British Quarterly Review, American Edition, Vol. LIV / July and October, 1871

by Various

POLITICS, SCIENCE, AND ART.

Pauperism: Its Causes and Remedies. By Henry Fawcett, Fellow of Trinity Hall, and Professor of Political Economy in the University of Cambridge. Macmillan and Co.

In this very timely book Mr. Fawcett commences the discussion of his subject by depicting, in somewhat gloomy colours, the pauperized state of a large class of our population. This debased condition, he believes, is not a dismal necessity which admits of no remedy, but the fruit of unwise legislation, which has produced and still encourages a disregard of those social virtues of prudence and self-restraint which can alone permanently raise and maintain the social condition of any class in the community. He proceeds to show how powerful was the influence upon our population exerted by the old Poor-law, which was in operation until 1834. The evil results which flow from bad legislation, at that time reached a height which threatened the dissolution of society, and this was averted only by the new Poor-law, which yet has failed to provide a perfect remedy, and in some of its provisions has even a tendency to discourage in our people those qualities from which we may hope for the extinction of pauperism. The practice of outdoor relief to able-bodied paupers is shown to be pernicious, and indeed ruinous in its tendency; and a very shrewd suggestion is made, or rather hinted at, for its abatement. The relief of the poor is now, it is well known, a common charge upon a union of parishes which is under the charge of a board of guardians. Permit this to continue in the case of indoor relief, but provide that outdoor relief should be a charge upon the parish in which the pauper resides. This would no doubt soon lessen the amount of outdoor relief, and would secure its administration only in cases of real and pressing necessity. Against the modern practice of boarding out pauper children, which has been recommended by many kindly and philanthropic persons, a very heavy indictment is drawn, and grave doubt is shown to exist as to its practical operation. Broadly, it may be said, that Mr. Fawcett judges of the administration of relief to the poor mainly according to its ultimate moral effects upon the class to which they belong; because he holds that the existence of a high standard of prudence and self-restraint is the only means by which any class can attain and keep a high social and physical condition. If the working classes of England are taught by the Poor-law and by misdirected charity to abandon providence and self-restraint, no power on earth can permanently improve their position, and every temporary amelioration must be soon lost in a still larger class depressed to the low level existing before the benefit was received. If, on the other hand, the virtues of providence and self-restraint be but sufficiently cultivated, it is difficult to say how high may be the standard of comfort reached by the working classes of our country.

The views we have thus slightly sketched are expanded and enforced with great clearness in the first three chapters of this book, and in the postscript, on the boarding out of pauper children. We should be glad indeed if all our legislators could be compelled to pass an examination in the first half of Mr. Fawcett's little volume, and should hope for the best results from their study of his vigorous and thoughtful sentences. In the remaining four chapters the probable effects upon the condition of the working classes of national education, co-partnership, and co-operation, and an improved land tenure, are carefully examined, and many valuable suggestions are made; but it must be obvious, on Mr. Fawcett's own principles, that except these remedial measures have a direct tendency to produce prudence and self-restraint, they can only afford temporary relief, to be followed by a depression to the previous low condition. This is the great lesson taught by the learned professor, and taught with abundant illustration and convincing argument; and we hold that it is a lesson which our people greatly need to learn.

At the present time, probably, the greatest hindrance to a real improvement in the condition of the working classes is the feeble sentimentality which prevails so widely in modern society, and which finds its natural expression in that maudlin pity which doles out relief alike to idle and industrious, to the vicious and the unfortunate. By this practice, so common both in public and private charity, and which is far more deleterious in systematic and public charity than in private gifts, all the springs of care and prudence are weakened, and even that degree of providence which is admitted as needful to the middle classes, to enable them to maintain their position, is scouted as unnatural and cruel, when urged upon the working classes. Mr. Fawcett is an advanced Liberal, and one of the ablest leaders of the most democratic party in our country. We think it greatly to his honour that he has the courage and honesty so fearlessly to proclaim the true causes of most of the pauperism which exists among us; and we trust his words will be received with all the weight they deserve by that great body of working people who are especially his clients, and whose cause he is ever ready to plead.

Mr. Fawcett's book is written with great clearness and force, and we can hardly fancy any one finding political economy dull in his company. Sometimes, perhaps, the strength of his convictions seems to lead to statements so strong and unqualified as to need some correction, but we fully concur in the main drift of his argument, and recommend his book to the careful study of all interested in the investigation of the causes of pauperism.

General Outline of the Organization of the Animal Kingdom, and Manual of Comparative Anatomy. By Thomas Rymer Jones, F.R.S. John Van Voorst

The fourth edition of Professor T. R. Jones's 'Outline' may be taken as an evidence that his work is still in demand, notwithstanding the formidable rivalry of Professor Rolleston's recent work on the same subject addressed to the same class of readers. Perhaps the less formal and technical style of treatment may be an attraction to some students of comparative anatomy. Men who give themselves to the study of what are called the descriptive sciences, have often had their attention directed to them in the first instance by their pictorial attractions, and they retain a certain license in dealing with these branches of learning which neither instructors nor students of the more exact sciences would permit themselves. Professor R. Jones has taken his full poetical license, and the parts of the work which display it in the highest degree are peculiarly his own. There is no objection to this mode of treatment so long as it does not take off the attention of the learners from the more general and harder parts of the subject. But the comparative anatomy of the whole animal kingdom is so vast that if the author allows himself to run after the descriptions which are of most interest, his presentation of the whole subject is likely to be fragmentary and imperfect.

The previous editions of this work have stood almost alone as popular elementary manuals, and this edition contains very few additions to the former ones—such only, in fact, as have been forced on the author. He has designedly hung in the rearward of the science, and is a collator rather than a critic or an investigator. Thus he cannot resist the claims of the Cælenerata to be ranked as a sub-kingdom, and the adoption of Free and Leuckart's classification has compelled him to transpose the positions of the Anthozoa and Hydrozoa. This, however, is almost his only classificatory innovation. By a convenient conservation he still retains the Cirrepedia as a distinct class, while the Rotifera are placed under the Crustacea. The Brachiopoda are still interposed between the Conchifera and Gasteropoda. The Amphibians are not separated from the Reptilia. These antiquated ideas of classification are to be regretted; but inasmuch as the object of the volume is to describe, rather than to classify, they need not be condemned as erroneous. When treating of the vertebrate classes, the author becomes little more than the interpreter of Professor R. Owen, and we deplore that a theory of the elements of a vertebra which has never been generally adopted by the scientific world should be introduced into a student's book without criticism or comment.

The principal additions which appear in this edition are pictorial, and the new pictures are, for the most part, illustrative of natural history rather than of anatomy. An exception to this is, however, found in the introduction of Mr. Albany Harcock's very instructive delineation of Waldheimia Australis.