The conditions of the poorer farmers, daily labourers and beggars, are so near akin, that the passage from one state to another is very frequent.
Mendicity is not considered disgraceful in Britany. Farmers allow their children to beg along the roads. On saints’ days, especially the festivals of celebrated saints, whose shrines attract numerous votaries (all of whom give something, be it ever so little, to the poor), the aged, infirm, and children of poor farmers and labourers, turn out. Some small hamlets are even totally abandoned by their inhabitants for two or three days. All attend the festival, to beg.
The Bretons are hospitable. Charity and hospitality are considered religious duties. Food and shelter for a night are never refused.
Several attempts to suppress mendicity have been unsuccessful. District asylums were established. No sooner were they filled than the vacancies in the beggar stands were immediately replenished by fresh subjects from the country; it being a general feeling that it is much easier and more comfortable to live by alms than by labour.
In towns where the police is well regulated, the only mendicants permitted to sojourn are paupers belonging to the parish. They are known by a tin badge, for which they pay at the police office.
No such thing is known as a legal claim for assistance from public or private charities.
In towns, destitute workmen or other persons in distress must be authorized by the municipality previous to soliciting public or private assistance. To this effect, the pauper makes known his case to the commissary of police of the quarter he inhabits, who makes inquiry among the neighbours. Should the destitute case of the applicant be established, the mayor grants him a certificate of indigence, which authorizes him to apply for relief to the public institutions, and to solicit private charity. It also exempts him (or rather causes his exemption) from the payment of taxes.
The principal cause of misery is inebriety; its frequency among the lower orders keeps them in poverty. The “cabaret” (wine and brandy shop) absorbs a great portion of their earnings. This vice is not confined to men; the women partake of it. It has decreased within the last five or six years, but is still considerable.
We now proceed to give some extracts from the more detailed report of Mr. Newman, who writes, it must be recollected, from Nantes. (pp. 171, 172, 173, 174, 178, 175, 176, 177.)