Appeal to the Wealthy of the Land/Essay 6

by Mathew Carey

ESSAY VI.

IV. The fourth position which I undertook to controvert, is, that

"Taxes for the support of the poor, and aid afforded them by benevolent societies and "charitable individuals, are pernicious; as, by encouraging the poor to depend on them, they foster their idleness and improvidence, and thus produce, or at least increase, the poverty and distress they are intended to relieve."

If I have proved, as I hope I have, satisfactorily, that there are classes of people, male and female, whose dependence is on their hands for support, and whose wages, when fully employed, are not more than sufficient for that purpose; that when unemployed, they must be reduced to penury and want; and that there are classes of females, whose wages are inadequate for their support, even when constantly employed; it follows, of course, that the poor rates, the aid of benevolent societies, &c., far from producing the pernicious effects ascribed to them, are imperiously necessary, and that without them, numbers would, as I have stated, actually perish of want, or would have recourse to mendicity; and mendicants impose a far heavier tax on a community than the same number of paupers supported by poor rates. The support of 549 out-door paupers of Philadelphia, in 1830, averaged 461/4 cents per week—or less than 7 cents per day. Some of them received only a quarter of a dollar a week. I submit a statement of the whole number, with the pittance they respectively received:—

42	a	25 cents
2	a	31	1/4
186	a	37	1/2
259	a	50
17	a	62	1/2
42	a	75
1	a	100
——
549

If these had been strolling mendicants, as, by the abrogation of the poor laws, and the annihilation of benevolent societies, they would have become, the average, instead of seven cents per day, would more probably have been 25 or 30 cents; thus increasing the burdens on the community three or four fold. Many of them, with a woe-begone appearance, whether real or fictitious, calculated to excite sympathy, would probably have realized 50 cents, and often a dollar a day.

Those of our fellow-citizens who complain of the oppression of our poor laws, will learn with surprise, that of the 549 out-door paupers, there were no less than 390 above 60 years of age, and 6 above 100. Almost all of these were in a state of superannuation, 50 of them were blind, and 406 of the whole number, as I have already stated, were widows. I annex a statement of their respective ages.

Between	10 and 20	4
	20 and 30	26
	30 and 40	42
	40 and 50	40
	59 and 60	47
——159
	60 and 70	154
	70 and 80	161
	80 and 90	60
	90 and 100	9
Upwards of 100		6
——390
——549[1]

Of the whole number, 381 had 935 children, of whom 372 were at home with their parents. I have been unable to procure a statement of the ages or characters of the tenants of our alms-house—but presume that they were somewhat similar to those of the out-door paupers.^[2]

⁠Philadelphia, July 4, 1833.

 

 

1. Hazard's Register of Pennsylvania, vol, vi. p. 266.
2. The following extract from the presentment of the Grand Jury of the Mayor's Court for the June session for 1833, exhibits a degree of wretchedness of which few of our citizens have any idea. It fully establishes the necessity of the interference of benevolent associations and charitable individuals, to relieve such severe suffering, and ought to make those persons blush, who, enjoying the good things of the world, involve the poor in an indiscriminate mass of obloquy; unjustly charge all their misery to intemperance and other vices; and, decrying those associations, avert, as far as in them lies, the current of charity in its course to their support. Think of the miseries of six families in one small house, destitute of the most essential conveniences! Let it be eternally borne in mind, that if intemperance and other vices produce poverty on the one hand—poverty, degrading and remediless poverty on the other, as often produces recklessness, intemperance, and their baleful concomitants.
   "3d. The block of buildings bounded by Vine and Sassafras and Water and Front streets, the Inquest are of opinion, presents a nuisance of a very serious nature, and which may prove detrimental to the public health. There are in this block 29 houses or tenements, containing 94 families, consisting of 472 individuals. These houses generally cover all the ground belonging to the premises: in many of them are residing six families each! and they have not the convenience of a privy, nor a situation in which one could be placed! they are almost without ventilation: the tenants are compelled to use vessels of various kinds, which are emptied either into the streets and gutters, or into the neighbouring docks!"