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

Mode of relief.

The public charge is brought into action in the following manner:

1st. By institutions for working.

2d. By institutions for taking care of people who are unable to work.

3d. By institutions for alms.

1. Finding work.

1. Materials and tools are to be distributed to those paupers who, notwithstanding all inquiries and interference, cannot obtain the necessary work, to be used at their houses until the required situation can be obtained. If in larger towns the number of these is very great, houses are to be opened and maintained at the expense of the institution for the poor, in which the paupers who are unoccupied are to work.

The choice among the different sorts of work in these houses is settled according to the local circumstances, and chiefly according to the facility with which either orders from private persons can be received, or with which the material is obtained and worked; then accordingly as the material can be used for the wants of the poor or can be usefully employed for any other purpose.

The houses for the employment of the poor are always to retain their original destination, namely, an employment, for the present, of poor men who would otherwise be without work, and therefore do not admit any such persons whose names are not down on the above-named register. Therefore those persons are no longer allowed to work in this house after they have had an offer of work from any other quarter.