Part 12
After a residence of three years in the colony, the colonists are distributed into three classes:--1st, That of industrious men who have received the silver medal: they may continue to cultivate their farms in common, as before, or, after having discharged their original debt to the society, may manage them on their own account, at a rent payable to the society. 2nd. That of colonists who have received the copper medal: they may manage their own farms, and dispose of a part of the produce; the other part must be sent to the magazines of the society, to be applied in payment of the rent of the farm, in discharge of the original advances, and in creating a common fund. A portion of it, however, is returned to them in bread. But if in any year a colonist does not raise a given quantity of potatoes, or if he requires from the society extraordinary assistance, he is forced to restore his medal, and to return to the third class. 3. This last class, which is composed of those who have obtained no medal, must, in addition to what is required from the others, render to the magazines of the society a greater amount of produce, and have therefore less for their own use.
A certain extent of ground is cultivated in common by the colonists, each head of a family being required to work on it three days in the year, at wages paid in a colonial paper money. The produce of this common land is employed in supplying the deficiencies of the harvests of the separate farms, and meeting the expenses of the school, the hospital, and the general Administration. The colonists are also allowed in summer to pasture their cattle in the common pastures of the colony. There are several shops for the sale, at prices fixed by the Administration, of whatever the colonists are likely to want, except spirituous liquors, the use of which is prohibited.
Whatever may have been the length of time during which the colonist has resided in the colony he can never become the proprietor of his farm. He may, however, acquire the ownership of his furniture, and sell it or remove it when he quits the colony.
No colonist is allowed to marry unless he be a widower, or the son of a widower, and in possession of a farm. When his children have attained 16 or 18 years of age, they choose a trade (etat) with the consent of their parents and the colonial authorities, and may follow it either in the colony or elsewhere.
To every 25 farms there is a superintendent, who visits them daily, and directs and distributes among the colonists the labours of the day; and to every 100 farms a sub-director, who gives instructions to the superintendent, keeps the registers, and manages the manufactures.
In selecting the occupiers of each subdivision of 25 farms, care is taken that persons of different trades shall be included. The superintendence to which a family is subjected diminishes day by day with its good conduct, and ceases almost entirely as soon as the colonist has repaid the value of the advances which have been made to him. Those who are idle or disorderly are taken before a council of superintendence, of which some colonists are members, and may be sent on to a council of discipline, which has the power to transfer them to Ommerschans, a colony for the repression of mendicity; of which we shall speak hereafter. They are detained there for a fixed period, in a place set apart for them, and kept to more than usually hard labour. The industrious and well-disposed colonists are appointed superintendents of the works in the colonies for the repression of mendicity, and in those for the reception of orphans and indigent persons.
Most of the inhabitants of Frederiks-Oord are Protestants; there are, however, several Catholic and two Jewish families.
_Wateren._
In the morning of the 3d day we went to Wateren, which is two leagues from Frederiks-Oord. Wateren is the colony of Agricultural Instruction, to which are sent the orphans who most distinguish themselves in their colonies. They amount to 60, and acquire agricultural knowledge from a master, and from the practice of working at a farm of 42 bonniers (nearly 103 acres) in arable, nursery grounds, and pasture. They are instructed by the same master in the Bible, the history of Holland, land surveying, natural-history, botany, mathematics, chemistry, and gymnastics. They are better dressed than the others, and wear a hat with a riband, on which is written the name of the privileged colony to which they belong. Their destination is to become superintendents in the free colonies. The society derives from this colony an annual profit of about 900 flor. or 75_l._
_Veenhuisen._
On the same day, after a journey of three leagues, we arrived at Veenhuisen, which contains one colony for the repression of mendicity, two for orphans, one for indigent persons and veterans, and one for inspectors of agricultural works. They are intersected by high ways, bordered by trees and by canals communicating with Amsterdam. Two great square buildings, at the distance of a half mile from each other, contain, in the part which looks into the interior quadrangle, the one mendicants, the other orphans, and each contains, in the rooms on the exterior, indigent persons and veterans. Another similar edifice, at two miles distance, contains all these three classes of individuals. In the midst of the three edifices are situated two churches, one Catholic, the other Protestant; twenty-four houses forming a colony of inspectors of agricultural works, and an equal number of houses inhabited by the officers of the colonies.
The children and grown-up persons have been placed thus near one another for convenience, with respect both to their agricultural and manufacturing employments.
The interior of each of the three great edifices is divided into two sides, one for the males, the other for the females, separated by the kitchen. On the ground-floor are large rooms, containing each forty or fifty individuals. The upper floors are mere lofts, and used as store-rooms.
