CHAPTER VI.

ADMINISTRATION FOR RELIEF OF THE POOR.

Old methods of relief - Scheme of the Great Elector - Public obligation for the poor recognised in 1820 — Single Poor Board for Berlin-District committees-Unpaid inspection ·Outdoor relief — Discrimination in relief — District physicians and surgeons- Workhouses-Incorrigible poor— Habitual offenders - Night refuges and shelters - Care of poor children-Old married couples-Orphan poor-Orphan depot - Boarding out - Education of out-boarders - Sick poor-Dalldorf Institution for Imbeciles-Union for Prevention of Pauperisation—Its methods and success- -Comparative cost of Berlin poor administration.

Down to the time of the Great Elector no serious effort had ever been made to systematise the treatment of the poor. But that Prince, while occupied in extending the power and influence of Prussia abroad, had a keen desire for reform at home. Offended by the prevalence of streetbegging in Berlin, he called upon the town author

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LICENSED BEGGARS.

ities to prepare for his consideration a scheme by which some provision should be made for the helpless and deserving poor. But the town authorities of those days were quite unequal to such a task. They could offer no other counsel than that the beggars should be allowed to seek alms from door to door instead of on the public streets, and that only those should be permitted to beg who were certified by the authorities, the sign of which should be a pewter badge worn on the coat. They were to wander from door to door like so many Edie Ochiltrees, with right to refer to their pewter badges in token of their licence. "It is little we can do, your Electoral Highness, having neither the means nor the nervus rerum gerundarum wherewith to help the poor and abolish public begging. We see many needy people reduced in the world who are in far greater want than those who will come for badges, but who, on account of their former circumstances, are ashamed to beg. They prefer to die; and as for us, we hardly know how to provide coffins to bury them. It were, indeed, a great boon to have some sort of weekly pittance

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secured to such people, but we can't find it. Would not your Electoral Highness graciously open the electoral purse somewhat and assist in the business?" Whether the municipal worthies of that day occupied themselves too much with politics or with personal squabbles, they proved themselves, in the opinion of his Highness, quite incompetent to deal with questions affecting the poor. The result of much feeble reporting and discussion was that Frederick took the whole affair into his own hands, and established an Electoral Commission (Kurfürstliche Kommission wegen des Armenwesens), which afterwards became a Royal Direction of the Poor in Berlin. The funds at the disposal of the Direction were raised partly by an annual grant from the royal purse, and partly by contributions from the benevolent, and from church - door collections, for which special appeals were made in the royal name from time to time. This form of paternal administration continued down to 1820, when the public obligation to provide for the poor came to be more fully recognised, and the charge of the poor who received outdoor relief, and of the

90 CONSTITUTION OF COMMISSION FOR THE POOR.

almshouses, which, mainly through private charity, had been founded under the Direction, passed into the hands of the Corporation. The great increase of the city since 1820 has made it imperative that the poor department, like all other parts of the municipal administration, should receive more adequate handling. In 1853 it was resolved by the Corporation to deal with the whole question in a manner commensurate with the largely increased necessities of the case. The resolution took many years, however, to develop; and indeed it was not till 1886 that the now admirably organised system received its finishing touches.

There is only one administration for the poor in Berlin (die Städtische Armenpflege). It embraces the care of the homeless poor, the relief of the necessitous who have homes of their own, the care of orphans, the treatment of incurables, of imbeciles, and of the insane. It also extends to the assistance of persons in temporary distress by means of redeemable grants, to night asylums for the houseless, and to the correction of habitual offenders and per

VISITATION OF THE POOR.

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sons under the supervision of the police. Besides the Town Council, the department embraces no fewer than 2259 burghers, chosen from the municipal divisions of the city with special reference to their knowledge of their own localities. For the purpose of the relief of the poor the city is divided into 234 separate districts. In each district there is a committee of from four to twelve members, whose chairman is usually the councillor of the ward in which the district is situated. These committees make careful inquiry into each case as it comes before them for relief, and by frequent visits among the poor-as in the case of our own Destitute Sick Society the members satisfy themselves how far relief should be granted, continued, or withdrawn. Such visits are not left to paid officials of the department, and in this way there is an agreeable absence of the bumbledom that often discredits our poor administration at home. The department also provides about seventy-five physicians and surgeons, who visit the poor in their own homes, and to whom an annual allowance of from £60 to £90 is paid. Careful dis