number receiving aid in England was 882,660, of whom 134,087 were in workhouses, and 748,-573 were receiving outdoor relief or supported in lunatic asylums.
But on Feb. 28 of the same year 1,092,578 were receiving aid, of whom more than 165,000 were in workhouses; and on Jan. 1, 1871, the whole number was 1,085,963, of whom 168,073 were in workhouses. This would indicate that something less than 20 per cent, of tke maximum number of English paupers drop off the list when the number reaches its minimum; in other words, that more than four fifths of English pauperism is permanent, without regard to the season of the year. In America it is probable that no more than three fifths of the pauperism is permanent. In most European countries there has been an improvement in the condition of the poor, in consequence mainly of the large emigration to America and Australia. Thus Ireland and those parts of Germany from which there has been the largest emigration are also the regions that exhibit the greatest diminution of pauperism. In Ireland during the famine of 1846-7, and for a few years afterward, the average number of paupers receiving aid ranged from 200,000 to 250,000, while in 1874 the average number receiving aid of all kinds did not exceed 75,000, a decrease.of two thirds in a quarter of a century.
The cost of relieving the Irish poor has not much diminished, however, being about £1,100,000 in 1852 and about £1,000,000 in 1874. Of the latter sum, £141,916 was for medical charities, and the number reported as under medical care during the year was 700,000, or an average of about 2,000 a day. The number of Irish paupers admitted to workhouses in 1874 (the year ending Sept. 29) was 252,-000, against 249,000 in 1873; a slight increase for that year, in which the emigration to America fell off in consequence of the American panic of 1873. The number of outdoor poor in Ireland during 1874 was 74,000, against 69,500 in 1873; the total of both classes of paupers was 319,242 in 1873 and 326,618 in 1874. But in 1870 there had been 441,446, including 382,152 indoor and 59,294 outdoor paupers. The English pauper statistics do not give the whole number relieved and supported during the year, but only those at given dates; a fact which should be borne in mind in making comparisons between the two countries. If the English figures were made up as those of Ireland are, the total would probably exceed 2,500,000 paupers in a year (or more than one in ten of all the inhabitants) who are either occasional or permanent paupers.
It is in this sense, probably, that we must understand the percentage of pauperism in Belgium and some other countries, where it seems very large, sometimes one in seven of the population. Belgium, Switzerland, and France, countries from which there is comparatively little emigration to America, are precisely those which show but little decrease in pauperism, or even an increase. In 1856 Belgium had a population not much greater than that of the state of New York in 1870, namely, 4,529;461. Yet while New York in 1870 supported an average of less than 50,000 paupers, Belgium in 1856, according to official figures, supported more than 500,000, and an average probably of more than 100,000; and this number has not much diminished since. In France the number aided at home by the bureaux de bienfaisance in 1871 was reported as 1,347,386, in a total population of 36,500,000. In 1861, when the population (before the separation of Alsace and Lorraine) was somewhat greater, the number aided was but 1,159,539, showing a considerable increase of poverty, in consequence of the Franco-Prussian war and other causes.
In Prussia, however, and in Germany generally, and apparently in Austria, pauperism has decreased, as in England and Ireland. The increase in the United States is but slight, and is caused apparently by the emancipation of the slaves in the southern states, and by the financial troubles since the autumn of 1873. Up to that time, in the northern states, pauperism in proportion to the population was decreasing. - Proportion of Paupers to Population. The statistics of pauperism are very deceptive for all purposes of comparison, because they are differently made up in different countries. It is customary, however, to compare the pauperism of different regions by ascertaining in each country the proportion which those persons who receive public charity bear to the whole population. Without vouching for the accuracy of the computations made, we will present some of these statistics of proportionate numbers and cost, taken mainly from the work of A. Emminghaus, Das Armenwesen und die Arrriengesetzgebung in Europaischen Staaten (Berlin, 1870). He quotes Hausner's " Statistics of Europe," which gives the proportion of paupers in Belgium as one to every 7 1/2 inhabitants, in Holland one to every 7, in Baden one to 16, in Switzerland one to 19 1/2, in Great Britain one to 22, in South Germany about one to 25, in France one to 29 1/2, in North Germany about one to 30, and in Prussia and Austria about one to 34 1/2. In the United States the proportion of inhabitants to paupers is nowhere less (according to European modes of computation) than 75 or 100 to one, and in the whole country there must be at least 150 inhabitants to one pauper.
