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

There are, however, no positive regulations on these points. The whole is in the hands of the directors of this establishment. A responsible receiver is attached to it, whose accounts are submitted to the examination of the Cours des Comptes (audit office). Thus, though the distributions are left to the judgment of the directors, they are subjected to control.

The above details relate to the city of Bourdeaux. There are, however, proportionate institutions in most of the larger towns of the department, but in the poorer parishes and rural districts the Bureaux de Charité are merely nominal. These parishes being without a revenue, are unable to assist their poor, who subsist on the alms they may receive at the different dwelling-houses, and who when ill, if possible, come to the nearest hospital, generally to that of Bourdeaux.

In this department there are no schools in which indigent children are received to be fed and clothed gratuitously, but there are those in which they receive a certain degree of instruction.

For Boys.—The institution of Freres des Ecoles Chrétiennes (Brothers of the Christian Schools), and two Lancasterian schools, which have been lately instituted.

For Girls.—A Lancasterian school, a few boarding schools, in which a certain number of indigent girls are taught gratuitously; and also the Sisters of Charity attached to the administration of the Bureaux de Charité.

The Ecoles Chrétiennes are at the charge of the town. The sum appropriated to those establishments amounts annually to about 14,000 francs (560l.). Admissions are granted by the town. The number of children instructed in reading, writing, and a little arithmetic, amounts to about 1,800 for the town. At the Lancasterian school, the instruction is on a more extended scale. Grammar, drawing and surveying are taught, in addition to what is taught at the Ecoles Chrétiennes.

There are at present in these latter schools 300 boys and 150 girls in all.

The department pays the expenses of these schools.

The girls received in the private boarding schools, where they learn to read, to write, and to sew, amount to the number of about 600. This is entirely a private act of charity.

The number of girls received by the Sisters of Charity amounts to about 900.