Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 60, No. 373, November 1846

by Various

Then the relieving-officer, after relieving the case as one of sudden and urgent necessity to-day, may see the applicant again upon his next visit; and knowing that a case is urgent after forty-eight hours' fasting, and may be considered sudden, if two days' work only was obtained when four days was expected, he may be relieved on the same plea again, and again, and again. In point of fact, the relief is an allowance.

If this be the practice, a bad mode of out-door relief has grown into use, the worst peculiarities of the old method being involved in it. It is irregular, partial, and dependent on personal partialities and prejudices; and, if persisted in, would revive old times, when the overseer gave away, in the first place, to the bold, the insidious, and the designing, and modest merit was left to pick up the crumbs.

The result of an inquiry into the two other classes into which England is parochially divided would probably be, that many evils have been removed or lessened, that others have remained untouched, that much good has been secured, and that new abuses have crept in.

Take the Union of small parishes. An improvement has certainly been effected by the Union of these. A city or town, because it happened to be composed of a large number of small parishes, having no perceptible boundaries, but, in virtue of ancient usage or statute-law, was governed by so many independent petty powers. It does not require much study to ascertain what abuses would be likely to arise, or from what quarter they would probably come. It is likely that the round of petty magnates would be a small and cozy party; that a man, the moment he became initiated, would begin to ascend the ladder of fortune. Jobbery would flourish. Such things are not peculiar to England. In Spain and France they have been matter of observation. Read the following extract from Fabrice's account of the masters he served:—"Le Seigneur Manuel Ordonnez, mon maître, est un homme d'une piété profonde. On dit que, dès sa jeunesse, n'ayant en vue que le bien des pauvres, il s'y est attaché avec un zèle infatigable. Aussi ses soins ne sont-ils pas demeurés sans récompense: tout lui a prospéré. Quelle benediction! En faisant les affaires des pauvres, il s'est enriché."

These abuses belong to the past, but their existence should not be forgotten. Pauperism would flourish. For a system of management, proverbially jealous of having its affairs exposed to the gaze of the ignorant vulgar, could not look with too curious an eye into the circumstances of those who applied for relief. The beadle who flourished in those days did not, as some affirm, derive his authority from his cocked hat or his gilded coat, but from the real power he exercised.

The overseers were elected with their will, or against it. They often served in a perpetual circle. The duty of relieving the poor was too often left to subordinate irresponsible officers, whose duties were neither expressed nor recognised. Their most arduous task was to keep their superior out of hot water. But what kind of cases were relieved, and under what circumstances, and what kind of cases were refused, and under what circumstances, is now mere matter—matter of tradition, and will become a mystery in the course of a few years. Many poor were relieved; but the bold, the idle, and the squalid had the best chance. Honest, humble poverty approached the overseer's door with fear and trembling, and the slightest rebuff or harsh word, which an importune application might occasion, would be sufficient to make her leave the door unrelieved. While the destitute confirmed pauper would annoy, insult, and extract relief, by the scandal of so much squalid destitution lying and crouching about the overseer's door.

Now what change has taken place? These parishes have been formed into Unions. The churchwardens and overseers of each parish form part of a Board of management. This Board of management is completed by the addition of a class hitherto unknown in parish matters, viz. the guardians who are elected from the parishioners, on grounds in which wealth, station, and public importance are elements. All repairs and alterations, and the supply of provisions, are subject to contract, and open to competition. The parish plumber can no longer make his fortune by the repair of the parish pump. All disbursements are recorded, and subjected to rigid inspection, and all receipts are duly accounted for.

But the poor, how do they fare? It is necessary to state, with reference to this point, that the peculiar politico-economic theories which have had such frequent expression in the letters, reports, and orders of the Poor-Law Commissioners, have also had their influence upon all persons connected with the administration of relief. The idea was, that a severe "house test" would nearly destroy pauperism. This dream, however, is passing away, and a more humane set of opinions are being engendered.

The circumstances of a city Union are widely different from those of the rural Union; and, therefore, many suggestions and strictures which have been made against the mode of administering relief in the latter are inapplicable to the former. In the rural Union, the chief difficulty is, that a long distance must be travelled before the application to the relieving-officer can be made, and relief obtained. And it becomes a matter of importance to know to what extent the local officers are able to perform their duty. In the Union of small parishes, these difficulties cannot exist, for the whole diameter may be traversed in half-an-hour. Then a relief office is built. It is situated in a poor neighbourhood. It is open a certain number of hours in each day; an officer is in attendance; and the bread and meat, and other kind of food, are in the building. These facts are known to the poor, to the magistrates, and to the police. The individual power of the overseer in these little parishes falls daily into disuetude. The poor man can obtain relief most readily at the office. He need not wait for the leisure moment of an overseer—deeply engaged in his private affairs. The poor know this, and do not apply to him. Occasionally an application is made to an overseer, and if he wish the case to be relieved, his most convenient practical course, is to submit the case to the relieving-officer, by a note, and then to put a question to the chairman at the next board-day.

It will be found that the evil to be apprehended is, that relief in certain cases may be too easily obtained, and a class of paupers improperly encouraged. This, however, does not necessarily proceed from the Union, but from certain other wise notions respecting mendicancy and vagrancy.