Various
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 60, No. 373, November 1846
When it at last became evident that the feeble and talentless Sadozais were unable to hold the reins of power in Afghanistan, or to contend, with any chance of success, against the energy and influence of the Barakzai chiefs, Dost Mohammed was released, and allowed to return to his own country. On his way he concluded a secret treaty of alliance with Sher Singh, the Maharajah of the Punjaub, and from Lahore was escorted by the Sikhs to the Khaibar pass, where Akhbar Khan and other Afghan chiefs received him. The Amir's exultation at again ascending his throne knew no bounds. Unschooled by adversity, he very soon recommenced his old system of extortion, and made himself so unpopular, that he was once fired at, but escaped. He now enjoys his authority and the superiority of his family, fearless of invasion from West or East.
Although Akhbar Khan, of all the Amir's sons, has the greatest influence in Afghanistan, and renown out of it, his elder brother, Afzal Khan, is, we are informed, greatly his superior in judgment and nobility of character. Mohan Lal predicts a general commotion in Kabul when Dost Mohammed dies. If any one of his brothers, the chiefs of Qandhar, or Sultan Mohammed Khan, the ex-chief of Peshavar, be then alive, he will attempt to seize Kabul, and many of the Afghan nobles, some even of the Amir's sons, will lend him their support against Akhbar Khan. The popular candidate, however, the favourite of the people, of the chiefs, and of his relations, the Barakzais, is Afzal Khan. Akhbar will be supported by his brothers – the sons, that is to say, of his own mother as well as of the Amir. Perhaps the whole territory of Kabul will be divided into small independent principalities, governed by the different sons of Dost Mohammed. At any rate, there can be little doubt that at his death wars and intrigues, plunderings and assassinations, will again distract the country. The crown that was won by the crimes of the father, will, in all probability, be shattered and pulled to pieces by the dissensions and rivalry of the children.
ON THE OPERATION OF THE ENGLISH POOR-LAWS
The time has arrived when the modes of administering the poor-law in England and Wales must undergo inquiry and revision. Twelve years have elapsed since the Poor-Law Amendment Act became the law of the land; and during the period many changes have been made. In many cases, the new arrangements of the Poor-Law Commissioners have been adopted without a murmur. In some cases, they have met with continued but fruitless opposition. In others, they have been resisted with success. During the whole period a war has raged, in which no two of the combatants have used the same weapons, or drawn them in the same cause. One has adduced particular cases of hardship, suffering, and death, as the results of the new system. Another has collected statistics, and referred to depauperised counties. And yet the same number of cases of hardship and suffering may have occurred before 1834, although unrecorded and unknown. Nor does it follow, because the official returns from agricultural counties may show a diminished number of paupers, or a diminished expenditure, that the residue have been able to earn their bread as independent labourers. No period appears to have been assigned when the results of the new system should be examined. Successive governments have kept aloof from fear, until an accident led to important disclosures, and an inquiry is now inevitable. The Poor-Law Commissioners have been invested with extraordinary and dangerous powers. They possess the united powers of Queen, Lords, and Commons. Their most imperfectly-considered resolutions have the force of an act of parliament, or rather, ten-fold more force – it being their duty, first, to ascertain what ought to be the law – then to make the law – then to enforce it – and then, after the elapse of time, to report upon its success or failure. It would be difficult for the wisest to exercise powers like these beneficially; and it is to be feared that abuses have crept in. And when we find that men, who have hitherto upheld the system, now demand inquiry in their place in parliament, and the ministers who were concerned in the establishment of the system, promising, either to withdraw opposition to the demand, or to amend the laws themselves so we may be assured that the topic at the present time, as regards the administration of Relief to the Poor in England and Wales, is Inquiry and Revision.
The subject matter of this article must be suggestive, rather than affirmative. Even at this time of day, it would be presumptuous to take up a commanding or decided position. The old system was rotten. The good it contained was choked up with weeds; the pruning-knife has been applied unsparingly; and it is to be feared that good wood has been cut away. New arrangements have been devised with practical shrewdness, to displace clearly recognised evils; but, with these practical improvements, certain economic theories have been speculatively, tried; and it is likely that evils have sprung up; so that those who proclaim so loudly that every part of the new arrangements is either naught or vicious, and those who affirm that the old methods were all good, are both remote from the truth, which, probably, lies somewhere between the two.
The subject being set apart for inquiry, the question arises – How can a subject which has so many phases be advantageously considered; to whom must we go for information; and to what matters should the attention be chiefly directed? It is to these questions this article will attempt to provide answers. To the first question – To whom must we go for information? – the answer is obvious. To all who are engaged in the administration of the law, and chiefly to those who have to do with those departments where evils may be supposed to exist. And, in order to answer the second, the subject must be divided into classes, and the mode of operation of the law in each must be sketched. The reader will then be able to see for himself, and judge whether the matters referred to are not those which most imperatively demand inquiry.