The persons placed in the colonies for the repression of mendicity receive a new and uniform dress, and for some time are maintained without reference to the value of their work. Their out-doors employment consists of agricultural labor, brick-making, or turf-cutting: in-doors they work as artizans, generally by piece work. The society fixes the amount of their wages.
The lands of these colonies are divided into farms of thirty-two bonniers, or about eighty acres each, half arable, half pasture. To each of these farms are attached forty or fifty colonists, who work under the orders of a superintendent, who himself follows the instructions of a sub-director. The annual expenditure on each of these farms is fixed at 1680 flor., or 140_l._
The accounts between the society and the colonists are kept in the military form. Each colonist carries a book, in which is entered the work which he has performed each day, the supplies and paper money which he has received, and his share of the general expenditure. If his earnings exceed what has been laid out on him, which is said to be commonly the case, a third of the excess is given to him in paper money, another third is placed in a savings’ bank, to be given him on his leaving the colony, and the remaining third is retained by the society to meet contingent expenses.
Horse-patrols round the colonies, rewards to such as bring back colonists who have attempted to escape, and a uniform dress are the means employed to prevent desertion. The colonists are detained for 6 years, unless they have previously saved 12½ flor. (1_l._ 10_d._), which entitles them to immediate discharge.
Orphans are admitted in the orphan colonies at the age of six. They work, either in-doors or in the fields, for a part of the day, another part is employed in elementary instruction, drawing, and singing. They leave the colonies at the age of 18, generally for the sea or land service.
The colonies for indigent persons and veterans serve as preparatory residences for those who are to be placed in the free colonies. These colonists dwell with their families in the outer apartments of the great buildings, the interior quadrangles of which are inhabited by the mendicants and orphans. Like the mendicants, they are considered day labourers, and paid according to their work.
In every colony the supplies and wages vary according to the difference of age, strength, or sex. The men are divided into 5 classes, the women into 7. The first class of men is supposed to earn 1 flor. 70 cents, or 2_s._ 10_d._ per week; the second, 1 flor. 35 cents, or 2_s._ 3_d._; the third, 1 flor. 6 cents, or 1_s._ 11_d._; the fourth, composed of children from 8 to 16 years, 1 flor. 1 cent, or 1_s._ 8½_d._; the fifth, composed of children under that age, 67½ cents, or 1_s._ 1½_d._ The first class of females is supposed to earn per week 1 flor. 51 cents, or 2_s._ 6¼_d._; the second, 1 flor. 26 cents, or 2_s._ 1_d._; the third, 98 cents, or 1_s._ 7½_d._; the fourth and fifth, composed of children, 95 cents, or 1_s._ 7_d._, and 75 cents, or 1_s._ 3_d._ respectively; the sixth and seventh, composed also of children, but still younger, 63 cents, or 1_s._ 0½_d._, and 55 cents, or 11_d._, respectively.
_Ommerschans._
On the morning of the fourth day we went to Ommerschans, which is seven leagues from Veenhuisen.
At Ommerschans there is a colony for the repression of mendicity, and one for indigent persons and veterans. The first is composed of men and children; and has a separate division for the free colonists who have been sent thither as a punishment. The building can contain 1000 persons, and resembles in several respects those in Veenhuisen, except that its moat, and the iron-bars to its windows give it more the appearance of a prison; and that it has a story above the ground floor. Nor does it differ as to its interior arrangement, or the employment or treatment of its inmates. In the middle of the quadrangle there are shops for locksmiths, joiners, and other trades; and for the manufacture of thread and linen. On the outside stands the church, which serves for both Catholic and Protestant worship, and as a school; the house of the sub-director, the hospital, and other public edifices; and 20 houses scattered about the lands, form a colony of inspectors of agricultural works. Nearly 150 persons are annually discharged from this colony for the repression of mendicity.
On recurring to the official statement of the total number of persons relieved during the ten years ending 1831, it will be seen that in 1831 the population of the poor colonies consisted of 7853, being an increase of 402 from the time of Count Arrivabene’s visit, arising solely from an increased number placed in the repressive or most severe of the penal colonies; and that this population was thus distributed: 2297 in the colony assigned to orphans and abandoned children; 456 in the preparatory colony; 2694 in the colonies called free; and 2406 in the repressive or mendicity colonies.
The nature of these institutions appears to have been imperfectly understood in England. They are in fact large agricultural workhouses; and superior to the previous workhouses only so far as they may be less expensive, or, without being oppressive, objects of greater aversion.
It is scarcely possible that they can be less expensive.
