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Transcriber’s Note:

Suspected printer’s errors have been corrected. Upper-case accents
weren’t used in the original, and differences of spelling (etc.)
between the different reports have been preserved.




                               STATEMENT
                                OF THE
                        PROVISION FOR THE POOR,
                              AND OF THE
                  CONDITION OF THE LABOURING CLASSES,
                     IN A CONSIDERABLE PORTION OF
                          AMERICA AND EUROPE.

                                  BY
                        NASSAU W. SENIOR, ESQ.

                               BEING THE
            PREFACE TO THE FOREIGN COMMUNICATIONS CONTAINED
                IN THE APPENDIX TO THE POOR-LAW REPORT.

                                LONDON:
                     B. FELLOWES, LUDGATE STREET.
             (_Publisher to the Poor-Law Commissioners._)

                              MDCCCXXXV.

                                LONDON:
                  PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS,
                           Stamford Street.




ADVERTISEMENT.


The following pages were prepared for the sole purpose of forming an
introduction to the foreign communications contained in the Appendix
to the Poor-Law Report. Their separate publication was not thought
of until they had been nearly finished. When it was first suggested
to me, I felt it to be objectionable, on account of their glaring
imperfections, if considered as forming an independent work, and the
impossibility of employing the little time which can be withdrawn
from a profession, in the vast task of giving even an outline of the
provision for the poor, and the condition of the labouring classes,
in the whole of Europe and America. But the value and extent of the
information which, even in their present incomplete state, they
contain, and the importance of rendering it more accessible than when
locked up in the folios of the Poor-Law Appendix, have overcome my
objections. The only addition which I have been able to make is a
translation of the French documents.

I cannot conclude without expressing my sense of the zeal and
intelligence with which the inquiry has been prosecuted by his
Majesty’s diplomatic Ministers and Consuls, and of the active and
candid assistance which has been given by the foreign Governments.

NASSAU W. SENIOR.

_Lincoln’s Inn, June 10, 1835._




CONTENTS


                                                                  Page
    INTRODUCTION                                                     1

    AMERICA

        Pennsylvania                                             13-18

        Massachusetts                                            14-17

        New Jersey                                                  18

        New York                                                    19

    EUROPE

        Norway                                                      20

        Sweden                                                      24

        Russia                                                      29

        Denmark                                                     33

        Mecklenburg                                                 44

        Prussia                                                     45

        Saxony                                                      53

        Wurtemberg                                                  53

            Weinsburg House of Industry                             65

        Bavaria                                                     68

        Berne                                                       74

    CAUSES favourable to the Working of a Compulsory Provision      84

        Hanseatic Towns

            Hamburgh                                                95

            Bremen                                                  96

            Lubeck                                                  98

        Frankfort                                                  101

        Holland                                                    101

            Poor Colonies of                                       109

                Frederiks-Oord                                     110

                Wateren                                            113

                Veenhuisen                                         113

                Ommerschans                                        115

        Belgium and France                                         117

            French Poor-Laws:

                Hospices et Bureaux de Bienfaisance                118

                Foundlings and Deserted Children                   120

                Mendicity and Vagrancy                             122

        Belgium

            Monts-de-Piété                                     126-138

            Mendicity                                              126

            Foundlings and Deserted Children                       133

            Antwerp                                                139

            Ostend                                                 143

            Gaesbeck                                               145

            Poor Colonies                                          148

        France                                                     154

            Havre:

                Hospital                                           155

                Bureau de Bienfaisance                             156

            Rouen:

                Workhouse Regulations                              157

            Brittany                                               160

            Loire Inférieure:

                Nantes                                             163

            Gironde:

                Bourdeaux                                          170

            Basses Pyrenées:

                Bayonne                                            176

            Bouches du Rhone:

                Marseilles                                         178

        Sardinian States:

            Piedmont                                               181

            Genoa                                                  186

            Savoy                                                  187

        Venice                                                     189

        Portugal:

            Oporto                                                 194

            The Azores                                             196

            The Canary Islands                                     199

        Greece                                                     201

        European Turkey                                            203

        General Absence of a Surplus Population in Countries not
        affording Compulsory Relief                                204

        Agricultural Labourers in England.

            Wages of                                               206

            Subsistence of                                         208

        Wages and Subsistence of Foreign Labourers.

            _Vide_ Tables                                      210-235

        Comparison between the state of the English and
        Foreign Labouring Classes                                  236




STATEMENT OF THE PROVISION FOR THE POOR, AND THE CONDITION OF THE
LABOURING CLASSES, IN A CONSIDER