USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > Quincy > Town annual report of Quincy 1882-1883 > Part 7
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$527 48
135
Certain bills for labor and material contracted before the Com- missioners were elected are not included in this report.
Very few projects for new streets have been regarded favorably by the Commissioners, for either the necessity seemed not to be pressing or the circumstances were such as to throw a dispro- portionate expense upon the public, the individuals benefited paying nothing for the improvement to their property. Of the latter class, for instance, was the extension of Maple Place to Hancock street, an improvement sure to be demanded in the future, but a part of the expense of which should be assessed to the abutters as a betterment. There is a growing class of such cases in the more citified parts of the town which would seem to require application of the betterment principle, and the Com- missioners therefore recommend that the inhabitants of Quincy accept the Sections from one to nine, inclusive, of Chapter fifty-one of the Public Statutes of Massachusetts.
SNOW.
The appropriation for clearing snow was $4500, of which $4,121.15 had been already expended before the Commissioners entered upon their duties.
They have been compelled, therfore, to exercise the closest possible economy to avoid incurring a very serious deficit.
They have managed to restrict their expenditure to about $400, of which $360.35 has been audited and paid as per Audi- tors report, and there remains the sum of about $40 which has not yet been returned and paid.
They think that at least $4,000 should be allowed for this ser- vice in the coming fiscal year.
NEPONSET BRIDGE.
The Commissioners have nothing to add to, or subtract from, their full report upon Neponset bridge heretofore submitted. Until some thorough plan of re-building can be settled, very ex- tensive patching is the only alternative. They have been com- pelled accordingly to make very heavy temporary repairs to keep the bridge tolerably safe for another year. It is old and much
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worn, and, of course, disproportionately expensive to maintain in its present condition.
We think that it will be necessary to lay out not less than one thousand dollars during the current year. The County Com- missioners have made no reply to the application of the town for aid in re-building, ordered by a late special town meeting, and are believed not to favor the proposal.
STREET LIGHTING.
The matter of street lighting has been for some time a problem of great and growing difficulty. The want of a clear and definite system of regulation had resulted in an expensive, inefficient and chaotic state of things.
The Commissioners presented the case to the town in a spe- cial and voluminous report, and were ordered thereupon to cease lighting such lanterns as seemed to serve a private convenience rather than a public need, and to restrict the number to be illuminated at the expense of the town to the money voted for that purpose.
This the Commissioners have done, although in so doing they have unavoidably aggrieved some persons who had been en- couraged by the votes of the town to erect lamp posts at spots where no public necessity was apparent for their maintenance.
On the whole, the Commission is clearly of opinion that the town must take into its own hands the whole matter of street lighting, if it is proposed to meddle with it at all, and place it under steady and competent supervision, itself owning all the plant necessary for the service and regulating the duty just as is done in Boston.
To that end they recommend that the Street Commissioners be authorized to establish and light at the expense of the town not more than four hundred lights at such points as the public cenvenience may demand, and that all persons now owning lamps or lamp posts lighted by the town shall continue to have the same lighted at the public charge, provided they shall assign their property therein absolutely to the town for the public service.
The Commissioners have expended for street lighting
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$3,070.23, of which $2,781.23 has been paid as per Auditor's re- port, and $288.29 has been audited and approved for payment.
Finally, the Commissioners, considering the duty expected of them by their fellow-citizens, advise the following specific action by the town in their department for the current year. That the sum of ten thousand dollars be appropriated for the ordinary maintenance and repair of highways for the year, with the under- standing that the Commissioners shall use a part thereof, not ex- ceeding two thousand dollars, for the salary of a Superintendent, if they can secure a competent man.
Further than this, in case the town should decide to enter upon a considerable job of macadamizing upon the class of ways requiring thorough reconstruction, a further sum of $15,000 will be required. Ten thousand dollars of this being for permanent machinery, could properly be raised by loan, payable by a regular contribution yearly to the sinking fund.
The balance of at least five thousand dollars would be required within the year to run the machinery to advantage and accom- plish something commensurate with the outlay.