The employing persons taken indiscriminately from other occupations and trades, almost all of them the victims of idleness and misconduct, and little urged by the stimulus of individual interest in farming the worst land in the country, (land so worthless that the fee-simple of it is worth only 24_s._ an acre,) at an expense for outfit, exclusively of the value of the land, of more than 130_l._ per family, and under the management of a joint-stock company of more than 20,000 members, cannot but be a ruinous speculation.
Nor does the institution appear to have repressed pauperism by the disagreeableness of the terms on which it offers relief: we have seen, on the contrary, that it has not prevented its steady increase. It will be shown subsequently that a similar establishment has signally failed in Belgium, and we cannot anticipate a different result in Holland.
BELGIUM AND FRANCE.
M. Lebau, the Belgian Minister of Justice, has furnished a detailed report on the poor laws of Belgium, together with a considerable number of printed documents. Of the latter, we have printed only the regulations of the schools for the poor in Louvain, and of the out-door relief in Tournay; the laws of August, 1833, respecting the Dépôts de Mendicité; and some statistical papers respecting the relief afforded in different manners in 1833, and in some of the preceding years. The others were too voluminous for this publication; and though we have consulted them (particularly the Code Administratif des Etablissemens de Bienfaisance, M. Quetelet’s statistical works on the Netherlands and Belgium, and M. Ducpétiaux’s on Indigence,) with great advantage, we have been forced to omit them. Baron de Hochepied Larpent and Mr. Fauche, His Majesty’s Consuls in Antwerp and Ostend, have given valuable replies to the Commissioners’ questions; and Count Arrivabene a detailed account of the state of Gaesbeck, a village a few miles from Brussels. And we have inserted three reports as to the state of the Belgian poor colonies; one from Count Arrivabene, who visited them in 1829, and one from M. Ducpétiaux, and another from Captain Brandreth, both dated in 1832.
The union and subsequent separation of Belgium and France, and afterwards of Belgium and Holland, occasion the Belgian laws on this as on every other subject to be divisible into three heads:
First, those which she received when incorporated with France; secondly, those which were made during the union with Holland; and thirdly, those which have been passed since the revolution of 1830.
By far the largest portion of the Belgian poor laws is derived from the first of these sources.
FRENCH POOR LAWS.
The government of the Directory, by three laws passed in the autumn of 1796, established the system under which the principal portion of the relief afforded by the public is now regulated in most of the countries which constituted the French empire.
Hospices and Bureaux de Bienfaisance.
By the first of these, that of the 16 Vendémiaire, An v. (7th October, 1796), the property belonging to the hospices (or almshouses) was restored to them, and their management was entrusted to a commission appointed by the municipal authorities.
By the second, that of the 23 Brumaire, An v. (13th November, 1706), it was enacted, that all the revenues of the different hospices in one commune should be employed as one fund for their common support.
And by the third, that of the 7 Frimaire, An v. (25th November, 1796), that in every commune there should be appointed one or more bureaux de bienfaisance, each bureau consisting of five members, to administer out-door relief; and that the funds at the disposition of the bureau de bienfaisance should consist of one-tenth of the receipts from all public exhibitions within its district, and of whatever voluntary contributions it could obtain. By the same law all able-bodied beggars were required, under pain of three months’ imprisonment, to return to their place of birth, or of domicile, if they had subsequently acquired a domicile.
By the law of the 3 Frimaire, An vii. (23d November, 1798), the additional sums necessary to provide for the hospices, and the secours à domicile (or out-door relief), of each commune, are directed to be raised by the local authorities in the same manner as the sums necessary for the other local expenses.
By that of the 4 Ventose, An ix. (23d February, 1801), all rents belonging to the State, of which the payment had been interrupted, and all national property usurped by individuals, were declared the property of the nearest hospitals. By that of the 5 Prairial, An xi., the commissaires des hospices and bureaux de bienfaisance were authorized to make public collections in churches, and to establish poor-boxes in public places; and by a train of subsequent legislation they were enabled to acquire property by testamentary dispositions.
It is to be observed that under these laws the members of the commissions des hospices, and of the bureaux de bienfaisance, are frequently, but not necessarily, the same persons. The maire (or principal civil officer) of each commune is a necessary member of every charitable board. The other members go out by lot, one every year, but are re-eligible.
By the law of the 16 Messidor, An vii., the inmates of the hospices were to be set to work, and two-thirds of the produce of their work was to belong to the hospice, the other third to be given to them either periodically or when they quitted the hospice. We mention this enactment, because it has afforded a precedent for many similar regulations.