The population of Ireland in April, 1871, was 5,402,759, and the number of paupers from 60,000 to 75,000, giving a proportion of 72-90 to one.. The English paupers then numbered 1,000,000, and the population of England (always including Wales) was 22,-704,108. This gives the proportion of inhabitants to paupers as less than 23 to one, showing pauperism to be more than three times as common in England as in Ireland. In Scotland the population in 1871 was 3,360,018; the number of paupers cannot be given very exactly, by reason of the method of computing them, but it was between 100,000 and 130,000, or at the rate of one pauper to every 26 or 33 inhabitants. The foregoing statements relate to the average number of paupers; if the whole number relieved during the year is considered, the proportion of paupers to population will seem much larger. It is probably safe to say that in all the countries of Europe, save Russia, Turkey, and Greece, the proportion of paupers constantly supported or aided by public charity is as 3 to 100, and that the pauper class in all Europe numbers not less than 15,000,000, perhaps 25,000,000. Among the 42,000,000 who lived in the United States in the beginning of 1875, it is not probable that the pauper class numbered more than 400,000, or that the average number of paupers aided was so great as 250,000. - Indoor and Outdoor Relief. These terms, borrowed from the technical dialect of the English poor-law board, are used rather loosely to signify relief given in workhouses (indoor) and that given elsewhere, generally at the pauper's own home.
The English workhouse corresponds to the American poorhouse or almshouse, and it is a favorite theory of British political economists that all persons who apply for public charity should have their sincerity tested by sending them to the workhouse. This of course cannot always be done, but some approach to the "workhouse test" is often found the best means to reform the administration of charity. The class of " indoor paupers " should also include those insane poor who are confined in hospitals and asylums; but this is not done in England, where pauper lunatics are put down among those receiving outdoor relief. This is one reason why the cost of outdoor relief appears so large in England, as compared with the cost of maintaining the workhouses; for there are now about 50,000 pauper lunatics in England who are maintained from the poor rates at a cost of nearly £1,000,000 a year. This class of the poor is steadily increasing in all countries. The number of indoor paupers during the year is much larger, of course, than the daily or average number. Thus, in 1871, although there were but 42,375 persons in the workhouses of Ireland on Sept. 29, and only 48,738 on Jan. 6, 1872, there were yet 183,135 persons admitted to Irish workhouses during the year, including 2,103 births.
This is an average of more than 15,000 admissions in a month, or nearly one third as many monthly admissions as the whole average number in the workhouses (46,000). In the city almshouses of the state of New York, in the same year (1871), the average number of inmates being a little more than 8,500, there were nearly 31,000 admissions, including 700 births; a monthly admission of less than 2,600, or considerably less than one third of the average number supported. Hence it would appear that the pauper class in Ireland is more numerous, in pro- . portion to the average number supported, than it is in the cities of New York, Albany, Buffalo, etc. But while pauperism in New York is gaining ground, it is decreasing in Ireland. In Scotland it has been somewhat increasing, and its cost had advanced at such a rate for some years previous to 1870 as to occasion serious apprehensions, and lead to some important changes in the poor laws of that country. This increase of cost in Scotland seems to be partly due to the fact that there are not in workhouses all the poor who ought to be maintained indoors, and consequently that outdoor relief is carried further than it ought to be.
