Welfare History

I just started reading A Christmas Carol today. It doesn't even belong to me, but my 13 yr old daughter. I don't know where she got it but she sure didn't buy it with her own money. She's written her name inside the front cover or I wouldn't even have known where it came from. I had forgotten that it was even a book, not a movie, and that it was written by Charles Dickens. I once started reading his book Hard Times and found it extremely boring. That being said, I remember the beginning with the evil teacher refusing to address little girl by Sissy, saying it wasn't a real name. It's strange that a small section of a book that I quit reading should be so burned in my memory.

I was only through a couple of pages in the first stave (he calls them staves, not chapters, keeping with the "carol" theme of the title) but something caught my eye: "Poor Laws". And yes, he capitalized them, making me think these were government laws about the poor. "Welfare laws in the 1800s England? Nah," I thought. I kept reading the book but, in the middle of the rising action, as Marley's ghost haunts poor Scrooge, bells ringing, chains banging, all I could think about was those dang Poor Laws.

I'm such a boring person that I looked them up to tell you about them.

It seems the Poor Laws were in fact, welfare laws. Charles Dickens wrote his book in the 1840s and they were already well established. The first Poor Laws were passed as far back as the 1500s.

From The Victorian Web:

1563 — Justices of the Peace were authorised and empowered to raise compulsory funds for the relief of the poor and, for the first time, the poor were put into different categories

those who would work but could not: these were the able-bodied or deserving poor. They were to be given help either through outdoor relief or by being given work in return for a wage.

those who could work but would not: these were the idle poor. They were to be whipped through the streets, publicly, until they learned the error of their ways.

those who were too old/ill/young to work: these were the impotent or deserving poor. They were to be looked after in almshouses, hospitals, orphanages or poor houses. Orphans and children of the poor were to be given a trade apprenticeship so that they would have a trade to pursue when they grew up.

I can't help but laugh at the relief given to the idle poor.

A flurry of laws passed in the 1500s were consolidated into the Elizabethan Poor Laws of 1601. The Law authorized the raising of funds, opened alms houses and orphanages, and gave relief to people out of work. The idle poor weren't whipped though the streets anymore, but sent to workhouses. It also put responsibility on families.

Part of the 1601 Law said that poor parents and children were responsible for each other, so elderly parents were expected to live with their children for example.

I'm glad to say that my family still holds to this. It is an aberration of our society that children don't want to take care of their parents and that seniors think that they can get by on their own.

But the history of welfare goes back even further than the 1500s. In False Economy, I read about the grain welfare distributed by the Roman Empire. The grain was bought cheaply from the Egyptians, sailed across the Mediterranean to Rome, and distributed to poor Roman citizens. The cost of transporting the grain overland was astronomical and welfare was restricted only to those in the city. This, of course, led to the city suddenly surging with population of poor folks from the country. I can't remember exactly but I believe that the statistic presented was that at one time 300,000 of a city population of 1,000,000 were on grain welfare. It's simply astonishing how the Roman Senate failured to recognize the ramifications of their law.

I did ask myself "Where is the Church in all this? Wasn't the church the one that took care of the poor?" I've never really studied the transition of the care of the poor from the church to the government. Historically, the church has been in charge of the poor and The Victorian Web points out this change:

Before the Reformation, it was considered to be a religious duty for all Christians to undertake the seven corporal works of mercy. These were deeds aimed at relieving bodily distress: in accordance with the teaching of Jesus (Matthew 25 vv. 32-46) people were to

feed the hungry
give drink to the thirsty
welcome the stranger
clothe the naked
visit the sick
visit the prisoner
bury the dead

After the Reformation and the establishment of the Church of England, many of the old values and moral expectations disappeared so it became necessary to regulate the relief of poverty by law.

A change in morals, values disappearing brought about new laws and taxes to take care of the poor? That sounds strangely familiar. The great Roman Empire setting laws that cause a flood of immigrants to the city? Hmm, I've heard this song before. The fact is the Bible treats this very simply: "Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?" 1 Corinthians 1:20. All our wise programs fail to the simplicity that God asked of us.

In A Christmas Carol, Scrooge and his unnamed clerk receive two visitors in his business before heading home: his overly happy nephew and two gentlemen collecting donations for the poor. The nephew is the family, still taking care of, still loving his crotchety old family. The two men represent charity. The nephew puts up a great defense,

"And therefore, Uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my
pocket, I believe it has done be good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless
it!"

When confronted by the gentlemen asking for charity, Scrooge hides behind the law saying:

"Are there no prisons? ... "And the Union workhouses, are they still in
operation? ... The Treadmill and Poor Law are in full vigor, then?"

As we all know the ending already, Scrooge learns to love again. He learns to love his family, both his nephew and the lowly unnamed clerk, Bob Cratchit. He learns to give charitably, the giving of ourselves above and beyond the call of the law. We need to take care of our family, no matter how hard, and yes, good things will come of the work. We can't hide behind our social security and fica taxes, saying that we already give to charity. It seems we all have a bit of Scrooge in us and so this small book becomes a great lesson to us even today.

