New-York tribune., 1869-04-09
pAUPERLSM IN ENGLAND.

he 10 Occasion to indite plaintive and
and pathetic Complaint OF tie Decay of
Beggars in the Metropolis" scrips, wallets
bacs-staves, dogs, and crutches-the whole
mendcant fraternity being very common not
only in London but all over England. Nor
would he need to say again, "The mendicants of
Z" this great city were 80 many OF her rights,
"her lions / can no more spare them than l
could the Cries of London" because, go
where he might, he would find enough of
them to prove whether he was right in
believing that much good could be sucked
from the beggars. rags" he tells US, (which
"are the reproach of poverty, are the beggar's
"robes. 4. He is never out of fashion;
"is not required to put on court mourn
"ing; - is the only man in tho universe
"whO is not obliged to study appearances"
A right royal parsonage this, but now, per-
haps, q little too common. At no time within
seventeen or eighteen years-at no time,
perhaps, since Charles Lambs death, even
has pauperism in England mustered so large
an army of veterans throughout the kingdom
as now. If the English public were disposed
to overlook the monthly monitor in the tables
issued from Whitehall. the opportunities of the
sturdy beggars to be found at every street
crossing and at every roadside would not let
the social disease under which the whole
country is suffering be easily set aside. They
are as plenty as blackberres, and the "inde-
pendent trampsn have the same horror of
work and the workhouse as ever.
In England and Wales there are to-day
nearly a million of ordinary indoor and out
door paupers. OF these, London has 143,7O3,
the manufacturing districts 22S,716, and the
rural districts 5,202, the whole number being
,G2l. To this number is to be added quite
three per cent for vagrants and lunatic poor in
asylums, which carries the aggregate to 1,O17-
OOO The indoor paupers are put down at
16l so, and the outdoor at S26,4O2, which is
an increase of 81 per cent of the former and
II per cent of the latter in ten years. Even IN
1862, when the cotton famine, arising from the
Rebellion in this country, was bearing with
great severity upon the Cheshire and Lanca-
shire operatives, the number of paupers was
little in excess of the total number to-day.
That was temporary misfortune, sprlnglng
from specific cause, but this is a social dis
ease permanently fixed upon the body polite,
and growing worse every year. The worst
feature in all this consists in the fact that it is
in the rural parts of England where pauperlsm
increases most rapidly, the increase in London
and the manufacturing districts being more
gradual and less alarming. Compared with
1866, the paupers in the metropolis have IN
creased 20,434, or 1876 per cent; in the manufac-
turing districts 1904, or 9.1 per cent; and IN
the other parts of the country, including Wales,
1854, or 7.G per cent. But while, as compared
with 1861, there has been some dminution OF
distress in tho two sections first named, the
increase in the other was 1854, or 2.1 per
cent.
1t is n difficult matter to deal with beggars,
except in way likely to commend itself to
English human naturo-kicking them down
stairs or up the area steps-but this summary
method will not decrease beggary nor prevent
pauperism. Poverty is never blessing in dis
guise, and pauperism is a curse to any nation.
As there might be some objections, on the
ground of morals, to gathering all the paupers
in the kingdom into bag and throwing them
into the sea, some more feasible plain must be
fonnd. What this shall be we leave to the
English themselves and they certainly cannot
complain of a lack of the raw material upon
which to experiment.