Rensselaer Union, Volume 2, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 September 1870 — What Makes Paupers ? [ARTICLE]

What Makes Paupers ?

According to the report of the Commissioners of Charity and Correction of this city for 1860, there were maintained in that year in the prisons, asylums and charitable institutions under their charge, 03,272 persons, which is above one in ten of our population. During the year 1868, 51',477 persons received official outdoor relief; and this does not Include the multitude of beggars who arc met in the streets. In Philadelphia 9 214 persons were, in 1868, supported iu the almshouse alone, leaving out of the account the prisons, hospitals, asylums, reformatories and other charitable institutions, and 104,542 persons received out-doer relict during th# same year. The Westminster Review, which quotes these figures, cites also a much more remarkable case—the city of Ballarat, in Australia. This place has from 40,000 to 60,000 inhabitants; it is one of the most healthful in the world; labor is scarce, and the common unskilled laborer receives sll 25 per week wages, while beef costs but 41.4 cents, mutton 2)4 cents, and bread 1.4 cents per pound. Yet the almshouse accommodated, in 1868, 390 persons, and $9,000 were expended in the same year for out door relief of the poor. Whence comes all this pauperism ? asks the Westminster ; and it is a question which deserves far more consideration than it has received. Briefly, it may be said that the pauper and criminal classes in this country are the fruit of ignorance and the abuse of spirituous liquors, aud the neglect to train children in useful trades. The last-named is probably one of the most fruitful causes, as it is one of the least thought of, of pauperism and crime. A boy or girl left illiterate, and untrained to any kind of skilled labor, is so badly fitted for the battle of life that it has extraordinary temptations to drunkenness, vagrancy avd an irregular life; and the chances of uch a person being able to provide for himself in later life are so much lessened that a very large proportion of 7 such untrained, unprepared people is certain to become either criminal or pauper.— New York Poet.