the great moral distinctions between virtue and vice; because it yields the same aid to vicious as to innocent poverty. In other words, it does not punish vice by the abandonment of its votaries to such suffering as would naturally follow from gross wickedness; but rescues from want, and nourishes with as much kindness, the felon and drunkard, as it does the victim of disease or misfortune. This system, too, was in some degree intended to produce a remedial effect; yet, in hostility to such a design, it contains within itself abundant seeds of increase and perpetuity. No regular course of discipline or labor is adopted, in order to reform the idle and vicious. Improper marriages are contracted, under the prospect and security of eventual support from the public. A similar foresight encourages many others to indulge in indolence, prodigality and vice. Distant connections are more readily flung upon the public, as the sympathies of kindred and friends become more paralyzed by the increasing weight of their compulsory taxes for the maintenance of other paupers. Indeed, a combination of these and similar causes, under the present system, multiplies the whole number of paupers in a ratio calculated to alarm the most courageous politician. For a confirmation of some of these remarks, we would refer to the facts reported to the last Legislature. Those facts, too, speak a language which outweighs every suggestion of fancy or theory; and, if their accuracy were questionable, are corroborated by the experience of every government that has adopted a system similar to our own.

Thus, in the year 1800, the annual expense for the support of paupers, inhabitants of this State, was only about $17,000, and our population was 183,858. The above sum does not include incidental and legal cost. But, in the year 1820, the same annual expense had increased to about $80,000, while our population had become only 244,161. It therefore appears that our expenses increased almost four times their just proportion; for, had they augmented in a ratio with the population, their amount would have been less than $23,000, instead of $80,000. The facts reported to the Legislature show that these expenses double in about every five years. But, on a recurrence to the census of different periods, it will be seen that our population doubles only in about forty years. The population of this State has not recently received many accessions from abroad; while the departure of our hardy and enterprising youth to milder climates and more lucrative employments than exist here, has been a constant drain upon our productive numbers, without draining from us, at the same time, the infirm, the diseased and the impotent. It has, therefore, followed, that though the number of paupers compared with our whole population was, in the year 1800, only one to three hundred and thirty, yet, in the year 1820, they had become one to every one hundred. This is more than three times their just proportional number; and though, in our estimates, we have rejected fractions and obtained the number of paupers by assuming a certain sum for the annual support

of each, yet the comparative result must be accurate, because the same rules in similar estimates are preserved throughout. From the facts before mentioned, it follows, also, that should the number of paupers, and of our whole population, continue to increase in this disproportionate ratio for the next forty years, the former will become one to every twenty-seven of the latter, instead of only one to every one hundred. Thus, at the end of that period, our population will be only 488,000, while our paupers will be 18,000; though to support 18,000 then with the same ease with which we can now support the present number, our population ought to be 2,196,000.

These calculations are predicated on the hypothesis that our paupers and whole population will, till the year 1860, continue to increase in a ratio similar to that which has existed since the years 1790 and 1800. But it is correct reasoning, as well as history, that paupers, when a country grows older and taxes augment, will multiply in an annually increasing ratio with the population; and that a people under such a system, like a heavy body descending to the earth, are accelerated in their progress towards total pauperism, the further they advance. The above number of paupers, therefore, at the end of forty years, compared with the whole population, is estimated much too low. But, taking only the actual estimate, such a system, if not amended, seems destined to entail on our posterity a burthen more oppressive than the support of all the privileged orders of monarchies, from which we justly boast our happy exemption.

That these apprehensions do not rest alone upon reasoning and calculation, may be seen by reference to the adjoining State of Massachusetts. Their territory has been longer settled, the system undergone a fuller experiment; and the result, as reported to their Legislature, tends to verify the worst predictions. In a population of about 472,000, their annual pauper expenses are estimated at $364,000, which, it will be seen, is more than double the amount of our expenses compared with our population. Thus, too, the number of paupers is there estimated at one to every sixty-six inhabitants, whereas here it does not exceed one to every one hundred. If their census of A. D. 1820 were taken as a guide, the result would differ, but only in a small degree.