Reading List

I just started reading Texas Women on the Cattle Trails. Yes, I'm a little weird. I read non-fiction instead of just fiction. In high school just glancing at the non-fiction section would give me the heebie-jeebies. Why would anybody voluntarily read a boring book? Why did the book stores even stock them? Did people actually buy, take them home, and read them more than once????

Shortly after I got married, I found myself wandering the non-fiction at the public library. I rarely go back to fiction stories as I'm always halfway through the story when the author decides to throw in something nasty to ruin a good story. Bleh. If it's gonna be dirty, real life is the way to go then!

The first story in the book is about Kate Malone Medlin. She was born in Kentucky but got to Texas as fast as she could, age 7 to be exact. She grew up in Denton County and was apparently quite a lovely lady.

In 1855 Kate, at seventeen, had attracted the interest of a local German, who asked to marry her. When Kate's mother, Polly, refused the offer, the infuriated man shot Polly and mortally wounded her. Kate's father rushed to his wife's defense, wrestled the gun from the man, and beat him over the head with the gun, breaking the man's neck and killing him.

She later married Jarrett Medlin and they had three kids with another on the way when the civil war was going on. Jarrett left to join the Confederacy and the pay just wasn't enough, or wasn't there at all, and all the mothers of the time just had to make do.

The war was hard on the women of the county, who were kept busy spinning and weaving their "own dresses; they looked awefully coarse and ugly, as many of us had never woven any cloth, much less worn such shoddy looking goods. "

Kate's husband died of measles and exposure during the war and she was a widow with four children. Her extended family decided to drive cattle to California to make a buck and she, not having any other family, decided to join them. That simple, totally based on need decision, for her family's survival, is what had her lined up in a wagon on the morning of April 15, 1868 to cross the wilds of the American West.

"Once out into the frontier of Texas amid the cattle range, we stayed there long enough to gather enough stock to bring with us, which took until the 3rd of May. Then we started for California with our string of seven wagons."

Did you know that's how the Texas cattle drives got their cattle? Yup, they just walked out and gathered them from the plains. Oops- you might have just learned something from a non-fiction book!

Driving 1800 head of cattle can cause some problems. One of the problems was a three day stretch of land with no watering holes at all. The horses and oxen stock were kept watered but not the cattle. After three days of traveling the cattle got their first whiff of water and went mad trying to get it. The herders tried to stop them because the water was bad; many drank anyway, dieing so fast they they didn't even crawl out of the water holes. When they finally reached the Pecos river, the animals pushed other off of cliffs and into quicksand to get to the river. Half of their herd died from water troubles.

Their leadership, the man elected captain, was also very poor.

Having selected a captain and given him decision-making authority on the trail, they set off heading west to California. As they neared the cutoff for the fort where they had planned to get provisions and ammunitions, the captain, expressing assurance for their safety, decided not to go to the fort but rather to continue on to find sufficient grass and water for the livestock. Hall Medlin, Kate, and the others went along with the captain and thus were not equipped with the needed guns, ammunition, and food for the ordeals that lay ahead.

Oh yeah, you need guns and hands. Why?

"So we started to our doom and I felt as though we were going into trouble as we had heard that the Indians had taken a large herd of cattle only three days before. This, our Captain did not believe, but I did, as we could see find beef cattle along the roadside. The Indians had secured them from the train ahead and had let them scatter out on the range to feed."

And, yes, the Indians came. "INDIANS!"

"I quickly placed my children and my sister's children in my wagon and put my feather beds around them, as I had heard that bullets would not go through feathers."

Kate was all ready to grab a gun and start firing at the Indians but the men had other plans for them. Oh, you're probably thinking, "They had them loading the guns while they fired."

Kate grabbed her old Enfield rifle, but the men told the women to make bullets for their few weapons. ... The women melted lead and then poured the hot metal into the molds and, after a quick cooling, passed the bullets to the men, who were reloading as fast as possible.

After the fight, the women went ahead to town while the men tried to gather what was left of their cattle. For two weeks, they had to beg for food but were told they were lucky to be alive.

Along the way, a relative died from complications of a pulled back. He was trying to lift a wagon out of the mud. Kate's daughter Sarah was also hurt.

One day Kate's daughter Sarah was walking by the side of the wagon. While attempting to climb back inside, she fell underneath the front wheel, which ran her over, breaking her leg and thigh. Hall Medlin had to sell one yoke of oxen, worth $25, to pay for a doctor in Yuma to set her thighbone.

See, doctors have always been expensive.

They did make it to California but the trip was a "financial disaster." They were lucky and happy to be alive and life continued. I did find this note very interesting.

Kate, as was common at the time, married her late husband's older brother, Marion.

Though I know re-marrying into the same family has it's roots in the Bible, I had no idea that it been continued in the American West. If you already have kids though, it makes perfect sense. As modern day divorced women can tell you, it's hard to find a man that cares for somebody else's kids. But with family, a bond between the man and children has already formed, and often a friendship bond between the widow and members of his family.

Final thought from Kate concerning her journey:

"I tell you, the women of California don't know what hard work is. We women of Texas had worked both indoors and outdoors when needed, which was often during the Civil War."

Last thought: Don't you suddenly feel inspired to go buy this from Busted Tees?