The Workman's Advocate. — 1866-01-13 (London, England)

SATURDAY, JANUARY 13, 1866.  MODERN PAUPERISII.  IN the year 1866, the representatives of the metropolitan parishes, are discussing once more the question of pauperism. The knotty point to be solved, is not how to get rid of it, but how to limit its present and future proportions, cheapen its cost, and thus relieve those whom they  serve. Pauperism may arise from three causes. 1. The habitual laziness of a people. 2. The poverty of a nation. 3. False legislation. Pauperism in England surely cannot be said to originate in laziness, for a more industrious people is not to be found on the face of the earth; nor in the poverty of the nation, for no nation is so wealthy. In this country, then, pauperism is, beyond all doubt, the product of bad. legislation. But it may be answered, there are several descriptions of pauperism. This we most readily grant; there are paupers from birth, and paupers from necessity. There are a certain number that we keep in order that they may breed paupers, beside those we make by creating an artificial and unnatural surplus in the labour market. The former may he said to include the Graftons, and the especial product of those practisers of miscegenation who dwell in the purlieus of the Drury-lanes of all our large towns; the latter, by far the more numerous, are those whose wages even while in work, are so low, that their normal condition may be described as a state of semi-pauperism. A farm labourer with 12s. per week whereon to support a wife and family; a city labourer with the same incumbrances, whose weekly wages do not average 14s. ; a seamstress making soldiers' trousers at 4d. a pair, are at best on the verge of pauperism. Fortunately among English men, and English women, there is a Wholesome pride and desire for independence, or they might learn that even pauper fare is better than the stinted produce of their labours. as others have already found that the diet of the prison is both superior and more liberal than that of the union. A variety of suggestions have been made respecting its costliness and future treatment, and many of the suggestions have been more or less practically tested. To this end some of our unions have been turned into huge factories; but failure has resulted—nay, worse than failure, for the practice has not only failed to make paupers independent men and women, but the inferior class of goods so manufactured have been sent into the market to compete and diminish the weekly earnings of independent artizans. The pauper price for shirt-making has been held up as an example and used as a threat to our poor needlewomen, and the pauper-made boot has played its part in the settlement of wages disputes; stone-breaking and oakum-picking have alike signally failed, and why 2 because there has been no discretion used in their application. The man of industrious habits and the idle and dissolute have been subjected alike to this degrading test—degrading, because it is essentially criminal labour. Again, mendicancy has been made a crime, no matter under what circumstances it is resorted to, and at the entrances and exits of our towns, boroughs, and cities, the starving workman, whose only hope lies in tramping from town to town, and whose only means of living is to beg, is told plainly that he is a vagrant, and threatened with imprisonment if he do not commit suicide by starving. The distribution and re-distribution of the cost of pauperism is equally absurd, and seems to have rewiled in one of the most unjust and damage-inflicting systems that it is possible for the mind of man to conceive. London is apportioned into districts, and while the poor of the Western districts are thrust out by the demolition of low-rented tenements, the poor tradesmen and householders of the East End "are crushed to the earth by a twofold burthen—that of their own poor and the discarded poor of their richer neighbours. It seems to be the business of Parliament to create paupers, and of our local authorities to relieve and get rid of them. The Government performs its part with admirable adroitness, but the task imposed upon local officers is totally beyond their capacity to accomplish. The processes of production and consumption are not evenly balanced, despite the starving process so commonly adopted at the East End. But here we might remark—What of the hidden poverty, the poverty of the cellar and the poverty of the garret? the poverty that shuns daylight! How is this provided for ?—by the false certificate of the parish surgeon and the oblivion of the grave. God knows the extent of this is far greater than that which seeks and obtains the recognition of statesmen—greater far than the greatest philanthropist dreamep of; greater far than any blundering statesman would dare to admit.  We, the representatives of the best interests of labour, call for practical legislation—not the legislation of our parish vestries, but the legislation of the Imperial Parliament. Not the legislation of limitation, but that of absolute extirpation. We ask for a voice in Parliament for our representatives in order that they• may be heard upon a question which those in pots er have proved their inability to grapple with. We want to show our capability for discriminating between the professional pauper and the pauper from necessity—the honest and the trading mendicant—the beggar in search of bread and the beggar in search of blue ruin—the everlasting propagator of mendicants (manufactures, if you will), and the mendicant of the hour. We ivant to practically test the efficacy of the whip and hard work on the idle mendicant with the impudent face; and remunerative wages and continuous employmeut on the honest and industrious. We are *sick of hearing discussions about the procreative effect; of cheese and butter on our casual poor; the result of a basin of gruel on pauper statistics ; and of the efficacy of feathers a card long, flock mattrasses, and flagstone pillows.  We have heard that there are no paupers in the Japanese Empire, and want to see if they are indigenous to British soil. In conclusion, we admit there are and ever will be a class of people incapable of providing for themselves. We allude to the maimed, the blind, the children of deceased r om persons, and so forth, but these are to be easily and humanely dealt  with. One class especially- should no longer be tolerated to parade their deformities in the public streets to the danger of pregnant mothers and their future offspring, but should be provided for at the expense of the State, and their unsightly limbs clothed in proper and befitting disguise.