Now what is the general result of the system as practised throughout this extensive range of territory, and among nations varying much in their manners, habits, and institutions? Mr. Senior observes-and we consider the admission a very valuable one, as coming from him—that

' in no country, except perhaps the Canton de Berne, has compulsory relief produced evils resembling either in intensity or in extent those which we have experienced, and, in the majority of the nations which have adopted it, the existing system appears to work well.'

The reports from the other States of Europe exhibit a variety of systems established by law for the relief of the poor, but in which the claim of the pauper is not so directly recognized. There is, however, in practice, as we have already observed, little difference the poor being, in fact, always relieved in case of necessity, and the funds being provided more or less by compulsory

assessments.

THE HANSE TOWNS.-In Hamburgh a general institution for the poor is supported by endowment, voluntary contributions, and considerable advances from the state, that is, from the municipal taxes. The poor are registered, and receive weekly relief, sometimes as high as 3 dollars, or 10s. 6d. to a family. Soup, clothing, fuel, and bedding are likewise distributed. Medical assistance is afforded, and the children of the poor educated. The want of a workhouse for the employment of indolent paupers is severely felt. The regular out-door relief in money amounted in 1832 to very nearly 4s. a head on a population of 130,000. The poor-institutions of Bremen resemble those of Hamburgh, but appear to be better administered. The able-bodied poor are set to work in a house of industry. The same observation applies to Lubeck and Frankfort, where the burden is very slight, and pauperism but trifling.

HOLLAND.-The settlement of a pauper in Holland is the parish in which he has resided four consecutive years, paying taxes, and, in default, that of his birth. The charge of his relief rests with the parish-overseer of his religious sect; but when their means are insufficient, the local administration supplies the deficiency from municipal funds. In fact, therefore, except in the existence of very large endowments, and voluntary contributions from the members of the different religious sects and charitable societies, the system differs little from the compulsory communal law of relief in Denmark and the German states. It is remarkable that the attempt thus made in Holland to obviate the necessity of a poor-rate by the encouragement of voluntary charities has glaringly failed, since the average expenditure on the

poor

poor for the last twelve years has amounted to 500,000l., or about 48. 41d. per head on the total population-an expenditure not equal certainly to ours, but very large when compared with the average expenditure of Europe; while the number of paupers relieved has increased considerably beyond the ratio of increase of the population, and is at present proportionately higher than even in England. Dr. Chalmers, the eloquent advocate of the voluntary system' of poor relief, would do well to consider this example of the working of his principle.

BELGIUM.-The Belgian poor-law is chiefly grounded on the system established throughout the French empire by the Directory in 1796 and 1798. By this law, every commune is required to have at least one bureau de bienfaisance' for the relief of its poor. The funds arise from voluntary contributions and the receipts of public exhibitions-all deficiencies being made up by levies raised in the same manner as other local expenses. Other sources of revenue were subsequently added. Relief is given in poor-houses (hospices), or à domicile (out-door relief). Settlement is acquired by birth, or residence for a year as a rated inhabitant, or two years in service. Mendicity and vagrancy are subjected to heavy punishments in depots de mendicité. The local authorities are required to employ their able-bodied poor on public works, at three-fourths of the average wages of the canton.

So far the poor-law of Belgium and of France is the same. Since their separation, the first has been modified in a slight degree, chiefly by the introduction of poor-colonies on the principle of those of Holland, in aid of the depots de mendicité. It is remarkable that these depôts, which are simply workhouses, are bound to admit all applicants. It is therefore futile to assert that a legal right to relief is not established in Belgium as in the other northern states of Europe. Every town in Belgium has its hospital for the sick, which is likewise open to every applicant. The poor-colonies of Belgium seem not to have succeeded, having involved themselves in debt exceeding the amount of property created in them. The report of M. Dupéctiaux is very unfavourable to these colonies; but, with the example of the Dutch in view, we may suspect that the fault is in Belgian management.

FRANCE. We have already stated the general outline of the French establishments for the relief of the poor, consisting of hospices for the infirm, hospitals for the sick, depôts de mendicité for vagrants and beggars (constituting the in-doors relief), and bureaux de bienfaisance for the secours à domicile, or out-doors relief. The funds are partly provided by voluntary contributions, and collections in the churches, and the defi

ciency is supplied from the octroi, or municipal funds of the commune. These institutions seem to be in full operation only in the town districts. In the country the administration of relief is imperfectly organized, and great distress is occasionally felt, which would be intolerable were it not that, owing to the extreme dispersion and subdivision of landed property which has followed the sale of the church and émigré estates at the time of the Revolution, and the law of equal succession, there are few peasants in France who are not proprietors of land, and thus raised above want. No less than 20,000,000 out of the entire population of $2,000,000 belong to the class of landed proprietors! The government of France, in times of distress, comes likewise in aid of the communes, by employing large numbers of poor on public works, such as roads, canals, &c.

According to M. Chateauvieux, the population of the towns in which a system of relief is thoroughly organized amounts to 3,500,000 persons, and the cost of the relief annually distributed to 1,800,000l. sterling. This would bring the expenditure per head to nearly as much as in England. The proportion of the population in the receipt of relief is even greater. In Havre, with a population of 28,000, not less than 5000 receive occasional relief. In Caen there are six or seven thousand paupers to a population of 40,000. (Majendie, Appendix F., p. 42.)

