produce good effects. With regard to the assistance that might be be given by individuals to carry into effect a scheme for providing for the Poor, though measures for that purpose may, and ought to be so taken, that the Public would have little or no trouble in their execution, yet there are many things which individuals must be instructed cautiously to avoid; otherwise the enterprise will be extremely difficult, it not impracticable; and, above all things, they must be warned against giving alms to beggars.
Though nothing would be more unjust and tyrannical, than to prevent the generous and humane from contributing to the relief of the Poor and necessitous, yet, as giving alms to beggars tends so directly and so powerfully to encourage idleness and immorality, to discourage the industrious Poor, and perpetuate mendicity, with all its attendant evils, too much pains cannot be taken to guard the Public against a practice so fatal in its consequences to society.
All who are desirous of contributing to the relief of the Poor, should be invited to send their charitable donations to be distributed by those who, being at the head of a public Institution established for taking care of the Poor, must be supposed best acquainted with their wants. Or, if individuals should prefer distributing their own charities, they ought at least to take the trouble to enquire after fit objects; and to apply their donations in such a manner as not to counteract the measures of a public and useful Establishment.
But, before I enter farther into these details, it will be necessary to determine the proper extent and limits of an Establishment for the Poor; and show how a town or city ought to be divided in districts, in order to facilitate the purposes of such an institution.
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CHAP. II.
Of the Extent of an Establishment for the Poor.-- Of the Division of a Town or City into Districts. --Of the Manner of carrying on the Business of a public Establishment for the Poor.-- Of the Necessity of numbering all the Houses in a Town where an Establishment for the Poor is formed.However large a city may be, in which an Establishment for the Poor is to be formed, I am clearly of opinion, that there should be but one Establishment;-- with one committee for the general management of all its affairs;-- and one treasurer. This unity appears essentially necessary, not only because, when all the parts tend to one common centre, and act in union to the same end, under one direction, they are less liable to be impeded in their operations, or disordered by collision;--but also on account of the very unequal distribution of wealth, as well as of misery and poverty, in the different districts of the same town. Some parishes in great cities have comparatively few Poor, while others, perhaps less opulent, are overburthened with them; and there seems to be no good reason why a house-keeper in any town should be called upon to pay more or less for the support of the Poor, because he happens to live on one side of a street or the other. Added to this, there are certain districts in most great towns where poverty and misery seem to have fixed their head-quarters, and where it would be impossible for the inhabitants to support the expence of maintaining their Poor. Where that is the case, as measures for preventing mendicity in every town must be general, in order to their being successful, the enterprise, from that circumstance alone, would be rendered impracticable, were the assistance of the more opulent districts to be refused.
There is a district, for instance, belonging to Munich, (the Au,) a very large parish, which may be called the St. Giles's of that city, where the alms annually received are twenty times as much as the whole district contributes to the funds of the public Institution for the Poor.--The inhabitants of the other parishes, however, have never considered it a hardship to them, that the Poor of the Au should be admitted to share the public bounty, in common with the Poor of the other parishes.
Every town must be divided, according to its extent, into a greater or less number of districts, or subdivisions; and each of these must have a committee of inspection, or rather a commissary, with assistants, who must be entrusted with the superintendance and management of all affairs relative to the relief and support of the Poor within its limits.
In very large cities, as the details of a general Establishment for the Poor would be very numerous and extensive, it would probably facilitate the management of the affairs of the Establishment, if, beside the
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