Illustrations of the practical operation of the Scottish system of management of the poor / by W.P. Alison, M.D., Professor of the Institutes of Medicine in the University of Edinburgh.

  • Alison, William Pulteney, 1790-1859.
Date:
[1840]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Illustrations of the practical operation of the Scottish system of management of the poor / by W.P. Alison, M.D., Professor of the Institutes of Medicine in the University of Edinburgh. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    little assistance is given them by those who are only a little better off than themselves. But since all classes reap the benefits, they are all bound to bear the burdens of society, according to their several abilities, and the only method by which the wealthy can be made to contribute, as a body, to the support of the indigent and the infirm, is by a com- pulsory ASSESSMENT.” Perthshire.—In further confirmation of what I have stated as to the extent of poverty, vagrancy, and mendicity, in Scotland, its pernicious effects, and its dependence in many instances on the inefficacy of the existing provisions against destitution, I beg to subjoin an extract from “ Some Observations on Vagrancy,” drawn up last year by Mr. Barclay, Sheriff Substitute of Perthshire, with which I have been favoured by Mr. Anderson, Sheriff Depute of that county. “It is assumed that the gentlemen of the county of , like those of other counties around, are now fully aware of the great increase of the evil of vagrancy, with its attendant train of crime—an evil which has so steadily progressed as now to excite alarm—rendering it difficult to reside in the country districts with peace and safety, not to speak of enjoyment. It is not enough to say, as is often said, that begging, pro- moted by indiscriminate charity, is the occasion of the evil. This is rather an effect than a cause. The inquirer must go a step beyond and examine the occasion of begging. “Its remote causes lie deep in the very nature of society, especially of society in its advanced but highly-artificial condition. To suppose that any measure or congeries of measures will ever totally obliterate pauper- ism (or rather, destitution and dependence on charity,) from the face of society, is to suppose a state of existence not the lot of humanity, and opposed to the Divine word that saith, ‘ The poor ye shall have always/ To mitigate the evil is all that can be expected, and assuredly the very regularity of its increase where no means have been used to restrain it, and its decrease wherever opposed even by small resistance, shew how much can be done to repress its growth. “There need be no amazement that the offspring of beggars and vagrants, whose life and manners have been moulded from youth accord- ing to the impress of their parents, should belong to the same class, and surpass in crime tlieir instructors. But even the children of parents industrious and moral, may, from neglect and misconduct, sink into the classes which are counted the pests of society. To test this, let inquiry be made, and the result will be found that by far the great mass of vagrants, at present overrunning the land, were either themselves at one time in far other circumstances, from which their own misconduct or misfortune has driven them, or at least that they are the immediate children of decent and industrious parents, who, in their day, filled the station of humble, though useful, members of society. “The very stinted parochial relief given to those on the Scotch poor's list is an obvious encouragement to beggary. There is just sufficient aid giveii to stamp the person as a pauper, and so to destroy his inde- pendence. By giving something, however little, the claimant, it is vainly thought, will be appeased; whereas, he is merely added to a class whose clamour is just the louder that their claim to relief is admitted, but their satisfaction is only a mockery. It is avowed, that the pittance is not