Appeal to the Wealthy of the Land/Essay 11
ESSAY XI.
It now remains to consider the case of those countries where there are no taxes raised for the support of the poor, whose support is extorted by mendicity, and how far the plan of tolerating that abominable nuisance as a substitute, recommended by the Edinburgh Review, would be preferable to a statutory provision. This comparison affords the best, indeed the only correct criterion of the merits of the respective modes of providing for the poor.
In a publication issued at Paris about the close of the last century, say 1795, the latest account I have been able to procure, it is stated that there were then in that country 300,000 able-bodied beggars, who occasioned a loss to the state of 125,000,000 livres, equal to about $20,000,000. It is presumable that each 'able-bodied beggar,' on an average, had dependent on him at least two persons, a wife and a child. Here is an aggregate of nearly a million of souls in a state of beggary, prowling abroad, and preying on the public to an enormous amount, levied merely on the charitable; whereas, had the same sum been levied by law, it would have probably far more than supported all the paupers whose age and infirmity rendered them entitled to public aid, and been borne in somewhat like equitable proportions by the whole community. To aggravate the evil, these beggars are "considered as the great nursery of all the robbers and assassins that infest the country."—Q. R. vol. xxxviii. p. 74.
"The population of Paris in 1823 was 713,966 souls, of whom 61,500 were entirely supported in hospitals and other charitable institutions, and 64,000 at their own houses."—Idem, p. 73.
"Notwithstanding this oppressive provision, 'her streets, her quays, and all her public places, are filed with mendicants!'"—Ibid.
"The patrimony of the poor," says a report of the bureaux de charité, "was sufficient to support one fourth of the inhabitants, and yet the poor were in want."—Q. R. vol. xxxviii. p. 74.
"Naples is crowded with beggars, whose number defies all calculation. I feel it indeed a fruitless task for my pen to attempt a description of the scenes I have witnessed, and I lay it down in despair—But no! what I can tell is as much as need be known of human misery. As we step out of our house, twenty hats and open hands are stretched out towards us. We cannot take ten steps without meeting with a beggar, who crosses our path, and with groans and piteous exclamations solicits our mite. Women, often dressed in black silk, and veiled, intrude themselves impudently upon us. Cripples of all sorts hold up their stump of a leg or an arm close to our eyes: noseless faces, devoured by disease, grin at us; children quite naked, nay, even men, arc to be seen lying and moaning in the dirt. A dropsical man sits by the wall, and shows us his monstrous belly. Consumptive mothers lie by the road-side with naked children on their laps, who are compelled to be continually crying aloud. If we go to church, we must pass through a dozen such deplorable objects at the door; and when we enter, as many fall down on their knees before us. Even in our dwellings, we are not free from the painful spectacle."—Kotzebue's Travels through Italy, vol. i. pp. 251, 252.
"In large cities, in coming out of one house, you are fairly hunted till you get into another; the fraternity, however, appear to have this point of etiquette, that only one hunts you at a time: but before you are out of sight of the former beggar, whom you have relieved, you are considered fair game for the rest of the pack."—Q. R. vol. xxxviii. p. 73.
"If the whole sum which is paid in misapplied alms by the farmers and peasantry were estimated, it would amount to a very heavy poor-tax!"—Idem, p. 530.
"Mr. B. Bryan calculates that there are half a million of houses in Ireland of the farming class, each of which contributes in this way, on an average, a ton of potatoes a year towards the support of the poor: the value of this alone would be near two million of money."—Ibid.
"In the kingdom of the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, and Switzerland, the poor are provided for on a plan which does not essentially differ from our own, at a cost to the community, which, when compared with the wealth of each country, equals, at least, the highest expense which has been found to attend the English system. Over all the remainder of the continent, the mendicant system—the delight of the Malthusians—prevails in all its vigour: but the intolerable burden of this system can only be conceived by those who have witnessed its pressure."—Q. R. vol. xxxviii. p. 72.
The worthlessness, the improvidence, the dissipation of the labouring classes are fertile themes of declamation with the new school of political economists. To those who cling to their wealth with the tenacity of "grim death," it is delightful to descant on these topics, as they regard them as a full justification of their invariable rejection of the claims of the poor. But I have one strong fact in proof of the providence of a large portion of that class, which outweighs a volume of frothy declamation on the opposite side of the question.
"In 1815, there were no fewer than 925,439 individuals in England and Wales, being about one eleventh of the then existing population, members of friendly societies, formed for the express purpose of affording protection to the members during sickness and old age, and enabling them to subsist without resorting to the parish funds."—E. R. vol. xlvii, p. 304.
It is highly probable that these were generally heads of families; but say that only two-thirds were of that description, and that each of them averaged two in family besides himself, it would make an aggregate of about 2,150,000 souls of the labouring population, who do not look to the poor rates in times of sickness or want of employment. The population of England was at that time about 10,000,000; of course, the above number constituted a fifth of the whole. What a triumphant fact in favour of the providence of the labouring classes in England and Wales, notwithstanding the various circumstances connected with their situation, tending to degrade and render them reckless! How complete a refutation of the unceasing vituperation under which they labour! The importance of this fact is greatly enhanced by the consideration of the paltry wages the mass of the labouring classes receive; and how ill they can spare any part of them to make such provident provision for future distress.
A feature in the connexion between the manufacturers and the operatives in England, which has a tendency to degrade and pauperize the latter, and, of course, to increase the poor rates, deserves to be noticed. When work is slack, the former combine to lower wages: this they can effect without any difficulty, their numbers being small; of course they can readily co-operate in any plans they may form: and the necessities of the operatives, who depend on their weekly wages for their weekly support, oblige them to submit. But when the demand for goods is brisk, the rise of wages must be either voluntary on the part of the employers, which rarely takes place, or by an association among the operatives, which, considering their numbers, is not easily effected; and which, moreover, if attempted to be enforced upon those who cannot or will not voluntarily acquiesce in the arrangement, is, by law, a criminal offence, subjecting the parties to fine and imprisonment. It is obvious, therefore, that the war is carried on between the manufacturers and their journeymen upon very unequal terms, to the great disadvantage of the latter.
Philadelphia, July 19, 1833.