The several parishes, townships, chapelries, and hamlets of England and Wales, whether grouped into Unions or not, may be usefully distributed into three classes.
The First Class includes "parishes, townships, chapelries, and hamlets," grouped into Unions, in which the population bears a small proportion to the number of acres they comprise.
The Second Class includes small populous parishes, grouped into Unions, in which the population bears a large proportion to the number of statute acres they cover.
The Third Class consists of large single parishes, in which the population bears a large proportion to the number of acres.
The following diagram will explain this classification:
These divisions of territory may be regarded from different points of view. They may be seen through the media of statute-books, reports, returns, and statistics; or they may be actually surveyed. Each course has its peculiar dangers. The mind, occupied with matters of detail and routine occurrences, is apt to lose in comprehensiveness as much as it gains in minute exactness. To avoid this danger the mind must soar as the facts accumulate. It must regard them, sometimes from the height of one theory, and sometimes from the height of another. For the mind becomes tinged with the hue of whatever is frequently presented to it. Opinions even are hereditary. And every set of facts leads to a different conclusion, according to the texture of the minds they pass through. Refer to the facts connected with the condition of the poor, which have been proclaimed during the last few years; and then reflect to what contradictory opinions they have led. The man of strong benevolent feelings deduces one inference. The politico-economical theorist deduces another. And the man of practice and experience is as likely to be deluded as either. He sees destitution so frequently connected with imprudence, laziness, and crime, that he is apt to believe that the union is indissoluble. His mind has never embraced a general idea, or traced effects to causes, or distinguished them, the one from the other. And in this matter, where the causes and effects are so complicated, and entangled by their mutual reaction, he is likely to be at fault. Then the man of pure benevolence sees only the pain, and demands only the means of immediate relief. And the political economist tells us, "That the law which would enforce charity can fix no limits, either to the ever-increasing wants of a poverty which itself has created, or to the insatiable desires and demands of a population which itself hath corrupted and led astray."
In the First Class, the parishes are large, thinly populated, and situated generally in rural districts. In some cases, the Union includes a country town; the neighbouring parishes and hamlets being connected with it. The total number of parishes may be eighteen or twenty. In other cases, the Union consists of about twenty-five parishes, townships, hamlets, and chapelries. In some instances, the population of the parishes are collected into so many villages, which are distant from each other. In others, the entire surface of the country is sprinkled thinly with cottages. The communications are by high-roads, and muddy lanes, over high hills, and through bogs and marshes, and by bridle-roads and footpaths —
"O'er muirs and mosses many, O."
In each of these Unions, the management of the relief fund is confided to a Board, consisting of resident rate-payers, and resident country magistrates. The former are guardians by election, and the latter ex-officio. The Board is completed by the addition of the churchwardens and overseers. The chairman is generally the most distinguished, and the vice-chairman the most active man in the Union. The chairman regulates the proceedings of the Board, and ascertains its resolutions. The clerk records them. The relief which applicants are to receive, is determined by the Board; except that which is given by certain officers in cases of "sudden and urgent necessity." The management of the Union-house is invested in the master – a paid officer. His duties are ascertained and fixed. He is liable to dismissal by the joint resolution of the Poor-Law Commissioners and the Guardians, or by the order of the Commissioners alone. It is also the duty of the master to attend to such cases of destitution as may be presented at the Union-House gate; and, if their necessities be of a sudden and urgent character, to admit them into the house. It may be remarked here, that information is wanted upon this point. The question is not, by what general term may the cases be designated, whether sudden or urgent, but what the circumstances of the cases really are, which are so relieved. The answers to the question would throw light upon the relation subsisting between a strict work-house system and the increase of vagrancy. To continue. The sick poor are confided to the care of the medical officer; and the out-door relief is chiefly administered by the relieving-officer. His duties in rural Unions are as follows: – To pay or deliver such amounts of money or food as the Board may have ordered the poor to receive, at the villages, hamlets, and cottages where they may reside. He must visit the poor at their homes. He receives applications for relief; and when the necessity is sudden and urgent, he relieves the case promptly with food. He must report upon the circumstances of each case, and keep accounts. For neglect of duty, he is liable to penal consequences, and to dismissal, in the same way as the master. The average number of parishes, townships, and hamlets committed to the care of the relieving-officer may be about twenty. The reader may be able, from his local knowledge, to picture this Union, and give it a name.
