Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XIII.djvu/198

188 PAUPERISM tics of any value ; and the same may be said of Spain, Portugal, Russia, Turkey, and Greece. On the whole, it appears that the method of outdoor relief, systematically applied under strict supervision, is extending in most parts of the world. It is the method pursued in the Rhenish city of Elberfeld since 1852, where pauperism has been remarkably diminished by its application. It is also the method most favored in Massachusetts of late years, and the judicious extension of outdoor relief under the supervision of state officers or of well organ- ized municipal boards has been one of the measures which in Massachusetts have pre- vented pauperism from keeping pace with the increase in population since 1865. Relief thus administered sometimes increases the cost of the poor to the public, but it is more likely to diminish their numbers and to make them self- supporting than the strict workhouse system of indoor relief. The two methods, however, should be combined in every populous com- munity, and in great cities it is almost impos- sible to prevent the abuse of outdoor relief. More injurious than these abuses, or those of the indoor administration of pauper establish- ments, are the evils which flow from indis- criminate and competing distributions of char- ity by individuals and benevolent organizations. These organizations should be made to coop- erate when possible with the dispensers of pub- lic relief. Pauperism in the United States. In the United States, as has been mentioned, pauperism has somewhat increased; but our statistics are not so complete as to show this clearly, either as to the extent or the causes of increase. Nor is it by any means certain that pauperism has gained faster than popula- tion in any of the states, only a few of which make such returns of the number and cost of their poor as can be trusted, or used in com- parisons from one period to another. The decennial census is very imperfect in its sta- tistics on this subject, and the census tables of 1870 undoubtedly underrate the pauperism then existing in the United States. According to these figures, the average number of the poor in a population of 38,558,371 was but 116,102 on June 1, 1870 about the same as in Scotland with a population less than one tenth as great. In fact, the states of New York and Pennsylvania alone probably con- tain as many paupers as Scotland, and cer- tainly pay as much in a year for their main- tenance. In Pennsylvania, at a given date during 1874, the number of the poor support- ed and relieved, including orphan children, was about 25,000, and they cost during the year about $1,500,000. In New York the number supported or relieved at a given date exceeded 50,000, and they cost during the year not less than $4,250,000, including the appropriations of public money made to orphan homes, hospitals, and dispensaries, the support of the pauper insane in hospitals, and the ex- penditures for immigrant paupers under the commissioners of emigration. We thus find in New York and Pennsylvania an outlay for the poor in 1874 amounting to $5,750,000, or somewhat more than 1,000,000, which has been the extreme limit of pauper expenses in Scotland. The sum reported in 1870 as the pauper cost of the whole United States, accord- ing to the census bureau, was $10,930,429, of which three states New York, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts are reported as expend- ing nearly one half ($5,039,018) in supporting less than 50,000 paupers through the year. The tables of the census of 1860 are still more faulty ; indeed, a just exhibit of pauperism in this country has never been made. At its set- tlement, and for a century afterward, there were but few paupers, who were relieved under some modification of the English stat- utes, and with no great outlay or system. Since the tide of foreign immigration set in, early in the present century, and especially since the Irish famine of 1846, pauperism has rapidly increased in the northern and middle states, more than half of all their poor being now recent immigrants, or their children or grandchildren. This influx of foreign pau- pers has led to many changes in our local sys- tems of poor laws and their administration, and greatly increased our pauper expenses. In New England the town overseers of the poor, and in the other states the county supervisors, overseers, guardians, &c., look after the relief of the poor, while the state usually provides for the indigent insane, and in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and some other states, for cer- tain classes of the sane poor. The number of the poor decreased during the civil war, but has since increased, while the cost of support- ing them is double what it was before 1860. The laws of " settlement " have been relaxed in New England and several other states, and the classification of the poor is much better at- tended to than formerly. The three populous states of Massachusetts, New York, and Penn- sylvania, with the little state of Rhode Island, have taken the lead in this classification, and these four states expend much more in propor- tion to their population (now about 10,000,- 000) than the rest of the country. We have tolerably exact annual returns from them, and from Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin. Mas- sachusetts in the year 1874 expended for the sup- port, relief, and supervision of her poor nearly $1,500,000 ; the average number of the indoor poor was 6,000, of the outdoor poor 10,500, and of the casual poor^ vagrants, &c., about 500, ma- king an average of 17,000 poor of all classes, or something more than one in every 100 of tho population, which in 1874 was less than 1,700,- 000. The whole number of different persons receiving relief was probably less than 75,000. Of the sum expended, something more than two thirds ($1,000,000) was paid by the 342 towns and cities of Massachusetts, each reliev- ing its own poor, and nearly one third ($450,- 000) was paid from the state treasury. Of the