After reorganising the Bavarian army, not only as regards military discipline, but in the feeding, clothing, education, and useful employment of the men, in order to make them good citizens as well as good soldiers, he attacked a still more difficult problem—that of removing from Bavaria the scandal and burden of the hordes of beggars and thieves which had become intolerable. He tells us that ‘the number of itinerant beggars of both sexes, and all ages, as well foreigners as natives, who strolled about the country in all directions, levying contributions from the industrious inhabitants, stealing and robbing, and leading a life of indolence and most shameless debauchery, was quite incredible;’ and, further, that ‘these detestable vermin swarmed everywhere, and not only their impudence and clamorous importunity were without any bounds, but they had recourse to the most diabolical acts and most horrid crimes in the prosecution of their infamous trade. Young children were stolen from their parents by these wretches, and their eyes put out, or their tender limbs broken and distorted, in order, by exposing them thus maimed, to excite the pity and commiseration of the public.’ He gives further particulars of their trading upon the misery of their own children, and their organisation to obtain alms by systematic intimidation. Previous attempts to cure the evil had failed, the public had lost all faith in further projects, and therefore no support was to be expected for Rumford’s scheme. ‘Aware of this,’ he says, ‘I took my measures accordingly. To convince the public that the scheme was feasible, I determined first, by a great exertion, to carry it into complete execution, and then to ask them to support it.’
He describes the military organisation by which he distributed the army throughout the country districts to capture all the strolling provincial beggars, and how, on Jan. 1, 1790, he bagged all the beggars of Munich in less than an hour by means of a well-organised civil and military battue, New Year’s Day being the great festival when all the beggars went abroad to enforce their customary black-mail upon the industrious section of the population. Though very interesting, I must not enter upon these details, but cannot help stepping a little aside from my proper subject to quote his weighty words on the ethical principles upon which he proceeded. He says that ‘with persons of this description, it is easy to be conceived that precepts, admonitions, and punishments would be of little avail. But where precepts fail, habits may sometimes be successful. To make vicious and abandoned people happy, it has generally been supposed necessary, first, to make them virtuous. But why not reverse this order? Why not make them first happy and then virtuous? If happiness and virtue be inseparable, the end will as certainly be attained by one method as by the other; and it is most undoubtedly much easier to contribute to the happiness and comfort of persons in a state of poverty and misery than, by admonitions and punishments, to improve their morals.’
He applied these principles to his miserable material with complete success, and, referring to the result, exclaims, ‘Would to God that my success might encourage others to follow my example!’ Further examination of his proceedings shows that, in order to follow such example, a knowledge of first principles and a determination to carry them out in bold defiance of vulgar ignorance, general prejudice, and, vilest of all, polite sneering, is necessary.
Having captured the beggars thus cleverly, he proceeded to carry out the above-stated principle by taking them to a large building already prepared, where ‘everything was done that could be devised to make them really comfortable.’ The first condition of such comfort, he maintains, is cleanliness, and his dissertation on this, though written so long ago, might be quoted in letters of gold by our sanitarians of to-day.
Describing how he carried out his principles, he says of the prisoners thus captured: ‘Most of them had been used to living in the most miserable hovels, in the midst of vermin and every kind of filthiness, or to sleep in the streets and under the hedges, half naked and exposed to all the inclemencies of the seasons. A large and commodious building, fitted up in the neatest and most comfortable manner, was now provided for their reception. In this agreeable retreat they found spacious and elegant apartments kept with the most scrupulous neatness; well warmed in winter and well lighted; a good warm dinner every day, gratis, cooked and served up with all possible attention to order and cleanliness; materials and utensils for those that were able to work; masters gratis for those who required instruction; the most generous pay, in money, for all the labour performed; and the kindest usage from every person, from the highest to the lowest, belonging to the establishment. Here in this asylum for the indigent and unfortunate, no ill-usage, no harsh language is permitted. During five years that the establishment has existed, not a blow has been given to anyone, not even to a child by his instructor.’
This appears like the very expensive scheme of a benevolent utopian; but, to set my readers at rest on this point, I will anticipate a little by stating that, although at first some expense was incurred, all this was finally repaid, and, at the end of six years, there remained a net profit of 100,000 florins, ‘after expenses of every kind, salaries, wages, repairs, &c., had been deducted.’
When will our workhouses be administered with similar results?
I must not dwell upon his devices for gradually inveigling the lazy creatures into habits of industry, for he understood human nature too well to adopt the gaoler’s theory, which assumes that every able-bodied man can do a day’s work daily, in spite of previous habits. Rumford’s patients became industrious ultimately, but were not made so at once.
This development of industry was one of the elements of financial and moral success, and the next in importance was the economy of the commissariat, which depended on Rumford’s skilful cookery of the cheapest viands, rendering them digestible, nutritious, and palatable. Had he adopted the dietary of an English workhouse or an English prison, his financial success would have been impossible, and his patients would have been no better fed, nor better able to work.
The staple food was what he calls a ‘soup,’ but I find, on following out his instructions for making it, that I obtain a porridge rather than a soup. He made many experiments, and says: ‘I constantly found that the richness or quality of a soup depended more upon a proper choice of the ingredients, and a proper management of the fire in the combination of these ingredients, than upon the quantity of solid nutritious matter employed;—much more upon the art and skill of the cook than upon the sum laid out in the market.’