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

All indigent families, and in which there are those capable of working, but who are not able to obtain it, or whose numbers are so great that all cannot be subsisted, are relieved by the Bureaux de Charité.

The same relief is given to those who, having a habitation, are unable of themselves, through age or infirmity, to support themselves.

The mode of obtaining this relief is by petition, signed by some credible person, and attested by the priest or protestant clergyman. It is proportioned to the number of the family, and to the number of those able to work, and whose wages go to the maintenance of the family. The relief consists in bread, soup, wood for fuel, and sometimes, though rarely, blankets and woollen clothing; medicines for the sick, and broth.

Generally speaking, these distributions of food would be insufficient; but most indigent families are assisted by private persons, so that, on the whole, they have wherewithal to sustain life.

The annual distribution à domicile (domiciliary relief) amounts to the sum of 100,000 francs (4,000l.).

3,520 families are relieved. The number of impotent in these families, father and mother included, though able to work, amounts to 9,634, or less than a franc per head per month.

It is in proportion to these numbers that the relief is given, but it is greater in winter than the other parts of the year.

As to the medicines and broth, whenever there are sick in these families a sufficiency is given. Physicians are attached to each auxiliary bureau of every district, who visit the sick, prescribe the remedies, &c., all of which are distributed by the Sœurs de Charité (Sisters of Charity, an order of nuns who devote themselves to the care of the poor and sick, and who undertake, gratuitously, the elementary education of their children). It is a most respectable and praiseworthy institution.

The same Sisters receive in their houses the little girls of these families who are old enough to read. Books are supplied by the instructors.

In extraordinary cases, recourse is had to subscriptions and collections, which increase the means of the Bureaux de Charité; so that during long and hard winters, more clothing, &c. is distributed. It seldom happens that money is given.