J. Q. ADAMS, Chairman for the Commissioners.
REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON CARE OF THE TOWN POOR.
At the adjourned town meeting of March 27, 1882, it was voted that a committee be appointed to inquire into the causes " of the alarming increase in the cost of supporting the poor in this town, and to report a comprehensive system of dealing with the same."
The circumstances leading to this inquiry and the appoint- ment of your committee are perfectly well known. It is clearly within the memory of every tax-paying citizen of the town that for several years prior to the year 1881-82, the expenditures for care of the poor have been growing to alarming figures, culminat- ing in that year in the largest total expenditure of any year of the town's history ; and reaching an amount which exceeds that expended by any other town of equal size in the Commonwealth.
Of course this state of things could not long continue. The evil grew to a magnitude which could not fail to provoke inquiry, and in that way has helped to work for a time its own cure. The following list of towns, comprising all the towns in the Commonwealth equal to, or exceeding Quincy in population, with the total amount expended for the year ending March 31, 1882, by each for care of poor, tells its own story : -
Name.
Pop. 1880.
Total Exp'd.
North Adams,
10, 192
$4,261
Attleboro,
II,III
4,846
Northampton,
12,172
5,089
Marlboro,
10,126
5,539
Waltham,
II,7II
8,574
Pittsfield,
13,367
9,378
Woburn,
10,938
10,145
Chicopee,
11,325
10,256
Weymouth,
10,57I
11,177
Quincy,
10,529
11,850
(138)
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It will be seen by the foregoing table that while Quincy ranks eighth in scale of population, in scale of pauper expenditure it ranks first. Surely this is an undesirable pre-eminence, and may well justify the thorough investigation into the whole subject which the town has authorized. Your Committee have there- fore carefully examined the town documents that pertain to the past administration of its charity, with a view of obtaining such light as those records might afford. To mark the steps of the sure and steady growth of pauper expenditure the following table has been prepared.
Year.
Total Cost of Poor In Almshouse.
Total Cost of Poor out of
Grand Total Cost of Care of Poor.
Deduct value of Labor of Almshouse on Highways.
Net Cost of Care of Town Poor.
I865
$1977 52
$1898 85
$3876 37
$1772 63
$2103 74
I866
2934 96
2053 90
4988 86
1930 85
3058 OI
I867
3067 34
1706 84
4774 18
235° 45
2423 73
I868
2709 77
2304 3I
5014 08
2282 90
2731 18
1869
3410 37
2321 83
5732 20
2248 37
3483 83
1870
2645 52
2176 96
4822 48
1185 55
3636 93
1871
3036 67
2210 12
5246 79
1555 40
3691 39
1872
3391 49
4588 07
7979 56
1315 12
6664 44
1873
3070 84
3088 48
6159 32
II24 12
5035 20
1874
3424 75
3907 08
7431 83
1452 99
5978 84
1875
300I 3I
3996 96
6998 27
1616 24
5382 03
1876
5149 OI
5207 36
10,356 37
2626 50
7729 87
1877
3956 56
3880 85
7837 39
1742 II
6095 28
1878
3158 15
6352 83
9510 98
1715 87
7795 II
1879
3196 51
8329 54
11,526 05
1773 62
9752 43
1880
4358 66
7171 81
11,53º 47
2345 75
9184 72
1881
6546 93
7868 14
14,415 07
3064 96
11,350 II
Almshouse.
These figures have been taken from the successive town re- ports, which are open to inspection by anybody, and which reveal an increase of expense on account of care of the poor during the past decade (to go no farther back) of over 200 per cent. But large as are the figures for the year 1881-82, they are only par- tially stated in the table above. An examination instituted by your Committee into the accounts of the present Overseers of the Poor brought to light the fact that bills contracted in the year 1881-82, amounting in the aggregate to the large sum of over
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$2,500, were unpaid, and laid over for insertion in the accounts of the present year. Thus it is necessary to add to the sum set forth in the table (viz., $11,350) the further sum of $2,500.