Thus, in the year 1872, while the average number of the adult poor was 74,635, with 42,175 dependents, the whole number of indoor poor in winter was but little more than 8,000, and in summer 1,000 less; so that only about one tenth of the adult poor of Scotland are supported in workhouses or poor-houses, unless we reckon the lunatic poor in asylums, which would make the proportion of indoor poor perhaps one fifth of the whole. In England, reckoning in the lunatic poor, the indoor paupers number about one fifth of the whole, but in Ireland they are almost four fifths. Thus, in 1872, out of 296,256 Irish paupers relieved during the year, no less than 232,236 were maintained in workhouses, and only 63,432 received outdoor relief. In the United States the proportion of indoor paupers to the whole number is about half way between that of Ireland and that of Scotland. In France, outdoor relief, or, as it is there more properly called, "aid to families" (se-cours d domicile), is the favorite form of public charity, and has been extended of late years to certain classes of the poor never before aided in this way.
For example, instead of supporting foundling children in hospitals, as formerly, they are now put out to nurse in the country, or are left with their mothers (Jilles-mires), who receive outdoor relief and nurse their own infants. On Jan. 1, 1861, out of 94,413 infants supported by the public, 44,176, or nearly half, were entered as foundlings, and only 14,228 as aided at home; but on Jan. 1, 1871, of an almost equal number of infants (94,043), only 10,056 were classed as foundlings, while 30,894 were aided at home. More than nine tenths of the other infants who are received into hospitals, infirmaries, etc, are immediately boarded out in the country (in 1872, 59,623 out of 63,149), and the money paid for them is practically outdoor relief. This amounts to more than 7,500,000 francs in a year, besides 2,750,000 francs paid for infants with their mothers, etc.; so that, of 10,-750,696 francs paid in 1871 for these infants, all but about 500,000 francs went in the form of " aid to families " or outdoor relief.
The great majority of adult paupers in France are also, aided in the same way, by the local boards of relief (bureaux de oienfaisance). The 46 almshouses in France cost in 1872 less than 1,000,000 francs, and supported 5,470 persons; and the 12,867 boards of relief expended 26,719,000, and gave nominal aid to 1,347,386 persons. Many of these persons were undoubtedly aided twice, thrice, or oftener, during the year, but the whole number of different persons aided was probablymore than 1,000,000, including the infants above mentioned. In 1840. when France had a population of 34,-100,000, against 36,102,000 in 1871, the number of paupers aided by the bureaux was (nominally) 814,584, and the amount expended for them was 11,774,231 francs, or less than half what was paid in 1871. On Dec. 31,1841, the number of paupers receiving outdoor relief in Paris was 62,705, and the amount expended in that city during the year for aid of this kind was 1,419,759 francs. Assuming that the average number during the year was 50,000, this would make the average cost of each person a little less than 30 francs. At this rate the average number receiving outdoor relief in France in 1841 would have been something above 400,000 persons; in 1871 it was probably 750,000 persons.
The average number of indoor paupers in France is hard to estimate from the official returns, but in'1871 it no doubt exceeded 150,000 persons. Thus there were more than 27,000 pauper lunatics, probably more than 75,000 sick and infirm paupers in hospitals and infirmaries, and more than 40,000 neglected children. The practice in France is to give indoor (full) support only to the insane, the sick, the old and infirm, and helpless children; but the number and yearly cost of these classes is very considerable, perhaps three fifths as great, in proportion to the population, as the number and cost of the indoor poor of all classes in Great Britain and Ireland. The cost of indoor support in France also is greater than that of outdoor relief, even after the changes of late years. The system of indoor and outdoor relief established throughout the portion of the Austrian empire mentioned above is very effective. The Ar-meninstituten deal with all forms of distress, and minister to it intelligently. In 1845 they numbered 5,165; in 1866, 6,678; and in the latter year they distributed 2,577,563 Austrian florins in outdoor relief. In the same year 1,115,155 florins were expended for foundling children boarded out, making the total of outdoor relief 3,692,718 florins.
