Committee de Mendicité at the beginning of the French revolution, very properly and judiciously rejected the establishment of such a system which had been proposed'." With these proper and judicious persons the rights of man had nothing to do with the rights of the poor man, that is, one too impotent either to oppose or assist them, and consequently a mere burden; and this is a distinction seldom lost sight of in the liberality of the liberals, either in their theories or their practice. It often happens, however, that men, influenced neither by principle nor feeling, may perpetrate acts infamous in themselves, which ultimately prove beneficial. It remains to be inquired whether this so highly extolled one of the French has turned out to be amongst that number. One advantage, I confess, it has been attended with: it has given an opportunity of putting the pernicious principles now afloat to the test, and, as far as experience may be permitted to decide, has disposed of them for ever. The "sore" of England, if her charity must be so denominated, we know ; has, then, the political chirurgery of France removed from that country the deformity of poverty by their rescissory operation? Much is said about the pauperism in London; let us compare it with that of Paris, the focus of the fashionables, and consequently of the superfluous wealth, of Europe; and then let us see to which belongs the appellation of this "plaie la plus dévorante." And to end all disputes on the point, I will take one of the most expensive and burdensome years England has yet experienced; since when, not 'Malthus, Essay on Population, p. 546. withstanding the "absorbent" system of our modern quacks, the expenses of the poor have very considerably diminished; and if large sums did not appear on the face of the rates, which are in reality the wages of labour, the declension would appear still greater. We have particulars of the year 1813 published. In the year 1811, the metropolis contained a population of 1,009,546 souls: that number was doubtless increased in 1813, when there were 35,593 persons permanently relieved in and out of the several workhouses, and 75,310 occasionally, amounting in the whole to 110,903, and involving an expense of £517,181. Turn we now to Paris'. In the twelve arrondissemens, containing, in 1823, a population of 713,966 souls, the report of the Bureaux de Charité sums up as follows: Total des indigens secourus à domicile ou autrement Population des hôpitaux et hospices 125,500 61,500 187,000 To this appalling number must still be made many very heavy additions, such as enfans-trouvés, &c. &c. The expense of maintaining these I hold to be far the least important part of the examination. The twelve Bureaux of Charity, it appears, distributed 1,200,000 francs in money; 747,000 loaves of four pounds weight each; 270,000 pounds of meat; 19,000 ells of cloth; 7000 pairs of sabots, 1500 coverlets, &c. But in the report from which I am quoting, it is added, that these bureaux form a part only of the public benevolent institutions of Paris; then follows an account of 1 Population Abstracts for 1811. Poor Rate Returns for 1813; published by order, 1818; Appendix, pp. 631, 632, 633. 2 Bulletin Universel, 1824, Geog., &c. tom. i. pp. 88, 89. the various establishments, the numbers received into which, independently of schools, amounts to 75,200: most of these, I presume, are included in the 61,500, as reported to be in the hôpitaux and hospices. The report of the Consul général des Hôpitaux (année 1823) states, that the relief afforded to the indigent population of the capital, by his administration, amounted to 3,300,000 francs, of which the foundling hospitals absorbed a third. As to the private charities distributed, the article says, " on ne peut savoir le montant." But the conclusion of this important report must not be omitted; and I call the particular attention of those to it who are so loud in their admiration of the proper and judicious conduct of the French committee de mendicité, in rejecting the English plaie la plus dévorante ; it runs thus: "It is painful to terminate this enumeration of the relief given to the indigent of the capital, by the observation, that her streets, her quays, and all her public places are filled with mendicants1!" These are distressing statements, and there is, alas ! no room to hope they are exaggerations: they receive a melancholy confirmation by the statistics of mortality. One third of the dead of Paris are buried at the public expense 2! It is hardly necessary to prove, that if Paris is thus circumstanced, the rest of a country to which its capital is every thing, is still more deplorably imbued with beggary. That it is not so effectually succoured, we may very safely conclude. An intelligent contributor to 1 'Bulletin Universel, Geog. et Stat., tom. i. p. 89. the "Bulletin Universel des Sciences," thus expresses himself upon this point. "Supposing that the relief given to the poor from the public revenues were throughout France, in the same proportion as the population of Paris, it would amount to 121,000,000 francs." (It is plain he speaks only of the sums awarded to the maintenance of the poor from the public revenues; for if he had included those administered by the twelve Bureaux de Charité, which are, in addition, distributed in the different arrondissemens, the proportion would amount to about 200,000,000 francs.) But this sum is evidently much exaggerated; for there exist administrations of charity only in our towns, and the poor in our rural communes are succoured by voluntary charitable donations only. One ought to feel astonished that we have not been obliged to have recourse to more efficacious means, after a revolution which has left us in the same situation as England found herself in under the reign of Elizabeth, when the ecclesiastical property, which was the patrimony of the unfortunate, had been alienated from them." He does, indeed, show that the evil of such a state of things is, in some degree, mitigated by the minute division of the large properties which were confiscated at the revolution; but few, I think, amongst us, are for thus curing' la plaie' of pauperism amongst us. The wisdom of the gentlemen Mr. Malthus eulogizes so highly is therefore manifested in the vast expense which is now entailed upon the government, leaving the country still very inadequately relieved, and swarming from one end to the other with mendicants. (13.) In proof that universal mendicancy is the alternative of having no poor-laws, I may safely refer to the testimony of any one who has travelled through that country; or indeed any other in the south of Europe, where there is no regularly organized system of public relief for the poor. No expense, however great-no establishments, however magnificent, seem to compensate the want of this. I shall only quote one or two authors, and leave the reader to contrast the situation of such countries, in regard to poverty and wretchedness, with those where there is a regular system of national relief, as in Switzerland, Sweden, Holland, and England. "Let the traveller," says one of these, "start from the rock of Lisbon, and proceed through every part of Spain', Italy, and France, and the wretchedness and beggary which prevails in every town, village, house, and even apartment, through all these christian catholic countries, can only be appreciated by those who have witnessed such scenes. In Spain and Portugal, human misery and mendicity are certainly on a more extended scale than in France and Italy; but with this difference, that in the latter countries the profession is more matured and refined than in the former, where they content themselves 1 Cervantes says, of his Governor of Barataria, that in ridding the streets of beggars and relieving the indigent," he made and appointed an overseer of the poor, not to persecute, but to examine whether they were or were not real objects." Precisely the law of England. May the fiction of that inimitable author become at length, as it respects his own country, a happy reality! 2 * Milford, Observations during a Tour through France, &c. vol. ii. p. 76. |