The Best of the Bureau/The_Best_of_the_Bureau_Bureau_Development_Inc._1992.iso/dp/0077/00771.txt

Text File | 1992-08-07 | 13KB | 222 lines

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$Title{Description Of Elizabethan England
Chapter IX}
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$Author{Harrison, William}
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$Subject{poor
upon
either
idle
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yet
law
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$Date{1577}
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Title:       Description Of Elizabethan England
Author:      Harrison, William
Date:        1577

Chapter IX

Of Provision Made For The Poor
[1577, Book III., Chapter 5; 1587, Book II., Chapter 10.]

     There is no commonwealth at this day in Europe wherein there is not great
store of poor people, and those necessarily to be relieved by the wealthier
sort, which otherwise would starve and come to utter confusion. With us the
poor is commonly divided into three sorts, so that some are poor by impotence,
as the fatherless child, the aged, blind, and lame, and the diseased person
that is judged to be incurable; the second are poor by casualty, as the
wounded soldier, the decayed householder, and the sick person visited with
grievous and painful diseases; the third consisteth of thriftless poor, as the
rioter that hath consumed all, the vagabond that will abide nowhere, but
runneth up and down from place to place (as it were seeking work and finding
none), and finally the rogue and the strumpet, which are not possible to be
divided in sunder, but run to and fro over all the realm, chiefly keeping the
champaign soils in summer to avoid the scorching heat, and the woodland
grounds in winter to eschew the blustering winds.

     For the first two sorts (that is to say, the poor by impotence and poor
by casualty, which are the true poor indeed, and for whom the Word doth bind
us to make some daily provision), there is order taken throughout every parish
in the realm that weekly collection shall be made for their help and
sustention - to the end they shall not scatter abroad, and, by begging here
and there, annoy both town and country. Authority also is given unto the
justices in every county (and great penalties appointed for such as make
default) to see that the intent of the statute in this behalf be truly
executed according to the purpose and meaning of the same, so that these two
sorts are sufficiently provided for; and such as can live within the limits of
their allowance (as each one will do that is godly and well disposed) may well
forbear to roam and range about. But if they refuse to be supported by this
benefit of the law, and will rather endeavour by going to and fro to maintain
their idle trades, then are they adjudged to be parcel of the third sort, and
so, instead of courteous refreshing at home, are often corrected with sharp
execution and whip of justice abroad. Many there are which, notwithstanding
the rigour of the laws provided in that behalf, yield rather with this liberty
(as they call it) to be daily under the fear and terror of the whip than, by
abiding where they were born or bred, to be provided for by the devotion of
the parishes. I found not long since a note of these latter sort, the effect
whereof ensueth. Idle beggars are such either through other men's occasion or
through their own default - by other men's occasion (as one way for example)
when some covetous man (such, I mean, as have the cast or right vein daily to
make beggars enough whereby to pester the land, espying a further commodity in
their commons, holds, and tenures) doth find such means as thereby to wipe
many out of their occupyings and turn the same unto his private gains. ^1
Hereupon it followeth that, although the wise and better-minded do either
forsake the realm for altogether, and seek to live in other countries, as
France, Germany, Barbary, India, Muscovia, and very Calcutta, complaining of
no room to be left for them at home, do so behave themselves that they are
worthily to be accounted among the second sort, yet the greater part, commonly
having nothing to stay upon, are wilful, and thereupon do either prove idle
beggars or else continue stark thieves till the gallows do eat them up, which
is a lamentable case. Certes in some men's judgment these things are but
trifles, and not worthy the regarding. Some also do grudge at the great
increase of people in these days, thinking a necessary brood of cattle far
better than a superfluous augmentation of mankind. But I can liken such men
best of all unto the pope and the devil, who practise the hindrance of the
furniture of the number of the elect to their uttermost, to the end the
authority of the one upon the earth, the deferring of the locking up of the
other in everlasting chains, and the great gains of the first, may continue
and endure the longer. But if it should come to pass that any foreign invasion
should be made - which the Lord God forbid for his mercies' sake! - then
should these men find that a wall of men is far better than stacks of corn and
bags of money, and complain of the want when it is too late to seek remedy.
The like occasion caused the Romans to devise their law Agraria: but the rich,
not liking of it, and the covetous, utterly condemning it as rigorous and
unprofitable, never ceased to practise disturbance till it was quite
abolished. But to proceed with my purpose.

[Footnote 1: At whose hands shall the blood of these men be required? - H.]

     Such as are idle beggars through their own default are of two sorts, and
continue their estates either by casual or mere voluntary means: those that
are such by casual means are in the beginning justly to be referred either to
the first or second sort of poor afore-mentioned, but, degenerating into the
thriftless sort, they do what they can to continue their misery, and, with
such impediments as they have, to stray and wander about, as creatures
abhorring all labour and every honest exercise. Certes I call these casual
means, not in the respect of the original of all poverty, but of the
continuance of the same, from whence they will not be delivered, such is their
own ungracious lewdness and froward disposition. The voluntary means proceed
from outward causes, as by making of corrosives, and applying the same to the
more fleshy parts of their bodies, and also laying of ratsbane, spearwort,
crowfoot, and such like unto their whole members, thereby to raise pitiful and
odious sores, and move the hearts of the goers-by such places where they lie,
to yearn at their misery, and thereupon bestow large alms upon them. How
artificially they beg, what forcible speech, and how they select and choose
out words of vehemence, whereby they do in manner conjure or adjure the
goer-by to pity their cases, I pass over to remember, as judging the name of
God and Christ to be more conversant in the mouths of none and yet the
presence of the Heavenly Majesty further off from no men than from this
ungracious company. Which maketh me to think that punishment is far meeter for
them than liberality or alms, and sith Christ willeth us chiefly to have a
regard to Himself and his poor members.

     Unto this nest is another sort to be referred, more sturdy than the rest,
which, having sound and perfect limbs, do yet notwithstanding sometime
counterfeit the possession of all sorts of diseases. Divers times in their
apparel also they will be like serving men or labourers: oftentimes they can
play the mariners, and seek for ships which they never lost. But in fine they
are all thieves and caterpillars in the commonwealth, and by the Word of God
not permitted to eat, sith they do but lick the sweat from the true labourers'
brows, and bereave the godly poor of that which is due unto them, to maintain
their excess, consuming the charity of well-disposed people bestowed upon
them, after a most wicked and detestable manner.

     It is not yet full threescore years since this trade began: but how it
hath prospered since that time it is easy to judge, for they are now supposed,
of one sex and another, to amount unto above 10,000 persons, as I have heard
reported. Moreover, in counterfeiting the Egyptian rogues, they have devised a
language among themselves, which they name "Canting," but others, "pedler's
French,"