On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
nevolent Society ; " op from a desire to add a legal and permanent provision to the more precarious supplies of voluntary charity , he solicits parish relief ; he begs an extract from the parish register , proves his settlement by the charity-school indenture of apprenticeships and quarters his family on the parish , with an allowance of five shillings a week . In this uniform alternation of voluntary and compulsory relief he draws towards the close of his mendicant existence .
* Before leaving the world , he might , perhaps , return thanks to the public . He has been born for nothing—he has been nursed , for nothing—he has been clothed for nothing—he has been educated for nothing—he has been put out in the world for nothing—he has had medicine and medical attendance for nothing ; he has had his children also born , nursed , clothed , fed ^ educated , established , and physicked for nothing .
There is but one good office more for which he can stand indebted to society , and that is his burial . He dies a parish pauper , and , at the expense of the parish , he is provided with shroud , coffin , pall , and burial-ground ; a party of paupers from the workhouse bear his body to the grave , and a party of paupers are his mourners . I wish it to be particularly understood , that , in thus describing the
operation of charity in my district , I have been giving an ordinary \ and not an extraordinary , instance . I might have included many other details ; some of them of a far more aggravated and offensive nature . I have contented myself , however , with describing the state of the district as regards charitable relief , and the extent to which that relief , may be , and actually is made to minister to improvidence and dependence .
Now is it not high time for people to think what they are doing , both with their spontaneous and their legal alms ? As to the frightful amount of suffering among the poorer classes , there
can be no question . As to the imperative duty of meliorating the condition of those classes , there can be no question either . But why persist in plans which only aggravate the evil , and while they extend the physical suffering , generate from it a noxious mass of moral degradation ? We are evidently on a wrong track .
There can be no charity in blindly promoting vice and misery . What is the remedy ? We must endeavour , like a physician when the patient has been wrongly dealt with , first to correct the mischiefs of our own fallacious remedy , and then attack the disease itself by the means best adapted to assuage its virulence . As to individual donations the course is clear . Let them be
withdrawn from the institutions which tend to keep the poor dependent , and make them improvident , and transferred to those true charities which have an opposite tendency- Let the patronage which upholds soup and blanket distributions be applied to
increase the utility and attractiveness of schools and saving-banks . And in relation to the legal mischief , the first step should be to abolish the encouragement which is now given to idleness , at the expense of industry . None should have gratuitous aid except those who are physically or mentally unable to render any service
Untitled Article
Poor L&W 9 and Paupers . 871
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1833, page 371, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2616/page/11/
-