The Union then consists of twenty parishes. The Union-house is pretty central, and situated near a small market-town. The meetings of the Board are held in the Union-house, and upon the market-day; because then the guardians, churchwardens, and overseers, after having transacted their private business, may conveniently perform their public duties. At the last meeting of the Board of Guardians, certain poor persons appeared before them, and were ordered to be relieved with money or food, at a specific rate, and for a specified time. The relieving-officer resides in that part of the Union from whence he can reach the most distant and opposite points with nearly equal facility. He divides his district into rounds, and each occupies the greatest portion of a day. At the end of each week he will have visited the whole of the twenty parishes.
The Board met yesterday, and to-day the relieving-officer's week began. By the conditions of his appointment, he must have a horse and chaise. The contractor for bread is bound to deliver it at the home of the pauper; he must therefore provide man and horse, and they accompany the relieving-officer. They set out on the first day's journey; they arrive at the first hamlet on the route, and stop at a cottage door. Around it and within it the destitute poor of the hamlet are assembled. Each receives his allowance of money and bread. But a group has collected about the door, whose names are not on the relief-list. One woman tells the relieving-officer that her husband is ill with fever, and her children are without food. He knows the family; he hastens down the lane, and across the field, and enters the labourer's hut. The man is really ill, and there are too evident signs of destitution. A written order is given on the medical officer to attend the case, and necessary relief is given. The man who now approaches the officer with such an air of overbearing insolence, or fawning humility, is also an applicant. He is known at the village beer-shop, and by the farmer as a man who can work, but will not; he is the last man employed in the parish; his hovel is visited – it is a scene of squalid misery. What is to be done? He may be relieved temporarily with bread, or admitted into the Union-house, or he is directed to attend the Board. The relieving officer then proceeds to his next station. There a larger supply of bread awaits him, for he is now in a populous parish. The poor of the place are assembled at the church door, and the relief is given in the vestry-room. The applications are again received and disposed of. He then rides to the cottages of the sick and the aged, and again continues his route. He does not proceed far before he is hailed by the labourer in the field, who tells him of some solitary person who is without medical aid. By-and-by, he is stopped by the boy who has long waited for him on the stile, and begs him to come and see his mother; and the farmer's man, on the farmer's horse, gives him further news of disease, destitution, or death. He completes his day's journey before the evening. To-morrow another route is taken; and thus he proceeds from day to day, and from month to month, through summer's heat and winter's cold.
The number of medical officers in a Union varies. In some cases, where there are two relieving-officers, there are four medical officers. The medical officer resides within the limits of the Union. He is not prevented from attending to his private practice, and he does not therefore reside in a central position, or at the nearest point to his pauper patients; he is supplied with a list of persons who are in receipt of relief, and he is bound to attend these without an order; he must also attend to cases upon the receipt of a written order from the relieving-officer or the overseer; he regulates the diet of his patients, and he is paid by a salary, and by fees in certain cases.
There are contradictory opinions respecting the efficiency of this system. Some say that the amount of remuneration is inadequate to insure qualified persons, and others that the qualifications are secured by the requisition of recognised diplomas.
If we inquire of those among the peasantry who have never received parochial relief, or even of the yeomanry, we find that in many districts, and especially those of which we are now speaking, it is a difficult matter to obtain immediate medical aid; and if this consideration have any weight, the system would appear satisfactory, providing always the overseers perform their duty when applied to. It would be desirable to ascertain whether there are any restrictions in the issue of medical orders. As regards relieving the poor with food, there are many who say, that, in so doing, the very evil is created which we are endeavouring to destroy. But this is not said with respect to medical relief. The labouring man with his family may earn an average wage of from 7s. to 12s. per week. The most prudent cannot save much, and those savings are invested in the purchase of a stack of wood, a sack of meal, a crop of potatoes, a stye of pigs, or a cow. His savings might enable him to provide food for his family during illness, but they would be totally insufficient to pay for medicine and medical aid. It would be desirable to ascertain where and to what extent medical clubs and dispensaries exist, and what means the agricultural labourer, in thinly populated districts, possesses for obtaining gratuitous medical aid.
It would be well, too, if Boards of Guardians would remember that their duties have not ended when they have disposed of the cases on each board-day. They have to do with pauperism, not only as it exists to-day, but as it may exist next month or next year; and therefore they have to do with its causes, as well as its existing results. This truth is just now occupying the minds of statesmen, and it is to be hoped that it may receive the attention of Boards of Guardians. Sanatory regulations will decrease pauperism. Many men have been destroyed, and their families pauperised, by uncovered sewers in thickly populated lanes and alleys; and much disease has been engendered by the want of facilities for cleanliness. And so also has much pauperism been engendered by the drain upon the resources of the poor man during a long illness. Could not this be remedied, and that without weakening the feeling of independence? And why might not a Board of Guardians be allowed, or compelled, to contribute a given sum to any dispensary or medical club which may be governed by certain rules duly certified?
