The Project Gutenberg EBook of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61,
No. 377, March 1847, by Various

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Title: Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 377, March 1847

Author: Various

Release Date: April 1, 2010 [EBook #31859]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

No. CCCLXXVII. MARCH, 1847. VOL. LXI.

ON PAUPERISM, AND ITS TREATMENT.

"If I oft
Must turn elsewhere--to travel near the tribes
And fellowships of men, and see ill sights
Of maddening passions mutually inflamed;
Must hear humanity in fields and groves
Pipe solitary anguish; or must hang
Brooding above the fierce confederate storm
Of sorrow, barricadoed evermore
Within the walls of cities--may these sounds
Have their authentic comment!"
WORDSWORTH.

In order to deal effectively with pauperism, it is necessary to know the
causes which lead to the impoverishment of individuals and masses of
individuals, and to be familiar with the condition, manners, customs,
habits, prejudices, feelings, and superstitions of the poor.

We do not propose to institute an elaborate inquiry into the _causes of
pauperism_, or to make the topic a subject of separate investigation.
Our chief object will be, to collect into classes those of the poor who
are known, from personal observation, to become chargeable to parishes,
which process will afford abundant scope for remark upon the causes
which led to their impoverishment. We may require the company of the
reader with us in the metropolis for a short space, and may satisfy him
that he need not travel ten miles from his own door in search of
valuable facts, and at the same time convince him _that pauperism is not
that simple compact evil_ which many would wish him to believe. We might
a