Part 16

5. From half-past 12 till 2 is allowed for dinner and for recreation, under the inspection, in each division, of a servant. At 2 o’clock precisely the bell is to summon the inmates to return to work, and the inspectors are to call the roll in each workshop.

6. At 8 in the evening, in all seasons, the bell is to be rung for supper; the inmates may remain in the refectory till nine.

7. The same regulations shall be observed in the dormitories and refectories of each sex, except that as respects the aged, sick, and infirm.

SECTION 4.--_Workshops._

ART. 1. The inspectors are to see that every workman is busily employed, and loses no time.

2. The workshops are to be kept locked during the hours of work, and the inmates not allowed to leave them.

3. Each able-bodied inmate is to have a task set him, proportioned to his strength and skill. If he do not finish it, he is to be paid only for what he has done, put on dry bread, and kept to work during the hours of recreation.

4. Every workman, who for three consecutive days fails in completing his task, is to be kept during the hours of meals and of recreation, and during the night, confined in the punishment-room upon bread and water, until he has accomplished his task.

5. Every workman who wilfully or negligently spoils the materials, tools, or furniture in his care, shall pay for them out of the reserved third of his earnings, besides still further punishment as the case may deserve.

6. Every workman doing more than his task is to be paid two-thirds of the value of his extra labour.

7. With respect to every inmate who shall have been imprisoned, 5 centimes for each day of imprisonment shall be deducted from the reserved third of his earnings. The amount of these deductions, and of all fines and other casual sources of profit, is to form a reserved fund for the purpose of rewards for those inmates who may distinguish themselves among their companions by good conduct and industry.

SECTION 7.--_Religious Instruction._

ART. 1. Religious and moral instruction is to be given in the chapel twice a week--on Sundays and Thursdays, at 7 in the evening.

All the able-bodied inmates are to be present, in silence and attention, under the inspection of their respective superintendents. On Sundays, and the holidays established by the Concordat, all the inmates and the officers of the depôt shall hear mass at half-past 8 in the morning, and vespers at half-past 1 in the afternoon.

2. At periods determined by ecclesiastical authority, the children who are to be confirmed are to be instructed for two months.

7. When any of these regulations are broken, the inspectors and other officers are to report to the Governor, and he is to pronounce sentence on the inmates.

BRITANY.

Mr. Perrier’s report from Brest, and Mr. Newman’s from Nantes, give a very interesting account of the state of Britany. We will begin by Mr. Perrier’s, as the more general view. (pp. 728, 729.)

Finisterre 524,396 Côtes-du-Nord 598,872 Morbihan 433,522 Ille-et-Vilaine 547,052 Loire Inférieure 470,093 ------- 2,573,935

It is extremely difficult to obtain any statistical information in Britany, all inquiries being received with distrust, not only by the authorities, but also by the inhabitants. This has been the principal cause of my delay in replying to the series of questions. The answers, imperfect as they may appear, are the result of patient and persevering inquiry.

The state of society in Britany, and its institutions, differ so widely from those of any other civilized country, that few of the questions are applicable. In order, therefore, to convey the information which they are intended to elicit, it is necessary to enter into a description of the population, which I shall endeavour to do as briefly as possible.

The population of Britany may be classed under the following heads:

Old noblesse, possessing a portion of the land.

Proprietors, retired merchants, and others, who have vested their money in landed property.

Peasants, owners of the ground they till.

Farmers.

Daily labourers and beggars.

The abolition of the right of primogeniture causes a daily diminution of the two first classes. As property, at the demise of the owner, must be divided equally amongst his children, who can seldom agree about the territorial division, it is put up for sale, purchased by speculators, and resold in small lots to suit the peasantry. Farmers having amassed sufficient to pay a part, generally one-half, of the purchase-money of a lot, buy it, giving a mortgage at five or six per cent. for the remainder. Thus petty proprietors increase, and large proprietors and farmers decrease.

A man, industrious enough to work all the year, can easily get a farm.

Farms are small. Their average size in Lower Britany does not exceed 14 acres. Some are so small as two acres, and there are many of from four to eight. The largest in the neighbourhood of Brest is 36 acres. The average rate of rent is 1_l._ 5_s._ per acre for good land, and 8_s._ for poor land (partly under broom and furze).

The farmers are very poor, and live miserably: yet, their wants being few and easily satisfied, they are comparatively happy. Their food consists of barley bread, butter, buck wheat (made into puddings, porridge, and cakes). Soup, composed of cabbage-water, a little grease or butter and salt poured on bread. Potatoes; meat twice a week (always salt pork).