We must now refer to the churchwardens and overseers of the several parishes of this rural Union. The question with respect to them is, do they receive the applications of the poor in their respective parishes, and deal with them in the same way as the relieving-officer? It would not be a sufficient answer to quote acts of parliament, or lists of duties. It is doubtless of importance to know that, according to law, the duty of relieving in cases of sudden and urgent necessity is still reserved to the overseer. But it is of equal importance to ascertain whether, in those extensive or thinly populated parishes where the relieving-officer may reside many a weary mile distant from the cottage of the destitute, any check, or hinderance, or heavy discouragement has been offered to the overseer in his attempt to perform his duty. We can easily conceive the farmer overseer, before 1834, riding over the fields of his parish, and meeting one of the poor cottagers, at once relieving him with a piece of money, and taking no further note of the circumstance than was necessary to prevent his forgetting to repay himself. And we can understand how the same overseer, under the new system, when men to whom he has been accustomed to look up with deference are united with him in the administration of relief, may not trouble himself to inquire into, or care to exercise, the rights reserved to him. Or he may find that he has something more to do than merely to enter the amount in his pocket-book. He may have to report the case to the relieving-officer, or to defend it at the Board – neither of which acts his literary habits, his opportunities, his patience, or his ability to speak before the magnates of his district in Board assembled, may dispose him to perform. In other cases, where these considerations may have no weight, the overseer may be of opinion, since paid officers have been appointed to do the duty, and are paid to do it, that they are the proper persons to perform it.
In thus referring to the duties of overseers, it must not be supposed that a recurrence to the old system is aimed at. It is a common opinion that the Union system is diametrically opposed to the old parochial system. And it seems to be too generally thought that relief should be given through paid agency. But this is not so. The power to relieve, in cases of sudden and urgent necessity, still rests with the overseers. But the law has deprived the overseer of the power to give permanent relief. It will not allow him to give a regular weekly allowance. The question the overseer has to do with is not whether labourer Miles shall receive, for a number of consecutive weeks or months, a certain sum, but whether he should not receive relief at this moment, his necessities being sudden and urgent. The question of permanent relief is no longer a subject of personal controversy and irritation between the labourer and the farmer. It is now a question between the labourer and the Board. What he shall receive no longer depends upon the will of a single person, but upon the collective will of a number so great, that personal partialities and prejudices can scarcely have place. The system, in this respect, assures justice alike to the rate-payer and the indigent poor. It stands between the poor man and the overseer; and also between the overseer and the sturdy threatening vagrant.
But it is desirable to know whether the dereliction of duty by overseers has been of frequent occurrence, and whether there has been any want of care or disposition on the part of the authorities to facilitate its exercise. That the relief given must be duly recorded and accounted for, is quite clear. Now, do the means for doing this equal those given to the relieving-officer, who requires them less? Then, again, have arrangements been duly made to enable overseers to relieve in food? Is the loaf or the meat at hand? Can it be had from the nearest shop? Or must it be brought from the store of the contractor, who cannot always reside in the next village? In fact, must the destitute person wait for the periodical visit of the relieving-officer, and is the duty of the overseer thus made a superfluity?
It is likely that the dweller in cities may not sufficiently estimate the importance of this topic. In a populous city, however sudden the casualty may be to which a fellow-creature may fall a victim, the means of relief are within a stone's-throw from the spot. But the case is different in that wide expanse of level country which opens to the view of the pedestrian as he gains the summit of the hill. The plain is dotted with solitary cottages, hamlets, and villages. The town is just perceptible in the distance. But its hum and its chimes are unheard. The Union-house loses its barrack-like appearance by its remoteness. He descends, and its "goes on his way." He hears the voices of children, the song of birds; and he sees cottages "embosomed" in trees, and those pictures which pastoral poets have so loved to paint, pass in panoramic order before him. He enters the cottage door; he sees the dampness of the walls; he feels the clayey coldness of the floors, and observes the signs of poverty. While pondering upon these things, sensation vacates its office, and imagination rules in the ascendant; material images fade away. Now the fields, the trees, and the entire air become covered and filled with drifting snow. Or,
"The stillness of these frosty plains,
Their utter stillness, and the silent grace
Of yon ethereal summits, white with snow,
(Whose tranquil pomp and spotless purity
Report of storms gone by
To those who tread below.")
