Two-thirds of all the permanent pauperism and more than one-half of the occasional pauperism is attributed to intemperance.
The counties bordering on the ocean and on the Hud son River, having somewhat more than one-third of the population, provided more than one-half of all the paupers. The city of New York alone maintained one-fourth of all the permanent poor. Mr. Yates considered it hardly necessary to explain the cause of this great disparity, but to the modern student it is interesting that he found it in the dense population of that city, and of the large villages and towns, which from their convenient situation for navi gation and commerce, allure to their haunts and recesses the idle and dissolute of every description. " Populous places," he says, " have at all times been burthened with a larger proportion of paupers than places where a thin or scattered population is found." Comparing New York with other states as to the burden of pauperism, it is found that in New York there is one permanent pauper for every 220 souls ; in Massachusetts one for every 68; in Connecticut one for every 150 ; in New Hampshire one for every 100 ; in Delaware one for every 227 ; in Pennsylvania one for every 265 ; in Illinois (then a new state) no paupers were as yet supported at the public expense.
In the towns and villages where there are no almshouses the poor are disposed of by the overseers in three ways : I. The overseers farm them out at stipulated prices to contractors who are willing to receive and keep them on condition of getting what labor they can out of the paupers.
II. The poor are sold at auction — the meaning of which is that he who will support them for the lowest price becomes their keeper ; and it often happens, of course, that the keeper is himself almost a pauper before he purchases, and adopts this mode in order not to fall a burden upon the town. Thus he and another miserable human being barely subsist upon what would hardly com fortably maintain himself alone — a species of economy much boasted of by some of our town officers and pur chasers of paupers ; or, III. Relief is afforded to the poor at their own habita tions.
The expense for physicians and nurses, in attending paupers in towns where there are no poorhouses, forms a prominent article in the amount of taxation. Pauperism and disease, except in an almshouse, are generally found to be associated, and hence it is that this item of expense is so much complained of in the towns just alluded to.
After a full examination of the pauper system and its various provisions and results, two problems are presented for the consideration of the legislature : I. Ought the whole system to be abolished, and the support of the poor left altogether to the voluntary con tribution of the charitable and humane ? Or, II. If the system ought not to be abolished, is it sus ceptible of improvement, and in what mode can the improvement best be effected ? The report notes that men of great literary require ments and profound political research have opposed all compulsory provision for the poor, but considers that the fact that every state in the Union and many European governments have a code of laws for the relief and main tenance of the poor is no slight proof that the total absence of a pauper system would be inconsistent with a humane, liberal, and enlightened policy.
Proceeding to the second question, the proposition is said to be very generally admitted that our poor laws were defective in principle and mischievous in practice, and that under the imposing and charitable aspect of affording relief exclusively to the poor and infirm, they frequently invited the able-bodied vagrant to partake of the same bounty. Full and satisfactory details are quoted from the Society for the Prevention of Pauperism in the City of New York and by writers of letters, from which extracts are given of the gross abuses which have grown out of these laws. The general conclusions were : I. That the existing laws led to litigation of the most expensive and hurtful kind, exhausting nearly one-ninth of the funds intended for the relief of the poor, and leading to harsh removals of many human beings, like felons, from no other fault than poverty.