The native American., 1838-09-01

names he is SO fortunate as to secure three sacks
instead of one On these periodical distributions
he can confidently depend, for most of the pa
rishioners dispose of their annual tickets to tn,
same poor persons from year to year, as a matter
E0f course; and others, who are more discriminate
invariably find, upon renewed inquiry, that Their
petitioners in the same state of apparent indi
gence or destitution. Under these circumstances
our applicant soon comes to look upon his share
of the 'parochal Lounty' as legitimate and Ger
tain item in his yearly receipts.
''But this is only slight periodical relief. HI
wants more loaDes and more Goals, and he has
!, the means of obtaining them. If the weather is
; severe, the 'Spitalfeld Association is at work;
and for months together distributes 'bread, coal
and pofatoes.' The Soup Society also is in
operation, and provides him regularly with seve-
raj quarts of excellent meat soup, at penny, OF
sometimes even halfpenny a quart. AT all
times several 'beneUoient societies and pension
societies are acting in the district and from these
ne receives food or pecun 'ry relief. He may
apply, too, during the temporary cessation Of any
of these charities, to the charitable associations
Of the different religious denominations; to the
District Visiting Society," to the independents
Visiting Society," to the Friend in Need Society,"
to the Strangers Friend Society; to 'Zion's Good
|
to get something from all of them.
''If his bedding is bad he gets the loan Of
blanket from the benevolent Society," or from
the Blanket Association or he gets blanket
a rug, and pair of sheets from the 'Sptalields
Association The last of these charities supplies
him with flannel Waistcoaf for himself and
flannel petticoat for his wife. In one instance,
it furnishes his wife and children with shoes and
stockings.
"Ihus he proceeds from year to year with a
charity to meet every exigency of health and
sickness. The time at length arrives, when,
either from the number of children born to him
under the kind superinendence of the 'Lying-in
the Royal Maternity, or the 'Benerole,n So
ciety, or from desire to add legal and perma-
nent provision to the more precarious supplies of
voluntary charity, he solcits parish relief; he
begs an extract from the parish register, proves
his settlement by the charity school indfnture of
apprenticeship, and quarters his family on the
parish, with an allowance offv shillings week.
In this uniform alienation of voluntary and COM
pulsory relief, he draws towards the close of his
mendicant existence.
"Before leaving the world, he might, perhaps,
return thanks to the public. He has been born
/ for nothing, he has been 'n"rsed far nothing,'
he has been 'cIothed, for nothing,' he has been
educated for nothing,' he has been put out in
The acorld tor nothing, he has had medicine and
medical attendance for mofhing,' and he has had
his children also born. nursed, clothed, tcd eda,-
Gated, established, and physicked for nofhing.'
| ''There is but one good Office more for which
he stand indebted to society, and THAT is his
burial. lie dies parish pauper, and at the ex-
coffin, pail, and burial ground; party of paupers
from the work-house bear his body to tile grave,
and party of paupers are his mourners.
II wish it to be particularly understood, that,
in thus describing the operation Of charity in my
district, have been giving an ordina,y and not
an extraordinary instance. | might have in
cluded many other details, some of them of far
more aggravated and offensive nature. | have
contented myself, however, with describing the
state Of the district regards charitable relief and
the extent to which that relief mag be, and actu-
ally IS, made to minister to improuidence and de-
|pendence."
That we have already hcgun to feel the fas,
hold of settled scheme of similar kind in the
United States, is very apparent, by not merely
looking at the dispersed and greatly augmented
numbers of poor through the States, but in the
stand already made by them in our principal ci-
ties, where they practise the same demands upon
the municipal funds, and settle themselves under
the same pretensions, that they assume in Eng
land against the parishes.
As long ago as 1920, the cost of wine. brandy
gin rum, whiskey, and other liquors expended
in the almshouses in Philadelphia, was SO, ,OOl 81
for one years while the drugs and medicines fol
the same paupers cost only S. ,972 "a, and the
barley, 1922 40. With all the emendatons in
this practice since the influence of temperance
societies, the amount expended in 1882 was, for
liquors, 81 $50 80; while the medicines came to
S2, ,2S9 26, and the barley-water to but SO.
The vice of the old countries has come with
its population and its poor; and this is exemplifcd
in every institution in the Union where the sub
ject has been inquired into or written upon The
following is from report of committee on the
poor-laws which convened in Philadelphia in
1925:
"Upon the whole, your committee are con-
vnced that the effect Of a compulsory provision
for the poor is to increase the number of raupers
to entail an oppressive burden on the country, to
promote ideness and licentousness among the
aboring classes, and to afford relief to the pro-
figate and abandoned which ought to be bestow-
ed on the virtuous and Industrious alone; that the
poor-aws have done away with the necessity
! of private charity; that they have been onerous
to the community, and every way injurious 10 the