ADVERTISEMENT.

The following pages were prepared for the sole purpose of forming an introduction to the foreign communications contained in the Appendix to the Poor-Law Report. Their separate publication was not thought of until they had been nearly finished. When it was first suggested to me, I felt it to be objectionable, on account of their glaring imperfections, if considered as forming an independent work, and the impossibility of employing the little time which can be withdrawn from a profession, in the vast task of giving even an outline of the provision for the poor, and the condition of the labouring classes, in the whole of Europe and America. But the value and extent of the information which, even in their present incomplete state, they contain, and the importance of rendering it more accessible than when locked up in the folios of the Poor-Law Appendix, have overcome my objections. The only addition which I have been able to make is a translation of the French documents.

I cannot conclude without expressing my sense of the zeal and intelligence with which the inquiry has been prosecuted by his Majesty’s diplomatic Ministers and Consuls, and of the active and candid assistance which has been given by the foreign Governments.

Nassau W. Senior.

Lincoln’s Inn, June 10, 1835.

CONTENTS

Page
Introduction[1]
AMERICA
Pennsylvania[13-18]
Massachusetts[14-17]
New Jersey[18]
New York[19]
EUROPE
Norway[20]
Sweden[24]
Russia[29]
Denmark[33]
Mecklenburg[44]
Prussia[45]
Saxony[53]
Wurtemberg[53]
Weinsburg House of Industry[65]
Bavaria[68]
Berne[74]
CAUSES favourable to the Working of a Compulsory Provision[84]
Hanseatic Towns
Hamburgh[95]
Bremen[96]
Lubeck[98]
Frankfort[101]
Holland[101]
Poor Colonies of[109]
Frederiks-Oord[110]
Wateren[113]
Veenhuisen[113]
Ommerschans[115]
Belgium and France[117]
French Poor-Laws:
Hospices et Bureaux de Bienfaisance[118]
Foundlings and Deserted Children[120]
Mendicity and Vagrancy[122]
Belgium
Monts-de-Piété[126-138]
Mendicity[126]
Foundlings and Deserted Children[133]
Antwerp[139]
Ostend[143]
Gaesbeck[145]
Poor Colonies[148]
France[154]
Havre:
Hospital[155]
Bureau de Bienfaisance[156]
Rouen:
Workhouse Regulations[157]
Brittany[160]
Loire Inférieure:
Nantes[163]
Gironde:
Bourdeaux[170]
Basses Pyrenées:
Bayonne[176]
Bouches du Rhone:
Marseilles[178]
Sardinian States:
Piedmont[181]
Genoa[186]
Savoy[187]
Venice[189]
Portugal:
Oporto[194]
The Azores[196]
The Canary Islands[199]
Greece[201]
European Turkey[203]
General Absence of a Surplus Population in Countries not affording Compulsory Relief[204]
Agricultural Labourers in England.
Wages of[206]
Subsistence of[208]
Wages and Subsistence of Foreign Labourers.
Vide Tables[210-235]
Comparison between the state of the English and Foreign Labouring Classes[236]