Statement of the Provision for the Poor, and of the Condition of the Labouring Classes in a Considerable Portion of America and Europe / Being the preface to the foreign communications contained in the appendix to the Poor-Law Report

by Nassau William Senior

EUROPE.

It appears from the returns that a legal claim to relief exists in Norway, Sweden, Russia, Denmark, Mecklenburg, Prussia, Wurtemberg, Bavaria, and the Canton de Berne; but does not exist in the Hanseatic Towns, Holland, Belgium, France, Portugal, the Sardinian States, Frankfort, Venice, Greece, or Turkey. The return from Saxony does not afford data from which the existence or non-existence of such a claim can be inferred.

The great peculiarity of the system in the North of Europe is the custom of affording relief by quartering the paupers on the landholders in the country and on householders in the towns.

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