The indoor maintenance reported for the same year was something more than 6,000,000 florins. In the kingdom of Prussia a little more than one third of the sum expended for the poor goes for indoor maintenance, and nearly two thirds for outdoor relief, but the cost of both kinds of relief is small compared with what is paid in France, England, and the United States. The number of indoor poor in Prussia averages less than 50,000, and has been reduced of late years by the practice of boarding out pauper children. In Norway the number fully supported is about one third of the whole public poor, who increased greatly from 1851 to 1866, but have since diminished somewhat. In 1851 there were 62,788 paupers relieved in Norway, among a population of 1,409,254, at a cost of 564,772 specie dollars; in 1855, when the population exceeded 1,500,000, there were 64,089 public poor, of whom 23,-809 were fully and 40,280 partially supported, at a total cost of 682,412 specie dollars. In 1866, when the population had increased to 1,701,756, the poor numbered 84,678, or one in 20 of the population, the cost being 1,086,-891 specie dollars. It is not probable that the average number of the poor was more than 50,000, if so many.
In Sweden, in 1865, with a population of 4,114,141, there were 55,187 paupers fully supported in the course of the year, and 92,601 partially - in all, 147,788 paupers relieved, at a reported cost of about 3,857,-000 rix dollars, or 960,000 specie dollars; but in 1870 the reported cost had gone up to 6,022,-345 zix dollars, and was still below the truth. The whole number of the Swedish poor reported in 1870 was 158,436, of whom a little less than two fifths were fully supported for some part of the year. The number of almshouses in Sweden is about 2,150, and the average number of the poor cannot exceed 100,000. Italy, which is struggling toward a methodical system of dealing with its paupers (variously estimated at from 305,000 to 1,500,000 in a population of 27,000,000), furnishes no statistics of any value; and the same may be said of Spain, Portugal, Russia, Turkey, and Greece. - On the whole, it appears that the method of outdoor relief, systematically applied under strict supervision, is extending in most parts of the world. It is the method pursued in the Rhenish city of Elberfeld since 1852, where pauperism has been remarkably diminished by its application.
It is also the method most favored in Massachusetts of late years, and the judicious extension of outdoor relief under the supervision of state officers or of well organized municipal boards has been one of the measures which in Massachusetts have prevented pauperism from keeping pace with the increase in population since 1865. Relief thus administered sometimes increases the cost of the poor to the public, but it is more likely to diminish their numbers and to make them self-supporting than the strict workhouse system of indoor relief. The two methods, however, should be combined in every populous community, and in great cities it is almost impossible to prevent the abuse of outdoor relief. More injurious than these abuses, or those of the indoor administration of pauper establishments, are the evils which flow from indiscriminate and competing distributions of charity by individuals and benevolent organizations. These organizations should be made to cooperate when possible with the dispensers of public relief. - Pauperism in the United States. In the United States, as has been mentioned, pauperism has somewhat increased; but our statistics are not so complete as to show this clearly, either as to the extent or the causes of increase.
Nor is it by any means certain that pauperism has gained faster than population in any of the states, only a few of which make such returns of the number and cost of their poor as can be trusted, or used in comparisons from one period to another. The decennial census is very imperfect in its statistics on this subject, and the census tables of 1870 undoubtedly underrate the pauperism then existing in the United States. According to these figures, the average number of the poor in a population of 38,558,371 was but 116,102 on June 1, 1870 - about the same as in Scotland with a population less than one tenth as great. In fact, the states of New York and Pennsylvania alone probably contain as many paupers as Scotland, and certainly pay as much in a year for their maintenance. In Pennsylvania, at a given date during 1874, the number of the poor supported and relieved, including orphan children, was about 25,000, and they cost during the year about $1,500,000. In New York the number supported or relieved at a given date exceeded 50,000, and they cost during the year not less than $4,250,000, including the appropriations of public money made to orphan homes, hospitals, and dispensaries, the support of the pauper insane in hospitals, and the expenditures for immigrant paupers under the commissioners of emigration.
