Statement of the Provision for the Poor, and of the Condition of the Labouring Classes in a Considerable Portion of America and Europe: Being the preface to the foreign communications contained in the appendix to the Poor-Law ReportSenior, Nassau William
History
Statement of the Provision for the Poor, and of the Condition of the Labouring Classes in a Considerable Portion of America and Europe: Being the preface to the foreign communications contained in the appendix to the Poor-Law Report
Senior, Nassau William
Poor -- Europe; Poor -- United States; Working class
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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