A family of 12, including servants and children, consumes annually about 700 lbs. of pork and 100 lbs. of cow beef; the latter only on festivals.

The class of daily labourers can only be said to exist in towns. In the country they are almost unknown.

The inmates of each farm, consisting of the farmer’s family, and one, two, or three males, and as many female servants (according to the size of the farm), paid annually, and who live with the family, suffice for the general work. At harvest some additional hands are employed. These are generally people who work two or three months in the year, and beg during the remainder. Daily labourers and beggars may, therefore, in the country, be classed under the same head.

Farmers’ servants are orphans or children of unfortunate farmers.

The conditions of the poorer farmers, daily labourers and beggars, are so near akin, that the passage from one state to another is very frequent.

Mendicity is not considered disgraceful in Britany. Farmers allow their children to beg along the roads. On saints’ days, especially the festivals of celebrated saints, whose shrines attract numerous votaries (all of whom give something, be it ever so little, to the poor), the aged, infirm, and children of poor farmers and labourers, turn out. Some small hamlets are even totally abandoned by their inhabitants for two or three days. All attend the festival, to beg.

The Bretons are hospitable. Charity and hospitality are considered religious duties. Food and shelter for a night are never refused.

Several attempts to suppress mendicity have been unsuccessful. District asylums were established. No sooner were they filled than the vacancies in the beggar stands were immediately replenished by fresh subjects from the country; it being a general feeling that it is much easier and more comfortable to live by alms than by labour.

In towns where the police is well regulated, the only mendicants permitted to sojourn are paupers belonging to the parish. They are known by a tin badge, for which they pay at the police office.

No such thing is known as a legal claim for assistance from public or private charities.

In towns, destitute workmen or other persons in distress must be authorized by the municipality previous to soliciting public or private assistance. To this effect, the pauper makes known his case to the commissary of police of the quarter he inhabits, who makes inquiry among the neighbours. Should the destitute case of the applicant be established, the mayor grants him a certificate of indigence, which authorizes him to apply for relief to the public institutions, and to solicit private charity. It also exempts him (or rather causes his exemption) from the payment of taxes.

The principal cause of misery is inebriety; its frequency among the lower orders keeps them in poverty. The “_cabaret_” (wine and brandy shop) absorbs a great portion of their earnings. This vice is not confined to men; the women partake of it. It has decreased within the last five or six years, but is still considerable.

We now proceed to give some extracts from the more detailed report of Mr. Newman, who writes, it must be recollected, from Nantes. (pp. 171, 172, 173, 174, 178, 175, 176, 177.)

LOIRE INFERIEURE.

NANTES.

[Sidenote: Population of the Department, 470,093. Population of Nantes, 87,191.]

_Vagrants._

In the department Loire Inférieure there is no asylum for mendicants; but Nantes has a species of workhouse, “St. Joseph’s House,” supported entirely by private subscriptions. To this house the tribunals often send vagabonds, in virtue of the 274th article of the Penal Code, although the directors of the establishment have contested, and still contest, the right assumed by the judges to do so; and they never receive any person so sent as a criminal to be detained a certain number of days at labour as if in a prison, but merely give him a refuge as an act of charity, and liberty to leave the place, if he likes to go before the time expires. The number of vagrants that formerly infested Nantes (strangers to the department as well as to the city) have decreased to about a tenth part since begging in the streets was prohibited, and the paupers sent to this establishment.

The hospitals of Nantes receive all workmen, travellers, and needy strangers, that fall sick in the city (if foreigners, at the charge to their consuls of 1_s._ 3_d._ sterling per day for men, and 10_d._ for women.) If a man, (and his family also,) being destitute, wishes to return to his native place, and has not rendered himself liable to be committed as a vagrant, the préfet has the power to give a passport to him for that place; on the production of which at the mairie of the commune from which he sets out he receives from the public funds of the department three halfpence per league for the distance from thence to the next place he is to be relieved at, and so on to the end of his journey, each place he has to stop at being set down on his passport; if he deviates from the route designated, he is arrested as a vagabond.