The experience under this system of poor laws has, in England, been longer still; and the result has, if possible, been still more conclusive in respect to its ruinous progress. From the year 1687 to 1785, a period of almost a century, their annual pauper expenses increased from £665,362 to only £1,943,649; while from 1785 to 1815, a period of but thirty years, they increased from £1,943,649 to £8,000,000. Thus, during the infancy of the system, the expenses did not treble in less than a century; but, afterwards, they quadrupled in less than a third of a century. The same disheartening consequences are visible when the number of their paupers is compared with their whole population. Thus, in the year 1803, the whole

number of paupers in England and Wales had swollen to 1,039,716, and the whole population was only 9,500,000. The ratio of one pauper to about every ten inhabitants is, when compared with that in New Hampshire, and even in Massachusetts, an appalling increase. But what ought to be our consternation at the progress of the system, when, in 1812, a period of only nine years, their paupers had multiplied from 1,039,716 to 2,079,432, and their population risen only to 10,000,000! This presents a ratio of more than one pauper to every five inhabitants.

Let all deductions be made which can occur to the most cautious economist,—and undoubtedly some are proper in consequence of the depreciation of money, the unusual duration of their modern wars, and the peculiar embarrassments which have distressed manufactures,--and still the result will be such as to indicate a fatal 'termination to every government which persists in the system. It is to be remembered, also, that the expenses incurred in the support of foreign paupers-by which we mean those who have acquired no legal settlement in this State constitute a very considerable addition to the sums first mentioned. Among us those expenses have been estimated at $6200 a year; and the observation of every one must confirm the remark, that they are incurred with less reluctance and with more prodigality than any other expenses under the present system. Much of this arises. from the circumstance that they are eventually paid by the counties, and not by the towns, which furnish the relief. The expenses of this description, too, increase in a ratio almost as rapid as those for the maintenance of domestic paupers. In this State, the accounts for any length of time have not been collected from the several county treasuries; but an imperfect examination of them strongly verifies the above conjecture.

In Massachusetts, under similar laws, these expenses, between the years 1801 and 1810, have increased from $27,363 to $50,542; and, in 1820, had become $79,870 a year. These sums, too, may be deemed another proof of the disproportionate magnitude, in older governments, of both the number and expenses of paupers. For though the extended sea-board and commerce of that State may create a peculiar increase of the class of foreign paupers, yet, compared with their population, it could hardly make them, to the number here, compared with our population, as thirteen to four.

In addition to the sums before enumerated, which are expended in the mere maintenance of both foreign and domestic paupers, the incidental expenses of removals, and the costs which accompany litigation concerning settlements, constitute items whose formidable amount none could anticipate or believe, without much observation. In this State they have been estimated at $30,000 a year. This, it will be perceived, more than equals one-third of the whole expenses for mere maintenance. When we advert to the time, trouble and expenditures, of overseers and agents, in inquiries concerning the settlement of

paupers, in the relief, removal and superintendence of them,-in the institution of suits, the service of notices, the procurement of evidence, the fees to counsel and witnesses, the attendance on courts and the raising of money to discharge enormous bills of cost recovered,-few will apprehend that the above estimate is much too high. It seems probable, too, that the same alarming increase which characterizes the other expenses under this system is attendant on these. For, in England, where questions of settlement have been longer adjudicated and fixed, and where these incidental expenses should therefore be proportionably small, there has still been a great increase in their ratio, compared with the whole pauper tax. Thus, in the year 1783, their whole expenses, beside those for maintenance, were £92,097. Of these, the mere law charges were £55,891, and the charges attendant on removals, £24,493. But in the year 1803, out of the whole pauper tax, which exceeded £5,000,000, only a little over £4,000,000 was expended in mere maintenance. It therefore appears, that as in 1783 the whole pauper tax was about £1,500,000, the incidental and legal expenses were then less than one-fifteenth of the whole; but in 1803 they had become one-fifth of the whole.