But even this total does not represent the true state of the case. Readers of this report will notice in the table above given a certain amount credited to the almshouse account by reason of the labor of its inmates on the highways.
This item is always included in reports on cost of the alms- house establishment, the burden of which is made to appear con- siderably lessened thereby. Thus in the year we are considering, (viz., 1881-82,) we find an amount $3,064.96 stated in the report as the value of the labor of the paupers (and the use of horses and teams belonging to the almshouse) on the highways. Now it is hardly necessary to state that this item is largely fictitious. No one who is acquainted with the actual facts in regard to the labor of the poor upon the highways supposes for a moment that the item represents actual value received to at all the amount stated. The very fact that the larger the credit given for pau- per labor the better the showing for the almshouse account, fur- nishes a sufficient explanation of the appearance of this item in the yearly accounts, in the exaggerated form it assumes. Your committee, therefore, are of the opinion, after giving the subject a very careful consideration, that no error will be made if the amount credited to the almshouse for labor on the highways be reduced at least one-half, so that the account for the year (1881- 82) may be set out as follows : -
Cost of poor in almshouse, $6,546 93
Out-door relief, 7,868 14
Bills contracted but unpaid and laid over, 2,500 00
$16,915 07
Deduct value of pauper labor on highways, 1,500 00
Net cost of care of poor, $15,415 07
But it is not the extraordinary developments of any one year which form the subject of your Committee's investigation, but rather the system itself, which makes such developments possi-
14I
ble. Attention is accordingly directed to the mode in which the assistance of the town has been given to the poor outside of the almshouse, as furnishing a principal cause for the large yearly expenditure on pauper account. Of course all our citizens are acquainted with the general system of out-of-door relief, as it has been carried on in recent years, up to the time of the last annual town meeting. By giving people in necessitous circumstances (real or assumed) orders on the grocers and the provision deal- ers of the town, by supplying them with coal in winter, by paying their rent, etc., and then by charging the whole bill to the town, the item for expense for out-of-door relief has been augmented to the formidable total we see. Though the public may be pre- sumed to be familiar with this system in its general features, it may be doubted if they are cognizant of the extravagance into which it was leading the town. As a matter of fact, the number of families becoming year by year dependent upon the assistance derived from the town had become larger and larger, many indi- viduals claiming as a matter of right a kind of annual subsidy.
Uuquestionably, so long as the town was content to administer its charity in this manner, there was no assignable point at which the amount to be expended could be expected to finally stop. In the nature of things, relief that comes thus easily tends to breed the very distemper it is meant to cure. The greater the relief afforded in this way, the greater is the demand for relief There is no limit to it. The public money so expended is worse than thrown away. It is used to foster and nourish the very ills, social and political, which it is intended to alleviate. Not only is a native race of mendicants developed, who look upon the town as an institution owing them a support for which they make no return ; but the born mendicants of other towns, the charities of which are better regulated, find their way with unerring certainty to the beggar's haven-of-rest.
Probably no greater misfortune could befall a thrifty com- munity than to have some charitably disposed person give it a large sum, the income of which should be annually distributed in alms. Unless most carefully administered under constant and rigid supervision it would put a premium on mendicancy, and a penalty on thrift and self-respect. Large and carelessly
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distributed town appropriations operate in exactly the same way ; they are a curse to the careless and good-natured community which tolerates them.
Not only do they impose a heavy burden of taxation on the thrifty, but the large expenditure soon develops a political influ- ence interested in perpetuating and increasing it. The owner of tenement-house looks to the town as his best paying tenant ; and the grocer, the provision dealer, the apothecary and the coal dealer come to regard it as one of their largest customers. Thus thrift, prudence, self-denial and self-respect are broken down on the one side, and professional mendicancy and bad political influ- ence are built up on the other. The sturdy, persistent beggar grows fat and prospers, while that pride and decent self-respect which recoils at the idea of accepting public alms is looked upon as a ridiculous tradition of the superannuated past.