There is in France throughout the whole country a general union for each of several trades, the carpenters, bakers, masons, tailors, &c. In each city or town of consequence, each society has a member who is called “the mother,” who receives the weekly contributions of those who reside in that place, affords relief to all of its members passing through it, and is obliged to procure work for the applicant, or support him at a fixed rate, established by their bye-laws, until a situation be provided for him there or elsewhere. Those unions sometimes assume a very dangerous power, by compelling masters to hire all their members that are without work, before they engage one man who does not belong to them.

_Destitute Able-bodied._

In times of political commotion, of unforeseen events, of rigorous seasons, when the usual courses of labour are stopped, the civil administrations create temporary workshops, furnish tools, &c., to the labourers, and enter into contracts for repairs to the streets, quays, bridges, roads, &c., from which a large city, as well as the country parishes, can always draw some advantages for the money so distributed, to employ those persons who would otherwise be supported without work by the same funds. The money required on those occasions is furnished by the treasury of the city or commune, assisted by private subscriptions from nearly all persons in easy circumstances. The want of regular or parish workhouses for labourers, unemployed, is in some measure supplied by private charities, for a great number of wealthy families, and others of the middling class, give employment to old men, women, and children, in spinning, and in weaving of coarse linen, at prices far beyond those that the articles can be purchased at in the shops; but this plan is adopted to prevent a disposition to idleness, although at a greater sacrifice, perhaps, than would be made by most of the promoters of it, in a public subscription.

The bureau de bienfaisance distributes annually about 80,000 fr.; the chief part, or very nearly the whole, to poor families at their homes, in clothes, food, fuel, and sometimes money; but of the latter as little as possible. Les dames de charité (ladies of the first families, who are appointed annually to visit and give relief to the poor, each having a fixed district) distribute about three-fourths of that sum, which would be insufficient for the indigent if it were not assisted by distributions made by the priests of the different parishes and other persons employed to do so by private families, who give their alms in that manner, and not at their own residences. It is generally supposed that, in the whole, not less than 250,000 fr. are so distributed annually in the city of Nantes. In making this distribution care is always taken to prefer invalids to those in health.

_Impotent through Age._

In the city of Nantes there is a general hospital, called the “Sanitat,” for the reception of the old and impotent; at present it contains about 800; it answers to an English workhouse; the inmates are lodged, fed, clothed, and are taken care of in every way: they are employed about trifling work, but the average gain by it does not exceed 20 fr. per annum for each. The average cost appears to be about 11 to 12 sous per day for each person. The establishment of St. Joseph’s, already alluded to, is, in fact, a sort of assistant to the Sanitat (although supported by private charity) for the 100 to 120 old people it contains. The Sanitat has a ward for dangerous as well as ordinary lunatics; is under the same board and direction as the Hôtel Dieu (the general hospital for the sick); but each is supported by its own funds, arising from bequests and donations from private persons, and from the city funds; yet if either hospital should require any assistance, the money wanted would be voted by the city treasury.

The general council for the department votes about 1200 to 1250 fr. annually to the Sanitat from the departmental funds.

_Sick._

Nantes has a general hospital (Hôtel Dieu) for the sick, containing 600 beds, 300 of which are reserved for the indigent of the city. The expense of this establishment is about a franc to 25 sous per day to each person. The military are received at 20 sous per man per day, which is paid by the government. It is supported by its own funds, arising from bequests and donations, and grants made from time to time by the city; is under the same board and direction as the Sanitat. If a poor person becomes sick in the country, he is either relieved by the curé of the parish or by some of the more wealthy neighbours, or he comes into Nantes and resides there for a week or ten days before he makes an application to the mayor to be admitted into the hospital; he is then sent there as an inhabitant of the city. The authorities in the country have not the right to send a patient to the Hôtel Dieu, yet a great number arrive at the hospital, sent by country practitioners, who have not the skill, or perhaps the leisure or inclination, to attend to them; and _they are always received_, if it be possible to take them in. The students at the hospital are ever ready to admit any difficult cases or fractures from the country, for their own improvement.

There are also hospitals for the sick at the following places in the Loire Inférieure: Ancenis, for the town and commune; Chateaubriand, Paimbœuf, Savenay, and Clisson, for the towns only.