From a view of the whole premises, it must be obvious, that though the pauper expenses of this State are nominally much less than those of some other governments, yet the same disastrous increase, which we believe to be inseparable from the present system, is here exhibited.

It is fashionable to lament the condition of England in respect to pauperism; and it is flattering to our national vanity, when we compare the sum total of her poor to our own, her three millions of

famished beggars, fed from the hand of public charity, a number equal to one-third of the population of the whole United States; and when we compare, also, her annual expense in their support, of above $44,000,000, a sum more than double the whole revenue of the Union. But we forget, at the same time, to compare our small population and resources with hers; and though the insulated position of this State, the enterprise and industry of her inhabitants, their general intelligence and correct morals, may long avert the catastrophe which seems more immediately to menace England, yet the same system of pauper laws seems to hurry us towards the same vortex.

Every reflecting mind in society has, therefore, become alarmed; and it is believed by the committee that the facts and inferences which they have the honor to present to the attention of the Legislature will evince the necessity of some such speedy change in the system as may check this overwhelming increase of expenses, and, if possible, reduce their present formidable amount.

Only three methods to effect this have occurred to us. One is by lessening the number of paupers who by law may be authorized to receive public relief. Another is, by lessening the annual expense of maintaining each person entitled to relief. And lastly, by lessening the incidental expense of maintenance, and of litigation concerning

settlements. It will be seen that these three propositions are so independent of each other, that the adoption or rejection of either will not affect the remainder. On the means to enforce each of them we shall take the liberty to offer some suggestions.

1. The number of paupers, that are now so burthensome a tax on community, might be most effectually lessened by an exclusion of every class of them from any public relief. But the policy of such a measure is exposed to much suspicion. Whatever may be its theoretical correctness, and however fortunate may have been the experiments under it in Scotland, and many other enlightened portions of Europe, the measure seems impracticable to many who have so long been accustomed to our present system. There is, too, an apparent cruelty in it, which, with some, may not be obviated by the considerations mentioned in the commencement of this report. All changes, also, in longestablished systems, are more acceptable, and often more useful, if gradual. Your committee, however, have been unable to discover any sound objection to the exclusion from public relief of every person reduced to want by indolence or extravagance. The exclusion

should, likewise, be extended to all those whose poverty is the consequence of any crime. This class forms a large portion of the whole number, and its ranks are almost wholly filled from the haunts of intemperance. The abandoned mothers of illegitimate children make up a great part of the residue. Their wretched offspring, with whose support the public are now so often burthened, would be lessened in number, and indemnity be obtained for most hereafter born, if selectmen were empowered and required, in the name of their respective towns, to prosecute either parent till that indemnity was obtained. When the supposed father was prosecuted, the mother, like every competent witness, might then be compelled to testify in an action in which she is not a party. In all cases, also, of children, illegitimate or otherwise, whose parents ask public relief, selectmen should be more rigidly enjoined to bind them out to substantial farmers and mechanics, so that such children may learn industry and economy, receive moral instruction, and acquire good English educations. Many would thus be rescued from the necessity, too often imposed on them by early habits of indolence and profligacy, by ignorance and infamy, to continue paupers for life, and to perpetuate through succeeding generations a race so baneful to community.

2. In respect to the annual expense of the mere maintenance of those paupers who may by law be authorized to receive relief, we entertain no doubt that it might greatly be lessened by the employment of them, according to their ability, on farms and in workshops. These should be owned by the respective towns; or, where paupers are few, by voluntary associations of contiguous towns. In some parts of this State, and in many parts of Massachusetts, it has been ascertained, by actual experiment, that much the most profitable labor for this class of persons, when not totally helpless, is agriculture. Every man,