All this, however, though very much to the point in connec- tion with the system of public alms-giving practiced during re- cent years in Quincy, is by no means new. It has been said many times before in the history of municipal charity. It will, however, none the less have to be very often repeated hereafter. In this matter the tendency to laxness is always felt. It is a great deal easier, and a thousand times pleasanter, to give than to refuse. Nevertheless, the first principle in any system of well-administered public charities is that a rigid scrutiny and careful checking should always accompany every case of relief. It must ever be borne in mind that, to be useful, charity should be exceptional. It should help people only until they can help themselves, and the moment they can help themselves it should be withdrawn. On the other hand, the way of the habitual men- dicant should be made very hard. The well-ordered workhouse is his proper place.
The recent experience of the town which led to the appoint- ment of your Committee is by no means new. Upon referring to the records we find that seventy years ago a similar commit- tee was appointed by the town under almost exactly the same circumstances, and they made a series of reports which cover the whole ground, and are just as applicable to-day as they were then. Then, as now, the system of miscellaneous out-door
143
relief had been long in use, and had led to those consequences to which it seems invariably to lead. The cost of maintaining the town's poor grew year by year until some measure of radical reform became a social necessity. The old almshouse, now re- cently vacated, was in consequence built, and the whole system of out-door alms was swept away. Five years later, the committee having the matter in charge reported as follows, and the conclu- sions arrived at by them are so entirely similar to those arrived at by us, that we give them in their own words :-
" The system of providing for the poor by means of an almshouse has been in operation in this town about five years, and whilst the poor have been better taken care of, the town by the arrangement has saved more than $4000. The experiment has succeeded beyond our most sanguine expectations, both as it respects the better condition of the poor and the reduction of expense. If, however, these benefits are to be continued, the system of providing for the poor only in the house must be strictly adhered to ; if you depart from it in one instance, how will you discriminate ? How can you justly refuse to all who may re- quire your aid and indulgence what you grant to a few? The evils of pauperism - the causes and remedies - have been the subject of leg- islative investigation, and it appears by a very able report on the pau- per laws, made to the Legislature at their last session by an intelli- gent committee who availed themselves of information obtained from a large proportion of the towns in the state, that the experience both of England and Massachusetts concur in the following results : -
That of all modes of providing for the poor, the most wasteful, the most expensive, the most injurious to their morals and destructive of their industrious habits, is that of supply in their own families ; that the most economical mode is that of almshouses, having the character of houses of industry, where the able poor are made to provide partially, at least, for their own support, and to the comfort of the impotent poor.
Your committee would also call your attention to our own experience the past year. An average of eighteen persons have been maintained in the almshouse for $540.50, whilst the expense of providing for one person out of the house was $204.99, a sum nearly equal to one-half the cost of the whole almshouse establishment. Your committee are aware that a discretionary power must rest with the Overseers, that in some cases supplies must be afforded to persons who are unable, or who cannot with safety be removed ; but if the town are satisfied with their
144
present system, and wish to derive from it all the advantages and bene fits which they may confidently expect, this power in the Overseers must, and your Committee trust will be, exercised with great caution, prudence and judgment."
The reform effected in 1816 would seem to have sufficed for over fifty years. Not until after the War of the Rebellion did the old evil reappear in such a shape as to call for decisive town action. That it did so appear a few years since, the figures already given from the town reports are ample evidence. Dur- ing the year 1881-2 the evil may be said to have become fairly unbearable, as is apparent from the report of that year, which shows on account of outside relief : - $230 paid for medicines, to seven apothecaries ; - $507 paid for medical attendance, to five doctors ; - $775 paid for fuel, to three coal dealers ; - $1,575 paid as rent or for board of poor to thirty-four persons ; - and $2,180 paid for supplies bought at twenty-seven stores ; - with some $2,500 in unpaid bills carried over to the next year. This was certainly carrying the principle of out-door relief to its ultimate consequences, and accordingly at the last annual town meeting two important votes were passed. The first was that all provisions and grocers' supplies which were to be given to the poor should be given directly from the alms- house from stores there provided. The second was that the Overseers of the Poor should act in co-operation with the Board of Associated Charities, so far as possible. During the past year, accordingly, a new system has been inaugurated, and car- ried out with a remarkable degree of success.
