Further illustrations of the practical operation of the Scotch system of management of the poor / by W.P. Alison, M.D., &c., Professor of the Institutes of Medicine in the University of Edinburgh.
- William Pulteney Alison
- Date:
- [1841]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Further illustrations of the practical operation of the Scotch system of management of the poor / by W.P. Alison, M.D., &c., Professor of the Institutes of Medicine in the University of Edinburgh. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.
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![latiiigin excessive numbers on the sea coasts, where a precarious employ- ment was to he found,) contained in the evidence taken by the Committee of the House of Commons on emigration from Scotland. But the most satisfactory proofs I can give of the truth of the above representations as to the destitution in Scotland are the facts, that the town councils of thirteen of the principal towns in Scotland, including Edinburgh, Glasgow, Paisley, Greenock, Ayr, Perth, Dundee, and Aberdeen, after making some inquiry into the destitute condition of their poor, and the inadequacy of the existing means for their relief, have petitioned Govern- ment, almost all unanimously,/or «7i inquiry, a view to some modification and a more uniform enforcement of the law ; and that the General Assembly of the Church oj Scotland, after full and repeated discussion of the subject, adopted by a very large majority a report expressing their “ belief that the statements as to the destitution and sufferings of a large portion of the people were hut too truef—their feeling that it could not be the duty of the church to attempt to throw a veil over the sufferings of the people,” and therefore their approbation of the proposal of an official and authoritative inquiry into the subject. To the same purpose, in their Pastoral Address, published in July, 1841, the General Assembly thus express themselves;—“ The state of the poor in Scotland, too frequently suffering under privations such as it could scarcely be conceived possible that a Christian country could tolerate, or that human nature could endure,—exposed to the ravages of disease and the contamination of vice and temptation to crime, hard, in their circumstances, to be resisted,—is forcing itself upon the notice of the country.” They add, that although means have been partially adopted for the remedy of these social grievances, yet these have been “ so inadequate as to be matter of reproach and blame to the church and to the countryP I apprehend it will hardly now be denied that the system of manage- ment of the poor now in force in Scotland has been singularly unsuc- cessful, either in relieving them from general and intense suffering, or in teaching or enabling them to provide against such suffering by their own prudence or exertions. But as it is of essential importance to all dis- cussions on this subject that the results of this system should be brought fairly before the public in a statistical form, I shall adduce some farther statistical facts, in addition to those contained in my previous paper,* partly taken from recent publications little known in England, and ])artl}' from documents not yet published, in illustration of the positions 1 have laid down. I. As to the state of destitution and suffering among the poor who are admitted on the parish rolls, implying obviously that the resources, in aid of which the parochial allowances are granted, are very often per- fectly illusory, and that those allowances are inadequate to preserve those receiving them from abject misery and degradation, I have formerly given copious illustrations in Edinburgh and other places; and shall now show that a similar or even worse state of things exists in the larger town of Glasgow, and in such smaller towns as Inverness and Peterhead. Of the 1038 “ cases of utter destitution, where the extent of wretch- edness endured forced itself on the sympathy of all who witnessed it,” rej)orted on by Captain Miller, at Glasgow, 406 had parochial relief * See Journal of the Stat. Society of London, for October, 1840; vol. iii p. 211.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b24929761_0009.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
