POOR, TILE, Charity, like Christianity, had its origin, or earliest development, in the east. Among the primitive nations of the world alms-giving was inculcated as a religious observance, and is prescribed as such in their sacred records. Among the European nations of antiquity, we find a provision for the poor adopted as a matter of state policy. In early times Athens could boast of having no citizen in want, "nor did any disgrace the nation by begging." But war, at length, brought poverty in its train, and the Athenian people decreed the maintenance of those who were mutilated in battle; and, at a later period, of the children of those who fell. Plutarch mentions Peisistratus as the originator of the first decree, though others derive it from Solon, By time latter decree the state provided for the orphans of its soldiers up to- their eighteenth year, and then sent them into the world with a new suit of armor. The bounty given to the disabled is mentioned by Lysias, Harpocratian, Aristotle, Isocrates, and others; and is variously stated at one, two, and three oboli a day, and it seems to have been increased with the increased cost of subsistence. There were also societies for the relief of distress among the democratic states of Greece, called eranos—a sort of friendly society, in which the members relieved were expected to pay back the money advanced to them when they had raised themselves to better circumstances. But it must be remembered that these so-called democratic states were in reality slave-holding aristocracies.
Among the Romans, time Agrarian and Licinian laws (years of Rome 208 and 338) were framed in order to prevent the extremes of riches and poverty in the state. They limited the extent of property in public land to be held by each citizen, and the latter directed that all such land, above the allotted portion, should be taken away from the holders and given to those who had none. The distribution of grain at reduced prices, which at length, became gratuitous, was introduced by Caius Gracchus, and lasted till the fall of the Roman empire. Augustus in vain tried to suppress it. In his time 200,000 citizens were thus fed. Cicero makes mention of this provision as in great favor with the Roman people, because it furnished them with an abundant subsistence labor; other Roman writers describe its results as disastrous both to agriculture and manners, creating a nation of mendicants, and causing the land to fall out of culti vation.
In the middle ages, the great body of the laboring classes were in a state of bondage, and looked to their feudal lords for maintenance. The obligation to provide for their slaves, or serfs, seems to have been fully recognized, so that many encountering, in a state of freedom, the miseries of want, went back to bondage as a refuge from destitu tion. The villeins in Saxon England were attached to the soil, and received from their lord a portion of land for the support of themselves and their families. But the church of Rome constituted herself the great receiver and dispenser of alms. The rich monas teries and abbeys distributed doles to the poor.
In most states of continental Europe, the church remains to a larger or smaller extent the public almoner, the state only stepping in to supplement the offerings of time church and voluntary charity when they become deficient. The disseverance from the. church is hardly anywhere so complete as in England. The laws of different countries vary as to the degree of want entitling a pauper to relief, the extent to which the right to relief is matter of positive right, the conditions which give rise to a claim of relief, and the incidence of taxation. In the Netherlands, a title to relief is acquired by birth, or by having inhabited the same place uninterruptedly for six years. In Sweden, such title as the law allows is conferred by inhabitancy in the parish or town, if the applicant, being above 45 years of age, has been entered on the list of tax-payers. In Norway, the right is acquired by a residence of two years; in Denmark, of five years. By time Prus sian poor-law of 1842, the duty of relief falls on the commune of which the person apply ing was expressly admitted a member, in which he has acquired a regular abode, which be has occupied for a year, or in which he has been living for three years after attaining full age. In Sleswick-Holstein, the right to relief in a commune is acquired by birth; also by 15 years' residence after the age of 18, the latter mode of acquiring it being compe tent to foreigners. In Saxony a settlement is acquired by birth, express gift, or purchase of a house and 5 years' residence.