We thus find in New York and Pennsylvania an outlay for the poor in 1874 amounting to $5,750,000, or somewhat more than £1,000,000, which has been the extreme limit of pauper expenses in Scotland. The sum reported in 1870 as the pauper cost of the whole United States, according to the census bureau, was $10,930,429, of which three states - New York, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts - are reported as expending nearly one half ($5,039,018) in supporting less than 50,000 paupers through the year. The tables of the census of 1860 are still more faulty; indeed, a just exhibit of pauperism in this country has never been made. At its settlement, and for a century afterward, there were but few paupers, who were relieved under some modification of the English statutes, and with no great outlay or system. Since the tide of foreign immigration set in, early in the present century, and especially since the Irish famine of 1846, pauperism has rapidly increased in the northern and middle states, more than half of all their poor being now recent immigrants, or their children or grandchildren. This influx of foreign paupers has led to many changes in our local systems of poor laws and their administration, and greatly increased our pauper expenses.
In New England the town overseers of the poor, and in the other states the county supervisors, overseers, guardians, etc, look after the relief of the poor, while the state usually provides for the indigent insane, and in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and some other states, for certain classes of the sane poor. The number of the poor decreased during the civil war, but has since increased, while the cost of supporting them is double what it was before 1860. The laws of " settlement" have been relaxed in New England and several other states, and the classification of the poor is much better attended to than formerly. The three populous states of Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania, with the little state of Rhode Island, have taken the lead in this classification, and these four states expend much more in proportion to their population (now about 10,000,-000) than the rest of the country. We have tolerably exact annual returns from them, and from Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin. Massachusetts in the year 1874 expended for the support, relief, and supervision of her poor nearly $1,500,000; the average number of the indoor poor was 6,000, of the outdoor poor 10,500, and of the casual poor, vagrants, etc, about 500, making an average of 17,000 poor of all classes, or something more than one in every 100 of the population, which in 1874 was less than 1,700,-000. The whole number of different persons receiving relief was probably less than 75,000. Of the sum expended, something more than two thirds ($4,000,000) was paid by the 342 towns and cities of Massachusetts, each relieving its own poor, and nearly one third ($450,-000) was paid from the state treasury.
Of the latter sum, $100,000 was an extraordinary expense for the smallpox cases of 1872-3. Of the 17,000 poor constantly on the register, not less than 2,000 were insane. The cost of the indoor poor was about $900,000, and of the outdoor or partially supported poor about $550,000, including in both cases the cost of supervision. The indoor poor of the state of New York cost in 1874 about $3,250,000, and the outdoor poor about $1,000,000. The indoor poor of Pennsylvania cost in 1874 about $1,170,000, and the outdoor poor $330,000. Of the indoor poor, who averaged nearly 10,-000, about 3,100 were pauper lunatics; the outdoor poor seem to have averaged something more than 12,000, among whom were a few insane. The city of Philadelphia, with a population of more than 700,000, expended but about $120,000 for outdoor relief, and less than $500,000 for its poor of all classes. The pauper expenditure of the city of New York is difficult to ascertain and classify, but including the expenses of the emigrant commissioners, it must have exceeded $1,500,000 in 1874, of which less than $250,000 was for outdoor relief. The city board of charities expended in outdoor relief less than $150,000, yet the nominal number of its outdoor sick during 1874 was 83,309, who were attended by 30 physicians.
