“The Constituent Assembly, frightened at the extent of the evil and the difficulty of curing it, ordains the statu quo.
“The Convention proclaims assistance of the poor to be a national debt. Its law remains unexecuted.
“Napoleon also wishes to remedy the evil: his idea is imprisonment. ‘In that way,’ said he, ‘I shall protect the rich from the importunity of beggars, and shall relieve them of the disgusting sight of abject poverty.’" O wonderful man!
From these facts, which I might multiply still farther, two things are to be inferred,—the one, that pauperism is independent of population; the other, that all attempts hitherto made at its extermination have proved abortive.
Catholicism founds hospitals and convents, and commands charity; that is, she encourages mendicity. That is the extent of her insight as voiced by her priests.
The secular power of Christian nations now orders taxes on the rich, now banishment and imprisonment for the poor; that is, on the one hand, violation of the right of property, and, on the other, civil death and murder.
The modern economists—thinking that pauperism is caused by the excess of population, exclusively—have devoted themselves to devising checks. Some wish to prohibit the poor from marrying; thus,—having denounced religious celibacy,—they propose compulsory celibacy, which will inevitably become licentious celibacy.
Others do not approve this method, which they deem too violent; and which, they say, deprives the poor man of the only pleasure which he knows in this world. They would simply recommend him to be prudent. This opinion is held by Malthus, Sismondi, Say, Droz, Duchatel, &c. But if the poor are to be prudent, the rich must set the example. Why should the marriageable age of the latter be fixed at eighteen years, while that of the former is postponed until thirty?
