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

Mendicity.

The following are the most material alterations made in the laws respecting mendicity. By a law of the 28th November, 1818, the period of residence necessary for acquiring a settlement, or domicile de secours, was extended to four years: and by a law of the 12th October, 1819, the expense of supporting a person confined in a depôt de mendicité was thrown on the commune in which he had his domicile de secours.

In 1823 the Belgian Société de Bienfaisance was established, on the model of that which existed in Holland, and contracted with the Government to receive in its colonies de repression 1000 paupers, at the annual sum of 35 florins (2l. 18s. 4d.) per head. In consequence of this arrangement, all the regulations which required a beggar to be removed to a depôt de mendicité were varied by the introduction of the words “or to a mendicity colony;” and by an arrêté of the 12th October, 1825, the governors of the different provinces were directed to give notice that all persons in want of employment and subsistence would obtain them in the depôts de mendicité, or the mendicity colonies, and had only to apply to the local authorities in order to be directed to the one or the other; and that consequently no begging at any period of the year, or under any pretext whatever, could in future be tolerated. Persons arrested for begging were allowed on their own request, if their begging were not accompanied by aggravating circumstances, to be conducted to one or the other of these establishments without suffering the previous imprisonment inflicted by the penal code.

By another arrêté of the same date, the local authorities were directed to prepare new codes for the regulation of the different depôts de mendicité, based on principles of which the following are the most material:

1. That the depôts should be confined to the reception of those who, from age or infirmity, should be unfit for agricultural labour.

2. That all above the age of six, and under that of 70, and capable of working, should be kept to work, at average wages; that each person should be charged per day 17 cents (about 3½d.) for his maintenance, being its average cost, and retain the remainder of his earnings; and be allowed nothing beyond strict necessaries (mere bread is specified for food), if his earnings were under that sum.

That a portion of each person’s surplus earnings should be reserved and paid over to him on leaving the house, and the other portion paid to him from time to time in a local paper money.

3. That cantines should be established in the house, to enable the inmates to spend their surplus earnings.

4. That those who had voluntarily offered themselves for reception should be at liberty to quit the house, after having repaid the expenses of their maintenance there.