The number of indoor sick cared for by this board in the same year was 14,987, of whom only 4,160 were residents of New York. The average cost of the indoor patients per week was $2 23, of the outdoor patients 27 cents. The whole outlay by this board for patients of both classes was $206,930. Outdoor relief in the city of New Haven, Conn., cost $1,000 a week during the winter of 1874-'5, while the whole cost of both indoor and outdoor relief at Worcester, Mass., in the same winter, was less than $400 a week, the population of the two cities being about the same. In the state of Rhode Island the cost of supporting about 900 indoor poor in 1874 was $105,000, about half of them being in 28 town almshouses, and the rest in state establishments; the cost of outdoor relief is not reported, but in 1873 it exceeded $42,000; so that the whole pauper expenditure of Rhode Island may be estimated at $150,000 in a population of 230,000. In all New England, with a population of something more than 3,500,-000 in 1874, the pauper expenditure was probably less than $3,000,000, while the average number of the poor may have been 30,000. The indoor poor, including the pauper insane, averaged about half this number, or 15,000. The number of town, city, and county almshouses in New England is nearly 600, and there are two state almshouses, in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. In the state of New York there are 56 county poorhouses and six city almshouses; in Pennsylvania, 58 county and district almshouses; in Michigan, 45 county poorhouses, with an average population in 1874 of 1,642. The outdoor poor of Michigan numbered 25,862, and their cost was $183,339; the cost of the indoor poor was $266,832, including $89,258 paid for the indigent insane (about 370 in number); the whole cost of the poor in Michigan was about $460,-000, for an apparent average number of 4,500. The whole pauper expenditure in the United States for 1874 may be estimated at $15,000,-000, and the average number of the poor relieved at 225,000. Outside of New England the indoor poor are generally maintained in county almshouses, or in lunatic asylums and orphan homes; but less than half the states have a regular system of providing for their poor and obtaining a report of their condition, their management being generally left to the local authorities.
In eight states, however (Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin), there are boards of public charity which* supervise and report the expenditure for the relief of the poor, and concert measures for the repression and prevention of pauperism. In the city of New York there is a similar board. At conferences of these boards, called by the American social science association, in New York (May, 1874) and Detroit (May, 1875), measures were taken to report more accurately the circumstances of pauperism in the United States. Comparing the administration of relief to the poor as it exists in this country with what is practised in Europe, we perceive here the same tendency to centralization so prevalent in Great Britain and on the continent. The boards of public charity in the city and state of New York, in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Michigan, Illinois, and other states, are in fact poor-law boards with somewhat of the power and functions exercised by the English poor-law board. Much yet remains to be done in this direction, however. The great present need is to effect a practical cooperation between the managers of official and of private charity.
In New York, in Boston, and doubtless in many other cities, there are bureaus of charity which undertake to connect the official with the private distribution of alms, so that all the indigent may be judiciously aided. These arrangements are recent and tentative, but they succeed- better year by year. That which our economists praise as the most deserving of imitation was adopted at Elberfeld in Westphalia; it embraces a careful system of house-to-house visitation among the city poor, who are then aided with the public money or by private contributions under official management. This system has also been partially adopted in Geneva, Switzerland. Could our American cities put in practice the same perfect system of registration and visitation before distributing public or private alms, the cost of relieving and preventing pauperism would be greatly reduced, and the truly needy would be sure of assistance. - See Codex Thedosianus, ix., xi., 15-16; Sir Matthew Hale, " Discourse touching Provision for the Poor" (London, 1673); Sir Josiah Child, "New Discourse of Trade " (1690); Defoe, "Giving Alms no Charity" (1704); Dr. R. Burn, "The History of the Poor Laws " (1764); Sir F. M. Eden, " The State of the Poor, or History of the Laboring Classes in England from the Conquest " (1797); " Collections relative to the Systematic Relief of the Poor" (1815); Ducha-tel, Sur la charite (Paris, 1827); C. de Brouc-kere, La charite et l'assistancetpublique (Brussels); Fregier, Des classes dangereuses de la population dans lesgrandes miles (Paris, 1840); Moreau, Du probleme dela misere et de sa solution (1851); Chastel, Etudes historiques sur Vinfluence de la charite (1853); Sir George Nicholl, " Histories of the English, Scotch, and Irish Poor Laws " (London, 1854-'6); Stephen Col well, "Themes for the Protestant Clergy, by a Layman" (Philadelphia, 1851); Lecky, " History of European Morals," vol: ii. (London, 1869); the work of Emminghaus mentioned above, and official reports.