Supplies have been purchased at wholesale, stored at the alms- house, and dispensed to applicants only after a careful investiga- tion of the circumstances of each case. And here the co-opera- tion of the Board of Associated Charities has been found to be of the greatest service. Whenever application is made to the town for assistance, the procedure is as follows : A careful inquiry is made into the circumstances of the person or persons for whom aid is solicited ; such assistance is then rendered as the actual facts of the case show to be proper and suitable, and an accu- rate registry is kept of the kind and amount of that assistance.
.
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The result has been of a most salutary and encouraging char- acter. Frauds hitherto perpetrated upon the town-in some in- stances the grossest imposition having been practiced year after year-have been unearthed and brought to an end ; undeserving cases have been detected and cut off, so that the ultimate effect of the adoption of the new system has been a restriction of the town's charity to deserving and proper cases. Nor has this been accomplished by making the condition of the poor less tolerable or less comfortable than it has been in previous years, or than it would have been under the old system. It has been the exact reverse. In fact, it may be affirmed that in no previous year have the poor of the town been more carefully looked after, and their wants more fully supplied, than in the year just closed. This is the legitimate effect of the operation of the new system carried out by careful and efficient town officers, aided by the Board of Associated Charities.
That it has achieved these good results at a vastly less ex- pense than that incurred in previous years, is only what might fairly have been expected from the substitution of a good, well- regulated system for that which it displaced. In order, however, to assure themselves on this point, your Committee, in the performance of their duties, have examined so far as they could into the accounts of the present Overseers of the Poor. We are informed that no bills are now outstanding to be met from the appropriations of the coming year. There is no credit for labor on highways. The amount actually expended on account of the almshouse has been $4,944.93 ; that for poor outside of almshouse, $5,174.51, which includes bills remaining over from previous year, as already stated. The excess of expenditure over the appropriation ($10,000) was $119.44. The town is thus free from debt on this score, and, as compared with 1881-2, a saving equal to about $7,500 a year has been effected.
Your Committee would also direct special attention to another very important matter in connection with this question of the care of the poor, and that is the subject of children at the alms- house. Hitherto it has not been an uncommon thing for the town to be supporting at the almshouse a dozen or more of children. At the beginning of the present year (1882-3) there (10 Q)
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were fourteen of them there. Surely no future can be more hopeless than that of children reared in such a way. Poor-house surroundings, at best, are such as necessarily to deprive the young of those healthy and inspiring influences which are so essential to their proper development.
It is a subject, therefore, of peculiar gratification to your Com- mittee to report that through the exertions of the Overseers of the Poor, in conjunction with the Board of Associated Charities, and aided to a very marked degree by the Catholic clergy of the town, these little ones have all been provided for in good homes, many of them in private families, where they may have a fair opportunity to become worthy and useful members of the com- munity.
The vote under which your Committee was appointed directed that a comprehensive system be reported for dealing with the whole subject of the pauperism of the town. After having carefully looked over the whole field, and having examined the workings of the system adopted and carried out during the past year, your Committee take pleasure in saying that this system, faithfully administered, appears to them to contain all, or nearly all, the desirable features of a good, practical scheme of poor relief.
The duties of the Overseers of the Poor have been separated from those of the Surveyors of the Highways, and the accounts of the two have in no way been run the one into the other. They should in future be kept distinct. The town of Quincy has wholly passed that period of municipal development in which the roads can be properly cared for by pauper labor, for which they are charged, and the almshouse credited, at the full rate which would be paid for able-bodied workmen. Whoever, therefore, in future has charge of the roads, the accounts of the roads and accounts for care of the poor should be kept distinct. Besides separating these accounts, through the action of the town in selecting a Board of Road Commissioners, the Overseers of the Poor have, during the past year, worked in thorough harmony with the Associated Charities, and between them that has been actually accomplished, or is now in course of accom- plishment, which it would have been the duty of your Committee to recommend. It has been accomplished, too, in a thorough
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