[10] This being the first year in which the establishment at Veere was opened.
[11] This decrease is occasioned by the removal of able paupers to the Ommerschans.
[12] This establishment was done away with on the 20th June, and the able paupers were removed to the Ommerschans, and the invalid paupers to Hoorn.
[13] This establishment was done away with on the 15th October, all the paupers in it were removed to the Ommerschans.
It appears from this table that the number of persons relieved has steadily increased from 202,015, the number in 1822, to 279,730, the number in 1831; and that the proportion of paupers to independent members of society has also increased from 9²³⁰⁄₁₀₀₀ per cent., the proportion in 1822, or rather more than one-eleventh, to 11⁸⁹⁸⁄₁₀₀₀ per cent., or rather more than one-ninth, the proportion in 1831: a proportion exceeding even that of England.
And it is to be observed that the greater part of this great positive and relative increase of pauperism has taken place during a period of profound peace, internal and external; only one of these years being subsequent to the Belgian revolution. It is probable that if the years 1832 and 1833 had been given, the comparison with the earlier period would have been still more unfavourable.
We have omitted in the statement of the expenditure for the relief of the poor a sum of 200,000 guilders, or about 16,666l. sterling, annually employed on the gratuitous instruction of poor children: the number thus instructed in 1831 was 73,609. It does not appear, however, that any persons are compelled to attend to the education of their children, except by its being made (as is the general rule on the Continent of Europe) one of the conditions on which relief is granted: and the Consul states that the labourers in general think it beneath them to let their children go to school for nothing; and that some, when unable to pay, prefer keeping them at home.
It is remarkable that neither the official nor the consular report dwells on that portion of the Dutch poor institutions which has excited the greatest attention in Europe, namely, the Poor Colonies.