Pauperism in New South Wales. 109 



the disabled and the infirm, the relief thus granted out of the parish 

 rates became ultimately used as a means for supplementing inade- 

 quate wages, thus throwing part of the expense of the payments for 

 labour upon other classes than those by whom the labourer was em- 

 ployed. Perfectly able-bodied labourers, well capable of earning 

 their own livelihood, had their rent paid by parish overseers, and 

 were supplied with ' bread money ' for their families, as a matter 

 of course. These proceedings had the effect which might have 

 been easily anticipated, viz., to reduce tlae scale of wages. Allow- 

 ances were then given in aid of wages, and a gigantic system of 

 fraud and corruption sprang up under which the independent 

 labourer actually stood at a disadvantage as compared with the 

 pauper, the farmers refusing to employ those whom they were 

 not compellable by law to support." 



" The chief results of this system were the inducing of a well- 

 nigh universal pauperism amongst the labouring classes, who be- 

 came idle and dissolute in the extreme. Incendiarism and riot 

 appeared to have followed in the train of idleness. In the year 

 1832, during " a period of great prosperity" says a centemporary 

 writer. " we find that portion of England in which the Poor Laws 

 had had their greatest operation, and in which by much the larg- 

 est expenditure of Poor Pates had been made, the scene of daily 

 riot and nightly incendiarism. Meanwhile the rates pressed so 

 heavily upon the land, that in the year 1832 many thousands of 

 acres had been thrown out of cultivation." 



" The English Poor Law system of 1834 was adopted to counter- 

 act this state of things, &c. ; and, upon the whole, has been a 

 successful measure, though its efficiency has been greatly lessened 

 by the want of intelligence in its administration. In some, if not 

 in many instances, this has resulted in ill-judged parismony tak- 

 ing the place of ill-judged prodigality ; and this unfair working 

 of a general good measure has led to the recent workhouse dis- 

 closures, with their consequent excitement and disgust." 



It is indeed evident that the absence of proper supervision has 

 been the most general cause of whatever degree of failure has 

 arisen in the working of the English Poor Laws. 



Until the near 1819 no attempt appears to have been made in 

 this colony (probably it was not required) to provide a systematic 

 relief to the poor and destitute, the British Government content- 

 ing itself with the charge of such of the aged, indisposed, and de- 

 crepid convicts as were incapable of labour and unfit for the 

 ■prison. At this period, however, distress and suffering seem to 

 have made themselves evident to the hearts of certain philan- 

 thropic gentlemen, who, with the sanction and warm-hearted co-, 

 operation of Governor Macquarie, established the " Sydney Be- 

 nevolent Society," the object of which was, " To relieve the poor, 



