Sanatory inquiry - towns in Scotland : report on the sanatory condition and general economy of the town of Tranent, and the neighbouring district in Haddingtonshire / made to the Poor Law Commissioners by S. Scott Alison.

Alison, Somerville Scott, 1813-1877.

Date:: 1840

Credit: Sanatory inquiry - towns in Scotland : report on the sanatory condition and general economy of the town of Tranent, and the neighbouring district in Haddingtonshire / made to the Poor Law Commissioners by S. Scott Alison. 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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$portance that occurs to me. Tn many parishes in East Lothian there is no assessment for the reUef of the poor, and in some the allowance made to the poor is extremely small, so low as a few shillings in the quarter. In those parishes where there are few resident gentry and farmers the privations of the poor are extreme. It generally happens that the clergyman endeavours to procure relief from the parish, but he seldom ventures to propose more than a shilling per week. The heritors would not listen, in general, to propositions for more. By the account \vhich I have given of the destitution among the labouring population, and more especially of that great portion of it produced by contingencies incident to society at large, by casualties attendant upon their pursuits, and to diseases provoked by the un- wholesome nature of their occupation, an opinion may be formed as to the amount of relief required. The amount of relief required may now be compared with the amount of reUef given. The amount of relief given in the parish of Tranent is very ereat, and perhaps equals, on the whole,the amount which is required. But notwithstanding this, I main- tain that the relief is neither so uniform nor so appropriated as to over- take all, or anything near, that destitution for which it is the duty of Christians to provide. ^ The relief is spread over an immense multitude, given to persons totally undeserving, and altogether distributed in such a casual and de- sultory manner as to prove a sufficient and uniform subsistence to none, while it affords to many just sufficient to make them less dependent on their own steady and persevering industry, and gives an opportunity of indulging in occasional fits of dissipation. The same amount of charity which is at present administered, which fails to supply anything like . that comfortable subsistence to which the old, the helpless, the diseased, and maimed are surely entitled, and much of which is lavished upon importunate, abandoned, and able-bodied vagrants, would, if collected and distributed upon proper principles, provide a comfortable home for the really deserving poor, and afford security against starvation at all times and at all seasons, such as should exist in a great and Christian land like Scotland. But it would be necessary to prevent the infamous from rioting, as they do at present, on the funds which should be appro- priated for the hallowed purpose of relieving the truly destitute and deserving. In order to make the relief, which is at present afforded, partly by as- sessment and partly by voluntary aid, overtake the whole exigencies of the parish, it would be necessary in the first place to make the burden . uniform and regular, and this could be best done, I presume, by an assess- ment. I cannot believe that the great body of the parishioners would be opposed to a plan which would provide comfortably for the poor at no more expense than they are subject to at present. I am aware that any assessment for any purpose whatever, however excellent, will be most unpalatable to some people: to such people for instance (and undoubt- edly there are some) who afford no private relief, at present, under any circumstances. An assessment would prove to them not a substitu- tion of one tax for another, as it would be to the more charitable, it would be an imposition of a tax where there was no tax before. Such people would, doubtless, oppose themselves to any imposition of bur- dens, but in a case like the present the urgent claims of many destitute and helpless beings should be listened to, rather than the interested opposition of avarice and illiberality. ■J In those parishes where no assessment is made at present, it becomes The assess- a question whether any such provision should be made. It is the opi- 'l^H °^ Pi- nion of the heritors of these parishes that no such assessment should be freo'of made, and I am aware that in this opinion they are joined by some of .issessment. the clergymen of the parishes. But I do not think that the opinion of the heritors in this case is entitled to exclusive consideration; they are$