Their Parochial Settlements are either at a great distance, or perhaps as natives of Scotland or Ireland, they are without even this resource. The expence of removing, as the Law directs, is too serious a charge to be incurred by the parish where accident has fixed them. They are treated with neglect and contumely by the parochial Officers; and even occasionally driven to despair. Willing to labour, but bereft of any channel or medium through which the means of subsistence might be procured. It is assigned to no person to hear their mournful tale, who might be able to place them in a situation, where they might gain a subsistence; and under such circumstances it is much to be feared, that not a few of them either actually perish for want, or contract diseases which ultimately terminate in premature death.
Such is frequently the situation of the more decent and virtuous class of the labouring people, who come to seek employment in the Metropolis. The more profligate who pursue the same course have generally other resources. Where honest labour is not to be procured, they connect themselves with those who live by petty or more atrocious offences, and contribute in no small degree to the increase of the general phalanx of delinquents. The young female part of such families too often become prostitutes, while the males pursue acts of depredation upon the Public, by availing themselves of the various resources, which the defects in the Police System allow.
In addition to the families who thus resort to the Capital, young men frequently wander up who have become liable to the penalties of the laws, in consequence of being unable to find security for the support of a natural Child in their own parish; or who perhaps have incurred the punishment due to some other offence.—Without money, without recommendations, and bereft of friends, and perhaps afraid of being known, they resort to low public houses, where they meet with thieves and rogues, who not unfrequently in this way recruit their gangs, as often as the arm of Justice diminishes their numbers.
But it is to be lamented, that in contemplating the mass of indigence, which, in its various ramifications, produces distresses more extensive and more poignant than perhaps in any other spot in the world, (Paris excepted) its origin is to be traced in almost every rank of Society; and though sometimes the result of unavoidable misfortune, is perhaps more frequently generated by idleness, inattention to business, and indiscretion. But at all events, the tear of pity is due to the helpless and forlorn offspring of the criminal or indolent, who become objects of compassion, not only as it relates to their immediate subsistence; but much more with respect to their future situations in life. It is in the progress to the adult state, that the infants of parents, broken down by misfortunes, almost unavoidably learn, from the pressure of extreme poverty, to resort to devices which early corrupt their morals, and mar their future success and utility in life. Under the influence of these sad examples, and their necessary consequences, do many females become Prostitutes, who in other circumstances, might have been an ornament to their sex, while the males, by contracting early in life habits that are pernicious, become, in many instances, no less noxious to Society. Familiarized in infancy to the Pawnbroker's shop, and to other even less reputable means of obtaining temporary subsistence, they too soon become adepts in falsehood and deceit. Imperious necessity has given an early spring to their ingenuity. They are generally full of resource, which in good pursuits might render them useful and valuable members of the Community: but unhappily their minds have acquired a wrong bias, and they are reared insensibly in the walks of vice, without knowing, in many instances, that they are at all engaged in evil pursuits.
In all these points of view, from indigence is to be traced the great Origin and the Progress of Crimes.
In attending the different Soup Establishments (where 50,000 indigent families, at the expence of one halfpenny per head, have a meal furnished every day during the winter)[93] the Author has observed, with a mixture of pain and satisfaction, particularly at one of them, the children of unfortunate and reduced families, who, from their appearance, have moved in a higher sphere, the humble suitors for this frugal and nourishing aliment.
To have contributed in any degree to the relief of distress rendered painful in the extreme from the recollection of better days, is an ample reward to those benevolent individuals, who have joined in the support and conduct of an undertaking, of all others the most beneficial that perhaps was ever devised, for the purpose of assisting and relieving suffering humanity.
While the wretchedness, misery and crimes, which have been developed, and detailed in this work, cannot be sufficiently deplored, it is a matter of no little exultation, that in no country or nation in the world, and certainly in no other Metropolis, does there exist among the higher and middle ranks of Society, an equal portion of Philanthropy and Benevolence.—Here are to be discovered the extremes of vice and virtue, strongly marked by the existing turpitude on one hand, and the noble instances of charitable munificence, displayed by the opulent part of the Community, on the other.
Nothing can place this in a stronger point of view, and perhaps nothing will astonish strangers more than the following summary Estimate of the various Institutions, supported chiefly by Voluntary Contributions, in addition to the legal Assessments, all tending to ameliorate and better the condition of human life, under the afflicting circumstances of indigence and disease.[94]