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

By the law of the 16 Messidor, An vii., the inmates of the hospices were to be set to work, and two-thirds of the produce of their work was to belong to the hospice, the other third to be given to them either periodically or when they quitted the hospice. We mention this enactment, because it has afforded a precedent for many similar regulations.

And partly for the purpose of increasing the funds for charitable purposes, and partly with a view to reduce the rate of interest in the mode of borrowing usually adopted by the poor, by two arrêtés of the 16 Pluviose and 24 Messidor, An xii. (6th February and 13th July, 1804), all pawn-broking by individuals was prohibited, and public establishments for that purpose, under the name of Monts-de-Piété, were directed to be established and conducted for the benefit of the poor.

Foundlings and deserted children.

The French legislation respecting foundlings and deserted children is of a very different kind, and appears to us to be the portion of their poor laws deserving least approbation.

A law of the 27 Frimaire, An v. (17 Dec., 1796), enacted, that all recently-born deserted children should be received gratuitously in all the hospices of the Republic, at the expense of the State so far as those hospices had not a sufficient revenue specially destined to that purpose; and an arrêté of the Directory, of the 30 Ventose, An v., (20th March, 1791), founded on the previous law, directed that as soon as possible after children had been received in any hospice they should be sent out to be nursed, and brought up in the country until the age of 12; and then either left to those who had brought them up, if they chose to take charge of them, or apprenticed to farmers, artists, or manufacturers, or, if the children wished it, to the sea service.

The law on this subject received nearly its present form from an Imperial decree of the 19th Jan., 1811.

By that decree, the children for whom the public became responsible were divided into three classes: 1. Enfans trouvés; 2. Enfans abandonnés; 3. Orphelins pauvres. The first class comprises children of unknown parents, found exposed, or placed in foundling hospitals. The second, children whose parents are known, but have abandoned them, and cannot be forced to support them. The third, children without father or mother, or means of subsistence. For the first class a hospice was directed to be appointed in every arrondissement, with a tour (or revolving slide) for their reception, without the detection of the person bringing them. All the three classes of children were to be put out to nurse until six years old, and then placed with landholders (cultivateurs) or artizans until 12, subject to any mode in which the Ministre de la Marine might dispose of them. If not wanted by him, they were at 12 to be apprenticed for periods not exceeding their attaining the age of 25.

The annual sum of four millions (160,000l.) in the whole was to be contributed by the State towards these expenses. The remainder to be supplied by the hospices out of their own revenues or out of those of the communes.

Relatives claiming a foundling were to repay all that it had cost, as far as they had the means.

The last clause of this decree directs that those who make a custom of taking infants to hospitals shall be punished according to law. It is not easy to reconcile this clause with the rest of the decree. If taking an infant to a foundling hospital were an offence, it seems strange that the law should itself prescribe a contrivance (a tour), the object of which is to prevent the detection of the person committing the offence. In fact, however, no such punishment “according to law” seems to exist. If a nurse or other person entrusted with a child take it, in breach of duty, to a foundling hospital, the offence is punishable by the code pénal; but no punishment is denounced against a parent for doing so, however often the act may be repeated. Nor does the “making a custom of taking children to a hospital” appear as an offence in the detailed “Compte général de l’administration de la justice criminelle en France.”