And partly for the purpose of increasing the funds for charitable purposes, and partly with a view to reduce the rate of interest in the mode of borrowing usually adopted by the poor, by two arrêtés of the 16 Pluviose and 24 Messidor, An xii. (6th February and 13th July, 1804), all pawn-broking by individuals was prohibited, and public establishments for that purpose, under the name of Monts-de-Piété, were directed to be established and conducted for the benefit of the poor.
Foundlings and deserted children.
The French legislation respecting foundlings and deserted children is of a very different kind, and appears to us to be the portion of their poor laws deserving least approbation.
A law of the 27 Frimaire, An v. (17 Dec., 1796), enacted, that all recently-born deserted children should be received gratuitously in all the hospices of the Republic, at the expense of the State so far as those hospices had not a sufficient revenue specially destined to that purpose; and an arrêté of the Directory, of the 30 Ventose, An v., (20th March, 1791), founded on the previous law, directed that as soon as possible after children had been received in any hospice they should be sent out to be nursed, and brought up in the country until the age of 12; and then either left to those who had brought them up, if they chose to take charge of them, or apprenticed to farmers, artists, or manufacturers, or, if the children wished it, to the sea service.
The law on this subject received nearly its present form from an Imperial decree of the 19th Jan., 1811.
By that decree, the children for whom the public became responsible were divided into three classes: 1. Enfans trouvés; 2. Enfans abandonnés; 3. Orphelins pauvres. The first class comprises children of unknown parents, found exposed, or placed in foundling hospitals. The second, children whose parents are known, but have abandoned them, and cannot be forced to support them. The third, children without father or mother, or means of subsistence. For the first class a hospice was directed to be appointed in every arrondissement, with a tour (or revolving slide) for their reception, without the detection of the person bringing them. All the three classes of children were to be put out to nurse until six years old, and then placed with landholders (cultivateurs) or artizans until 12, subject to any mode in which the Ministre de la Marine might dispose of them. If not wanted by him, they were at 12 to be apprenticed for periods not exceeding their attaining the age of 25.
The annual sum of four millions (160,000_l._) in the whole was to be contributed by the State towards these expenses. The remainder to be supplied by the hospices out of their own revenues or out of those of the communes.
Relatives claiming a foundling were to repay all that it had cost, as far as they had the means.
The last clause of this decree directs that those who make a custom of taking infants to hospitals shall be punished according to law. It is not easy to reconcile this clause with the rest of the decree. If taking an infant to a foundling hospital were an offence, it seems strange that the law should itself prescribe a contrivance (a tour), the object of which is to prevent the detection of the person committing the offence. In fact, however, no such punishment “according to law” seems to exist. If a nurse or other person entrusted with a child take it, in breach of duty, to a foundling hospital, the offence is punishable by the code pénal; but no punishment is denounced against a parent for doing so, however often the act may be repeated. Nor does the “making a custom of taking children to a hospital” appear as an offence in the detailed “Compte général de l’administration de la justice criminelle en France.”
Mendicity and Vagrancy.
The following is an outline of the French regulations, as far as they affected Belgium, for the repression of mendicity and vagrancy. A decree of the Convention, 27 Vendémiaire, An ii. (15th Oct., 1798), fixed the settlement, or domicile de secours, of every person, 1st, in the place of his birth; 2dly, of his residence for six months in any commune in which he should have married, or for one year in any in which he should have been registered as an inhabitant, or for two years in any in which he should have been hired by one or more masters. Every person found begging was to be sent to his place of domicile; if he could not prove any domicile he was to be imprisoned for a year in the maison de repression of the department, and at the end of his imprisonment, if his domicile were not then ascertained, to be transported to the colonies for not less than eight years. A person found again begging after having been removed to his domicile, was also to be imprisoned for a year: on a repetition of the offence the punishment was to be doubled. In the maison de repression he was to be set to work, and receive monthly one-sixth of the produce of his labour, and at the end of his imprisonment another sixth, the remaining two-thirds belonging to the establishment. On the third offence he also was to be transported. A transport was to work in the colonies for the benefit of the nation, at one-sixth of the average wages of the colony: one-half of that sixth to be paid to him weekly, and the other half on the expiration of his sentence. No person was to be transported except between the ages of 18 and 60. Those under 18 were to be detained until they arrived at that age, and then transported; those above 60, to be imprisoned for life.
The local authorities were authorized to employ their able-bodied poor on public works, at three-fourths of the average wages of the canton. Every person convicted of having given to a beggar any species of relief whatever was to forfeit the value of two days’ wages; to be doubled on the repetition of the offence.
The provisions of this law were, as might have been anticipated, far too severe for execution. After having remained, though inoperative, on the statute book for nearly 15 years, it was replaced by the Imperial decree of the 5th July, 1808.