Besides the succour afforded to the poor at their homes by the bureau de bienfaisance, there are three dispensaries supported by that establishment, for administering relief to the sick, who are attended at their homes, if necessary, by the nuns of St. Vincent de Paule, 12 or 14 of whom are kept in the pay of, and are wholly supported by the bureau. They carry to them soup and other victuals, remedies, &c., and lend them linen and clothes, if wanted. There are a number of young men, who are either studying, or have just completed their study of medicine, who are anxious to give their assistance gratis, and who are in constant attendance on those who are receiving relief from the dispensaries. It is impossible to state the extent to which such relief is given. The nuns are paid by the bureau de bienfaisance, which also pays for the medicines, &c. they distribute; but the sum that is thus expended bears but a small proportion to the amount that is distributed by the hands of those sisters, who, from the accurate knowledge they possess of the real situation and condition of each person they visit, are employed by numerous wealthy persons to distribute privately such charities as they feel disposed to give; and can thus be well applied in providing those little comforts for the invalids, which cannot be sent from the bureau to all those who require them, although the funds are increased from time to time by the proceeds of representations at the theatre, public concerts, &c. given for that purpose.

Independent of the foregoing, there are several tradesmen’s societies on the plan of benefit societies in England, the members of which pay five or six sous per week, and receive, in case of sickness, all necessary assistance in medicines, &c., besides an indemnity of a franc to a franc and a half per day during the time they are unable to work.

_Orphans, Foundlings, or Deserted Children._

The law requires an establishment (a tour) in each department, for the secret reception of children. Every arrival is particularly noted and described in a register kept for that purpose, that the infant may be recognised if it should be claimed. The children, after having received all necessary assistance and baptism, are confided to women in the country (a regulation of this department only), to dry-nurse them (au biberon); they are paid eight francs per month for the first year, seven for the second and third, six until the ninth year, and four francs per month from that time until the child is 12 years old; when the nurse who has taken care of one from its birth to that age receives a present of 50 fr. for her attention. A basket of requisite linen is given with the child, and a new suit of clothes annually for seven years. These regulations are observed for orphans and foundlings. The registers for the last 20 years give an average of 360 to 370 admissions annually; _more than one-half of them die under one year old_; therefore, with the deaths at other ages, and the claims that are made for some of them before they attain 12 years, the establishment has seldom at its charge more than from 1200 to 1300, of all ages, from 0 to 12.

The parents being unknown when they place their infants in the “tour,” cannot be traced afterwards, unless they acknowledge themselves; they are, however, as has been observed before, liable for the expenses of their offspring; and whenever they are discovered, whether by claiming their children or otherwise, the right to make them repay the costs they have occasioned is always maintained, and they are compelled to pay the whole, or as much as their finances will admit of.

Deserted children of the city, or the children of poor persons, who cannot support them, are received and treated in a similar manner, without being placed in the “tour;” they are admitted according to the state of the finances appropriated to such branch of the establishment, which in general permits from 80 to 100 to be on it. Certificates are required that the parents are dead, the child abandoned, or that the mother is totally unable to support it, or that she has a number of young children. Independent of the 1400 children thus received by the Hôtel Dieu, the bureau de bienfaisance supports 200 _legitimate_ children, and the société maternelle from 60 to 80, until they attain the age of 18 years.

The number of deaths in 1832 was 11,999; the number under one year old, 1970, or one in 6¹²⁄₁₉₇. Chateauneuf states, _for all France_, 33 deaths, under one year old, out of every hundred births, which is nearly double the number of deaths of that description for this department; but the mortality is much greater amongst the orphans, foundlings, and deserted children of this city received at the hospital. An account, made up to the year 1828, gave an average of 52 deaths, under one year old, of every hundred children received there; and since that date it has increased considerably.

There are women in the city who make it their business to place infants in the “tour,” and who afterwards attend the delivery of them to the country nurses, and thus, knowing where certain children are placed, give notice to the parents, who can visit them without being discovered. Children thus recognised are frequently demanded by their parents for servants, in the ordinary way; and by this plan they screen themselves from the payment of the child’s support.

[Sidenote: Effects of these institutions.]

There can be no doubt that the prospect of an asylum for the indigent creates amongst the working class a disposition to idleness and debauchery, whilst at the same time there are those who look down with disgust on their miserable brothers who are compelled to accept a public charitable support; and the shame which they consider attaches to a man who does it stimulates them to avoid the doors of an hospital by industry and sobriety. The number of these, however, is very small, whilst the applications for admittance to the Sanitat and to St. Joseph’s are so very numerous, so far beyond the accommodation that can be granted, that after the name of an applicant is registered he has (frequently) to wait 18 to 24 months for his turn. For the sick, however, at the Hôtel Dieu it is not so; for arrangements are made that no delay takes place with any case requiring immediate relief or treatment.