INCURABLE PAUPERS.
AT times, the reformer is stricken with despondency at the oeedingly slow progress made by ideas that are almost self-eN dent, and by reaction which naturally follows upon their cx- aggerated presentment. In our day, he may derive consolation from observing that progress, even as it is taking place before our eyes, is of many kinds. At the present moment, most of the states of Europe are very actively engaged in the practical solu- tion of some great social problem. In our own country, we are inclined to be discontented with, a certain staniation in what we
usually call our prog,ress;because within the last few decades we have solved some very important social problems. Nevertheless, other sections of the Anglo-Saxon. family are engaged in. the active work of solution and, while we ourselves are evidently on
the threshold of some solution, difficulties, an alias for problems, or for the next task of progress, we cannot fail to observe that the onward movement is continued by a companion and parallel species of action in the interval of great questions settled in the lump, like the question of religious toleration, of Parliamentary reform, or of free trade in bread ; and that society, through its recognized agents, proceeds with practical reforms in detail.
At no period in the history of the world has there been such steady and safe advance in the treatment of a very important sec- tion of the community as at the present day ; we mean the treat- ment of criminals. But we scarcely appreciate the gains that we are annually making, unless we observe the harmony between that particular improvement and the general improvement upon the similar class of topics and even in the whole range of ideas bear- ing upon such subjects. The practical reform of our prisons is only a portion of the benefit gained by the labours of Hill, Adder- ley, Crofton, Maconnoehie, bearing upon almost every branch of sociology as the truth illustrated by the results of these men's labours—that the criminal population has been made many times greater than otherwise it would be by mismanagement of the appointed officers of society, and that the residuum and dead weight of the criminal population is in its nature congenitally deficient, inferior in faculties to the rest of its fellow-creatures. Hence we are brought round by another path to regard every species of wrongdoing, even when presented in the naked form of crime, as so much misfortune to be counteracted, vi et arm is if necessary, when it injures the rest of society, but to be regarded charitably always, helpfully, when practicable.
Passing to another class of the population, we have of late years only acquired. a distinct perception that the class pauper has in it two genera—the temporary genus, caused almost exclusively by mismanagement in the rest of society, and several species of the permanent genus—the hereditary pauper, the casual victim of disease, the unlucky superannuated, the idiot, and. the lunatic. Strangely enough all these have been lumped to- gether. The very last reform of the Poor-law left much to be amended in the theory as well as the practice of pauper treatment particularly in lumping all together. That indiscriminate treat- ment is faulty, both with reference to the causes of pauperism, and to the charitable regard for the comfort of helpless paupers. No- body is proposing just at present to have a wholesale revision of the Poor-law ; we shall do it better when we have materially considered some of the branch questions ; but we are making im- provements. For instance, the Select Committee of last session on the Act 9th and 10th Victoria, e. 66, has made some valuable suggestions. The Act was intended to diminish the hard work- ing of previous Acts which authorized the removal of a pauper to his own parish. That Act declared that a residence of some years should confer upon the pauper the privilege of remaining in the parish where he was found. But in the working there are still hardships ; for instance, a widow may be torn, from the con- nexions which she has formed since her marriage, and carried off to a distance. In some instances, the hardship is very vexatious, since she may be removed to a parish at a very, little distance with- in the same union and yet be put tovery serious personal discom- fort without any advantage to the public at large. The Committee now, propose that the period of five years shall be reduced to three, with some other amendments, such as the charge of the lunatic upon the whole union instead of the parish. These are all improvements tending in the same direction, as that which would probably be permitted by any wholesale revision. In a philanthropic contemporary, called the Friend office People, we find another excellent suggestion, which has been pointed out to us by a most esteemed correspondent. It relates to paupers who are incurable invalids ; and it proposes a plan for mitigating the sufferings of that class which appears to us to have in it an element of the greatest value. The plan is this—. "That these paupers—those especially suffering from acute and distress- ing diseases, such as dropsy, cancer' consumption, &c.—should be placed in wards especially allotted to them. That in these wards (or in the regular surgical and infirmary wards, where such -exist in the house) private charity be permitted to introduce comforts calculated to alleviate the sufferings of the inmates. These comforts would consist ofthings which ought not to be supplied to the ordinary pauper, and which are not, and 13ossibly ought Mit, to be in any ease supplied out of the rates. I will mention a few that per- sonal experience has suggested to me. "Arm-chairs, in which it would be possible for the sick and debilitated to recline. Many are the eases in which the relief of a temporary change of posture would be immense; many others in which the constant lying in bed is simply weakening and harmful. Yet the patients are compelled to remain even for years -in or upon their pallets, because there is no seat for them except 'hard wooden benches, with no support for their arms or head, and upon which they could not sit up for a moment. It is piteous to see poor creatures, often -very near death, often with many months of such suf- fering before them, sitting gasping on tbe sides of their beds, for the simple reason that they cannot breathe if they lie down, wearied out in this miser- able posture without cushion or support of any kind. "Again, a few moveable screens, to enclose a bed from the eight of the rest of the ward, would he. a relief at times of greatsuffering, dressing wounds, &c., and at the moment of death. If the patient were insensible to such au arrangement, it would at least be a benefit to the_other inmates of the ward. The sight of death is most trying and even most dangerous to the sick and aged.