A general inspection and supervision of these establishments, and of their accounts, is carried on by authorities appointed by the crown. The inspectors make their visits quite unexpectedly. In addition to this the Minister of the Interior issues annually his general ordonnances and instructions, which are equivalent to the general rules of our Poor-Law Commission. The conclusion of the ordonnance of 1828, given by M. Majendie, exhibits the enlightened spirit that characterises the French system, in which the just medium is preserved between indiscriminate charity on one side, and extreme severity on the other. We would recommend the document to the study of our Malthusian ex-Lord Chancellor. He will there see that it is very possible for an enlightened government to recognize the claim upon society of those among its subjects who by force of circumstances are reduced to destitution -whether from sudden calamity, infirmity, or the impossibility of finding employment-without either encouraging idleness and improvidence by indiscriminate indulgence-or by a refusal of all help, risking the destruction of life, and endangering the peace and property of those upon whom, sooner than perish, the unrelieved poor will surely prey in some shape or other.

In the rural districts of France, the system of relief is, as has been said, very partial and irregular. In Brittany there appears

to

to be none. Nantes and the other large towns have their regular establishments, but the rural communes neglect their poor, and are consequently infested with mendicants. Brittany is the poorest part of France, and the system of cultivation in very small farms, together with the number of beggars, produces a state of society somewhat resembling that of Ireland.

'Farms are small. Their average size does not exceed 14 acres. Some are as small as two acres. There are many of from four to eight, The largest in the neighbourhood of Brest is 36 acres. The farmers are poor, and live miserably; yet their wants being few and easily satisfied, they are comparatively happy. Their food consists of barleybread, butter, buck-wheat (made into puddings, porridge, and cakes), soup composed of cabbage-water, a little grease or butter, and salt, poured on bread; potatoes; meat twice a week (always salt pork). A family of twelve, including servants and children, consumes annually about 700 pounds of pork, and 100 pounds of cow beef; the latter only on festivals..

The class of daily labourers is almost unknown. The inmates of each farm, consisting of the farmer's family, and one, two, or three male, and as many female servants (according to the size of the farm), paid annual wages, and who live with the family, suffice for the general work. At harvest some additional hands are employed These are generally persons who work two or three months in the year and beg during the remainder. Daily labourers and beggars may therefore, in the country, be classed under the same head. The conditions of the poorer farmers, daily labourers, and beggars are so near akin, that the passage from one state to the other is very frequent..

Farmers

Mendicity is not considered disgraceful in Brittany. allow their children to beg along the roads. On saints' days, especially the festivals of celebrated saints, whose shrines attract numerous votaries (all of whom give something, be it ever so little, to the poor), the aged, infirm, and children of poor farmers and labourers, turn out. Some small hamlets are even totally abandoned by their inhabitants for two or three days. All attend the festival to beg.

The Bretons are hospitable. Charity and hospitality are considered religious duties. Food and shelter for a night are never refused.

Several attempts to suppress mendicity have been unsuccessful. District asylums were established. No sooner were they filled than the vacancies in the beggar-stands were immediately replenished by fresh subjects from the country; it being a general feeling that it is much easier and more comfortable to live by alms than by labour.

'In towns where the police is well regulated, the only mendicants permitted to sojourn are paupers belonging to the parish. They are known by a tin badge for which they pay at the police-office.

'No such thing is known as a legal claim for assistance from public or private charities...

.....

The

The principal cause of misery is inebriety; its frequency among the lower orders keeps them in poverty. The "cabaret" (wine and brandy shop) absorbs a great portion of their earnings. This vice is not confined to men; the women partake of it.'—Senior,

P. 162.

We have quoted this passage at length to show the similarity of the state of things brought about by the absence of a public provision for the relief and employment of the poor in two countries, otherwise so unlike, as Brittany and Ireland. Though the above picture is a dark one, it but faintly resembles the blackness of Ireland. The misery' of Brittany would be unheard-of luxury there. Pork, beef, butter, soup, bread, puddings, and cakes,' are things unknown to the small farmer of Ireland, who cannot always procure a full meal even of the eternal dry potato.

It is probable that the system of relief which succeeds so well in the towns of France will, before long, be perfected in the country likewise by the union of communes under district boards.

AUSTRIAN STATES.-There are no returns from Vienna in the volume before us; nor is there any cause assigned for their absence. We have reason to believe that institutions exist in Austria proper and Hungary very similar to those of Prussia and Bavaria. That the effectual relief of the destitute is looked upon as a matter of prominent interest by that government, even in its Italian provinces, is proved by the large sums annually made over by it in Venice to supply the deficiency of local funds. Mr. Money's report from Venice is the only statement given in the Appendix as to the system of relief prevailing in any part of the Austrian dominions. It appears from this that a commission of public charity is organized there, whose duty it is to investigate and relieve all cases of real distress. The relief is usually afforded in weekly allowances of money. There are likewise houses of industry, where work of various descriptions is provided for the able-bodied. In winter relief is distributed in food and clothing. The funds at the disposal of the commission consist of charitable endowments, contributions from the commune, and from the government. In the last year, 42,705 individuals (being very nearly one-half of the entire population) received some relief; and the number in houses of industry and hospitals was 4667. The total expenditure may be taken to aveverage 100,000l. sterling for the city of Venice alone, which now contains a population of 112,000. Of this sum the government contributes about one-half. Mendicity is strictly prohibited, and punished by the police. Every commune in the Venetian provinces (and the same law, we know, prevails through the Milanese) is bound to support the poor and indigent within its limits, whether they be natives of the commune or not; but they have a