ceed, therefore, to discuss this question of the sufficiency of a poor-law provision, and how far it supersedes our own private relations and duties towards the poor and needy, and ought to vary our conduct towards them. We shall then come better prepared to the consideration of our actual treatment of the poor, and the sufficiency of our charity, as compared with what it ought to be upon the real grounds of duty and policy.

CHAPTER V.

Private Alms and Poor-Law Relief.

PRIVATE CHARITY OUGHT TO SUPERSEDE THE PUBLIC PROVISION-THE PUBLIC PROVISION INADEQUATE IN AMOUNT-DEFECTIVE IN PRINCIPLE -EXAMPLES OF THIS-A POOR-LAW NECESSARY, BUT SUBSIDIARY- CONNEXION BETWEEN THE POORLAW AND POLICE-POOR-LAW INJURIOUS TO RICH AND POOR RELATION BETWEEN PUBLIC AND PRIVATE CHARITY REMEDY PROPOSED -THE NEW POOR-LAW THE WORKHOUSE TEST-ADVANTAGES OF LOCAL ADMINISTRATION AND SMALL DISTRICTS - EXAMPLES IN PRUSSIA- GOOD EFFECTS OF VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES IN FRANCE-IN PIEDMONT-IN SAVOY

IN

VENICE-THE
GREECE-SCOTLAND

AZORES - THE CANARIES

IRELAND MUTUAL CHA

RITIES OF THE IRISH POOR-CONCLUSION-ALMS
OF THE CHURCH.

THERE can be no stronger symptom of the growing harshness and unchristian state of feeling towards the poor, than the opinion now affirmed, that the legal provision for the poor ought to be a substitute for private charity; that the one interferes with the other. There is none more erroneous.

T

In

proportion as this opinion shall spread, and this principle be acted upon, the country will have lost its character, its moral strength, and its safety.

I venture to assert the exactly opposite principle. I maintain that private charity ought to supersede the public provision; and that the vitality of our alms, and the healthiness of our system of poor-relief, are in proportion as it does so. Not because the two things are inconsistent or incompatible one with the other; but that the one is a mere aid and make-weight, a substitute and assistant to the other, and that voluntary charity alone contains all the essentials, as the intelligent and master principle.

There is one thing which strikes us at the outset in this inquiry, as indicative, if not conclusive, of the motive which gives. birth to this opinion; namely, that invariably those very persons who would say to every beggar, "You must go to the parish," and that "in a country with such an ample machinery and provision, it is a crime even

for a cripple to beg,"

are the same per

sons who would narrow down the parishrelief to the lowest scale, and be most severe in applying the test-standard.

I do not desire to enter particularly upon the existing poor-law system, though it is very difficult to keep our observation distinct from this point; because the Poor-Law Commissioners have mixed themselves up with this question; and, while boasting of having already saved two millions annually to the country in poor-rates, complain bitterly, and with little moderation of language, of the interference which their systems and theories have met with from voluntary and

a

private charity. They avow openly that, "One principal object of a compulsory provision for the relief of destitution, is the prevention of almsgiving." b There could not be

a

Report of Poor-Law Commissioners on Continuance of Commission, 1840. 8vo, pp. 11, 62, 63; ante, pp. 20, 21.

b Official Circular of the Poor-Law Commissioners, No. 5.

afforded a more direct or convincing proof of the assertion, that it is those who narrow the public relief most who would limit all charity to the legal provision.

The proposition that the poor-law may be a substitute for voluntary charity, is false in fact and in principle. I will confine myself at first to the facts which exhibit its injustice and impracticability.

In the first place, What is the amount of the poor-rates in comparison with the rights and necessities of the poor? What is the amount of the poor-rates in this country in comparison with its wealth? For this is the means of ascertaining what ought to be the amount of the poor man's inheritance. The Jews were commanded to give a tenth to the priesthood, and another tenth to the poor and in hospitality. So say Lowman and Selden, and their own interpreters. And this was

b The provision for the poor among the Jews consisted expressly only of a tithe every third year, which was emphatically called the poor man's tithe. But in the other two years, a tithe was to be spent in hospi