" Air-beds for the bedridden, and cushions for those having sores. " Fruit or lemonade to such as are distressed with constant feverish thirst.
" Cough lozenges for such as cough all night, to their own misery and that of theieneighboars.
"Tea, of a quality better thin the 'House-tea,' to be taken, too, when- ever the patient or nurse thinks, well. "Mutton and some vegetables in slimmer, to vary the perpetual potatoes and beef' (the latter much too hard for many of them either to masticate or digest) that constitute their usual sire. "Spectacles for such as can see to read with them, and books to beguile their areary boars. "All the comestibles of course to be given under the sanction of the sur- geon. And further (but here I feel I am treading on delicate ground,) may I not suggest that there are eases in which the sleeping draught or the ex- pensive tonic tonic (things not necessary, only alleviating pain) would be wilt gly and thankfully prescribed by the surgeon, were it not impossible that he should habitually do so under the present system, where all medicines are paid for out of his own scanty salary. "There are numberless forms of incurable disease in which the suffering may be much alleviated, although the appliances for the purpose cannot be counted as necessaries, and do not come under the head of articles which a Board of Guardians would expect a surgeon to order. No doubt we shall be told the surgeon may order what he pleases, and many a benevolent Board can boast that it has never refused to ratify any of his orders or recommen- dations. But to descend from theory to practice, do we really find that workhouse surgeons order such (unquestionable) alleviations of the sufferings of their patients as those above specified ? I fear it is hopeless to expect an affirmative answer to such a question. With all possible respect for the surgeons as a body, it must be admitted that it is expecting too much to sup- pose that they would uniformly recommend expenses not absolutely needful to their patients, and (as tending to increase the rates) naturally distasteful to their patrons. So long as the system of 'lumping' the surgeon's salary and his medicines be maintained, we must expect that only the most inex- pensive drugs will be administered. So long as a surgeon bolding his place at will from the Board, is the sole official to demand extra expendi- ture, we must be prepared to find his demands—more, it may be, than is quite consistent with the comfort of his patients—so shaped as to please his patrons." "On the other hand, were the principle of voluntary aid admitted for these wards alone, we should find the needs of the most miserable class of the community met by the charity of wholly disinterested spectators. For such an end, the usual lady visitors of each workhouse would find little or no difficulty in raising such sums as would meet the necessities of this case. The sufferers would be relieved, and yet the rates would undergo not a shilling's further charge ! Shall we be told that indirectly such a scheme would encourage pauperism ? I answer—it is not likely that any one would be tempted voluntarily to go into the workhouse when suffering from pain- ful disease, even should he hear of the existence of a more comfortable ward than any now to be found there. But if any case of this kind occurred, or were even suspected, it would be easy for the master or guardians not to put such a patient into this ward, and so defeat his object."
Finally, F. M., the correspondent who sets forth this plan, proposes that the charitable public should be allowed admission to the workhouse in order to afford solace to the sick and aged with- in the walls. When reform last touched the subject of the Poor- law broadly, there had been great abuses from a tampering with the funds (I./industry, farmers being allowed to cheat themselves by paying half their wages out of the rates. In the natural dis- like to that commingling of commerce and embezzlement, the Poor-law reformers of thirty years ago out off many of the aux- iliaries whieh had really improved the administration of the Poor- law, and prevented the workhouse from being, as it might well be in every parish of England, self-supporting, or nearly so, by an application of industry to the capacity Of the pauper class, and introduced a harsh treatment of misfortune ; and they committed a grievous blunder in any Christrian country when they delibe- rately exiled kindness from the treatment of the poorest in the land. They imagined that they should secure more unadulterated wisdom in the administration of the Poor-law if they built a party- wall between the strictness of that administration and of kind- ness. Many a wretched creature had been made more wretched without any advantage to the community, but with much indigna- tion and rankling amongst the classes next the poorest. The vast growth of our towns, the drive in which most classes live, the struggle for existence which has prompted trading of every kind, and converted even philanthropy into a profession, have all contributed to develope a wretched mechanical form of charity without much genuine personal feeling in it; and yet without any safeguards from authorized revision. The proposal made by F. M. Would create circumstances which would enable charity to resume its spontaneous and personal character under the revision of trusted public officers fitted by special experience and by training to check the abuses of that charity. We hesitate to pronounce a positive opinion on the proposal offhand, but we see at once that it merits a very serious consideration.
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