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

Indigent persons, born at Antwerp, are treated at the hospital at the expense of the establishment. Those who are not of the town, but are of the country, are treated there at the expense of the commune where they have their domicile de secours.

These expenses are fixed at the rate of 62 cents., or 1 franc 31 centimes (1s. 0½d. sterling) per diem, whatever may be the sickness. The expenses, for the treatment of those who have no domicile de secours, are repaid by government out of the treasury funds. The town provides for the insufficiency of the private revenue of this establishment, in the same manner as it does for the bureau de bienfaisance, by means of “subsidies in aid,” paid out of the municipal funds. This amount of “subsidies” varies annually according to the wants of the administration of the hospital.

Persons of the indigent and necessitous class, whose sickness or complaint is not severe enough to require their entering the hospital, receive medical and surgical relief at their own homes. To that effect, there are several physicians and surgeons appointed and attached to the bureau de bienfaisance, who give their assistance to the sick who require it, every one in the district or section for which he is appointed. These physicians and surgeons, who receive a fixed salary from the administration of the poor, also receive at their domicile, at fixed hours of the day, indigent persons who want to consult them on the state of their health; and it is on a ticket delivered by them, that such sick persons are received at the hospital. The bureau de bienfaisance has a special pharmacy, situated in the centre of the town, where medicine is given gratis to the indigent, on a prescription signed by a physician of the poor establishment.

The indigent persons relieved by the bureau de bienfaisance receive only the strict necessaries of life to feed and support their families, and no more, so that they have nothing to satisfy their private wants or fancies, nor can they procure themselves any luxuries or other comforts; and they always lead a life, that, although protected against the most pressing wants, is notwithstanding a very miserable one. It is thus the interest of those individuals that are able to work (and this they perfectly comprehend) to seek to maintain themselves. It is only those persons who are totally depraved, and who give themselves entirely up to drunkenness and every other excess, who feel assured that, after having wasted and spent the little they possess, and abandoned the work that maintained them, there always remains to them the resource of the distributions made by the administration of the poor.

In Antwerp, the situation of a workman, whatever may be the class he belongs to, and who maintains himself solely by his work, is by all means preferable and better than that of a person who only subsists by relief or public charity. The existence of those who reside in the depôts of mendicity, excepting only the loss of their liberty, is even in many respects preferable to the situation of the latter, who are maintained by general charity.

Ostend.

Population, 11,328.

Destitute Able-bodied.

The only legal mode of lodging the destitute able-bodied is to send them to the depôt of mendicity, where they are treated as paupers. There existed formerly agricultural colonies on the same principles as those in Holland, to which the parishes could send their able-bodied, destitute, and their families; it was found in vain to attempt making cultivators or proprietors of them.

The destitute able-bodied, but quite indigent, of the two Flanders, and the vagrants who have been tried as such, compose altogether a population of about 300 persons (the destitute able-bodied of Ghent excepted.) For each of these 300 poor, his parish pays a contribution of 32 centimes (3d.) per day (men and women equally.) The depôt for both the Flanders established at Bruges, by the mildness of its administration, has gradually overcome the dread which it inspired at its origin. The directors have banished all rigour, not even enforcing work on the destitute; but as they are paid according to their industry, that inducement to work is found sufficient. This establishment is remarkably prosperous, having already saved fr. 80,000 (3200l.), all expenses paid. It is not found necessary to have any armed force in the neighbourhood to keep this large number of destitute in order, this being attained by gentleness and good usage. On any of the poor leaving the establishment, improved in their moral conduct, they receive a part of their own earnings, which enables them to seek some employment.