The Scottish Poor Law, and some contrasts between its principles and the practices that have grown upon it : being a paper read ... on 28th May 1869, at the request of the Chalmers Association ... / by D. Curror.

Date:: 1869

Credit: The Scottish Poor Law, and some contrasts between its principles and the practices that have grown upon it : being a paper read ... on 28th May 1869, at the request of the Chalmers Association ... / by D. Curror. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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$1 system^ or into accoupts ,>y)iic]i ii]if4§t be kept with rigid, stric-tnessi . and wholesale unifpi;p.}itjrj ppr;th3.t fine, elastic touch be.applied of sympatliy aiid vital'charity which discriminates the pulse of rnise;ry in its infinite, variety,, discerns the-real seat of thq \vound, and applies , the oil and, the. balm-yvith a: truth and a touch as,'exacVas tender, and as delicate.;.but ail stomach^ Uiust be gf the same size, all appetites must relish the same food on the same days of the week, all maladies,: and soresj and accidents of life.must be healed , by the same medicine. To reduce all stomachs of the same sex and age to the same calibre—to reduce all habits and skill and tastes to a few fixed occupations, is abhorrent enough to the variety of human nature; but to test all shapes and habits of the body and mind, all tastes and desires and feelings, by the workhouse 5 to try all claims to relief by this assay, the measure of q.ctual endurance from poverty by the capacity to bear the other endurance in the alternative—this is certainly one of the boldest and most fal- lacious attempts to enforce mechanical rule and contrivance upon human minds and motives that has ever been ventured upon. Such a system is, but it is not the system of our old Poor Law. Nor was it the intentioii of the legislature in instituting work- houses that such should be. Neither is it at all a necessity in the nature of the thing. Workhouses were instituted as the best kind of hospitals (says Sir M. Hale) where charitable^ minded persons could tend the poor, and have, as it were, ii pillar whereunto to fasten their charity ; where poverty would be prevented by the poor who were able, being, learnt, to work and win their own bread; a:ndthe wealth of the nation be increased, by the conversion of idleness knd beggary,, into agents of production. Return to the spirit of,the, old law, and the intentions of the workhouse ihstitutidn i^ay; yet 1^^^^ Arid why not ? What is to prevent such a re-arrahgement o!f existing machinery as to work it into the old law, and thereby remove the bitterness and grief of the. present system? In this county there are eight or ten poor-houses, some of them in sunny spots, surrounded with less or more parochial ground. The impotent are to be placed in hospitals where they can be cared for and tended with affectionate Christian thderness. Send them to the sunniest of the sunny poor-houses Qf the county, under the care of appropriate nurses. Th© poor who are able to work a little are to be employed in labour fitting their condition, and in. peace to work and win :9?^;:t>read_., ,Sen4;,th^m.,i|i.t(»;-tJji^;pop^hQus^ best$