Or the winds howl, the biting sharpness of the frosty air nips the joints and shrivels the flesh, and the smoking smouldering fire has no power to control the winds which rush across the room. The scene changes. The lowlands are flooded, and the waters reach to, and stagnate at the cottage door. The rains descend; the air is saturated with water; it chills the frame; the heart beats languidly, and the soul of man stoops to the deadening influence of the elements. Agues, rheumatism, and fevers prevail. The hardships of the season bear down old and young; for the want of sufficient or nutritious food has shorn them of their strength.
Upon awakening from this trance, "which was not all a dream," and reflecting how far aid is distant, even if it can be obtained from the nearest overseer, how forcibly must the thought occur – what numbers suffer and die whose suffering is unrelieved and unknown! If our pedestrian learn nothing from his trip for health and pleasure more than this, he will have learnt enough to satisfy him that the point we have directed his attention to, viz. that the means of relief in rural districts should be made as ample as possible; and that, therefore, the right and duty of the overseers to relieve promptly should be encouraged and zealously guarded.
Reference must now be made to the notorious "Prohibitory Order." And in doing so, it is not to the order itself, either in its original or amended form, that the following remarks are especially made, but to the practices which owe their origin to the enactments of the Poor-Law Amendment Act, to the Utopian expectations of many, that a strict work-house test would destroy pauperism, and to the explanations and reports of the Commissioners themselves. The following is the prohibitory in its latest and most humanised form: —
"Article I. – Every able-bodied person, male or female, requiring relief from any parish within any of the said Unions, shall be relieved wholly in the work-house of the said Unions, together with such of the family of every such able-bodied person as may be resident with him or her, and may not be in employment, and together with the wife of every such able-bodied male person, if he be a married man, and if she be resident with him; save and except in the following cases: —
1st, Where such person shall require relief on account of sudden and urgent necessity.47
2d, Where such person shall require relief on account of any sickness, accident, or bodily or mental infirmity, affecting such person, or any of his or her family.
3d, Where such person shall require relief, for the purpose of defraying the expenses, either wholly or in part, of the burial of his or her family.
4th, Where such person, being a widow, shall be in the first six months of her widowhood.
5th, Where such person shall be a widow, and have a legitimate child or legitimate children dependent upon her, and incapable of earning his, her, or their livelihood, and no illegitimate child born after the commencement of her widowhood.
6th, Where such person shall be confined in any jail or place of safe custody.
7th, Where the relief shall be required by the wife, child, or children of any able-bodied man who shall be in the service of her Majesty, as a soldier, sailor, or marine.
8th, Where any able-bodied person, not being a soldier, sailor, or marine, shall not reside within the Union, but the wife, child, or children, of such person shall reside within the same, the Board of Guardians of the Union, according to their discretion, may afford relief in the work-house to such wife, child, or children, or may allow out-door relief for any such child or children, being within the age of nurture, and resident with the mother within the Union."
The fifth exception, relating to widows, is accompanied with a course of reasoning directed against its application; and as it is to be feared that the practice engendered by a former order, in which this exception had no place, may have become habitual, this exception will be treated as if it did not exist. Especial inquiries ought to be made, in order to ascertain whether widows with children are generally allowed out-door relief.
The immediate effect of this system of relief is a diminution of expenditure. But we must look beyond the immediate effects. It is to be feared that great politico-social evils result from this system. They have been somewhat reduced in number, perhaps, by the new prohibitory order. But it is too probable that the original wound has left a scar. The evils are not on the surface, and strike the mind at intervals. Perhaps we may be struck with the fact, that our prisons are filled with individuals who have been committed for slight offences, and for short periods; and it may casually appear, that the work-house has something to do with it. Then the question may occur, why the ordinary accommodation for wayfarers in the casual wards of work-houses has become insufficient or less ample than formerly? Or, when travelling, we may see whole families creeping along the roads apparently without object or aim; and if, after giving them a coin, you ask them where they are going to, and why they are going? you will be struck with the vagueness of their replies. Wherever you meet them, you find they are going from this place to that; and if you were to meet them every day for a twelvemonth, the answers would always be as indefinite. At another time, we may be deeply concerned in the subject of prison discipline; and while studying reports, returns, and dietaries, the subject of workhouse discipline may become associated with it, and induce comparisons. And it may come to our knowledge, that there is a vast body of persons to whom it is a matter of indifference whether they are inmates of a prison or a workhouse. Or the mind may soar above the dull, cold, field of politics, and extend its researches to the pure regions of morality, leaving the questions of science for those of philosophy; and then it will appear that there are causes in operation, and results constantly flowing, which escape the "economic" eyes of assistant Commissioners.