Old and New Paris: Its History, Its People, and Its Places, v. 2

by H. Sutherland Edwards

In spite of endeavours made by the central administration to equalise the resources of the different arrondissements, the position of the indigent person is much better in a rich than in a poor arrondissement. Instead of the regulation fifty francs fixed as the minimum of relief to be granted to a family in distress, there are quarters where the value of the relief granted amounts to 130 francs per household.

An allowance at the rate of 130 francs a year is little enough, it will be said, for a starving family. But the object of the charitable offices is not to grant annuities for the poor. They only propose to help persons in temporary difficulties, such as workmen thrown out of employment by sickness, or some other external cause. As it is, the kindly intentions of the administrators are often abused. Orders for bread, begged for in the most importunate manner, are in many cases surrendered to the baker for a smaller value in money, which is promptly spent in drink.

Each charitable office has under its immediate direction several houses of relief, the number of which varies according to the richness of each particular quarter. There are altogether fifty-seven of these houses in which immediate relief may be obtained. Of such asylums, one of the poorest arrondissements, the thirteenth, possesses four, while the ninth, that of the Opéra, has only one. Each house of refuge is indicated by a flag hanging out from one of the windows. As first instituted, they were all directed by those devoted sisters of charity who, by an unjust law passed a few years ago, and which may, from one year to another, be repealed, were excluded from hospital services. The argument on the other side must, in fairness, however, be stated. Some of the doctors complained that their patients were troubled, and at times thrown into great excitement, by religious exhortations, when it was necessary to keep them in a state of absolute calm. The houses of refuge are amply supplied with linen, bed-linen, as well as shirts, which are lent to the necessitous, and returned for exchange (unless, meanwhile, they happen to be carried to the pawnbroker’s) once a month in the case of the bed-linen, once a week in that of the shirts. Flannel waistcoats and drawers, woollen stockings and warm under-clothes generally, are kept in the houses of relief, where, if absolutely necessary, the indigent are also supplied with shoes. The principal room in the house is furnished with benches, and in winter warmed by a stove, which is protected by a grating. Here the patients and the paupers assemble two or three times a week, when the divisional physician visits them and gives them consultations. The doctors arrive very punctually, making it a point of honour not to keep waiting unhappy men and women who have often quitted their work to seek relief. One by one they exhibit their certificates of indigence, to show that they are entitled to gratuitous drugs. Even if they possess no such certificate, they receive advice; and as medical advice without medicine would in most cases be useless, the drugs follow, even without formal authorisation.

There are but few pathological cases. Wounds (the result of accident), rheumatism and anæmia, are what the unfortunate applicants generally suffer from. Occasionally some old hand will present himself whose complaint is easily found by the experienced physician. He complains of a general feeling of lassitude, and by reason of previous excesses, followed by the inevitable reaction, is really, perhaps, in want of a stimulant. All he can do is to suggest a tonic, and, in case the doctor should make no sympathetic response, ask boldly for quinine. Bitter as all preparations of quinine must be, the drunkard below par prefers every one of them to cold water. The quinine of the relief houses is composed of some alcoholate of quinine mixed with a strong southern wine, which gives it strength without depriving it of its intolerable bitterness. This preparation is so much in demand that in one particular year 4,000 litres of it were distributed among the applicants for relief.[{335}]

Camphorated spirits of wine shares with quinine its disastrous popularity. There are men and women among the indigent poor who give themselves bumps and contusions simply that they may be able to obtain camphorated spirits of wine at the local relief-house. Having obtained the desired stimulant, they dilute it with water, sweeten it with sugar, and drink it as a liqueur. Of some 2,000 litres given away in one particular year, not more than one half is said to have been employed for external use.

Women, many of them accompanied by children, are much more numerous in the waiting-rooms of the relief-houses than the men. They are for the most part, especially the aged ones, insatiable in their demands. Something they must have to make them sleep; camomile for their poor stomachs; barley-water for their poor throats; but, above all, quinine to make them strong.

The unfortunate applicants are treated with much generosity. The doctors supply them with spectacles, knee-caps, elastic stockings, crutches: all kinds of things rendered necessary for our working population by the difficult labours they have to undertake. Often, alas! the spectacles, the elastic stockings, the crutches, are sold and the proceeds spent in drink.

In connection with the charitable offices, two very ingenious and beneficial measures were introduced at the time of the Restoration: one to promote the bodily, the other the mental, health of the Paris population. It was enacted that no father or mother should be held entitled to relief unless the children had been vaccinated and sent to school. This legislation was in every way beneficial to the working classes; for the teaching was gratuitous, while the vaccination was profitable. An indigent person who causes his child to be efficaciously vaccinated receives a present of three francs from the authorities.

Systematic inquiries into the matter have proved beyond doubt that most applicants for relief have brought poverty upon themselves by intemperance and debauchery, and, moreover, that whatever be given to them will at the earliest opportunity be converted into drink. In one official report on the subject the following passage occurs: “However much may be given, nothing will be remedied; it will at once be spent in dissipation.”

The Public Aid Department, deriving nothing from taxation, owes a portion of its revenue to the payments made by well-to-do patients in the different hospitals; to the public Burial Office, to the Mont de Piété, or Government pawnbroking office; and to the theatres, which contribute to the support of the poor a certain percentage on their receipts. The poor-tax, levied on the money received by the proprietors of theatres, concert and public halls, yields nearly two million francs a year.