By referencing the communications received from the authorities of the different towns in the State, in answer to the queries proposed, it will be seen that four different modes are pursued by the towns in maintaining their poor.

1st. By venduing them to the lowest bidder,

2d. By contracting for their maintenance, with an individual, or individuals, through the agency of a committee or otherwise,

3d. By placing all the poor in one Asylum, owned by the town,

4th. By placing all such in an Asylum as are bereft of home and friends, and administering out-door relief to such as have.

The cruelties and injustices of the first mentioned of these systems – that of venduing the poor and compelling them to live with the man who will take them off the town for the least sum, is so obvious, that it seems almost insulting to the understanding, to attempt to prove it wrong. We are all more or less, creatures of habit. By becoming familiar with the most hideous objects, they lose in our eyes, half their deformity. And this tendency in our nature is, perhaps, all that can be offered in palliation of this wretched system. When stripped of all disguise, selling the poor to the lowest bidder, is simply offering a reward for the most cruel and avaricious man that can be found to abuse them. Without making continual sacrifices from year to year, it is impossible under such a system, that a conscientious man should long continue to be their care-taker. Supposing that by accident or otherwise, a humane man should become their purchaser – he would feel it his duty not only to lodge and feed them well, but likewise to clothe them well. As the annual sale draws near, the avaricious eye of an unprincipled townsman has inventoried their apparel. With scarcely the addition of a patch it can be made, in his estimation, to cover the nakedness of his intended victims another whole year. His bidding in town is graduated accordingly, against that of their present keeper, whose conscience would compel him to keep the clothing of the poor constantly good, and thus, unless he is both able and willing to submit to annual sacrifices, he must surrender the poor into one that buys them to obtain a reward by their oppression. But, say the advocates of the system, (perhaps,) we allow none but good me to bid them off, we appoint committees to visit the poor, and we take bonds of their keeper that they shall be well treated. This may sound very well to an inexperienced ear, but really it is but adding the sin of mockery the still more heinous sin of oppressing and selling the poor. Bad men are not unfrequently good politicians. Such often hold the balance in power in small towns; and who, especially when party spirit runs high, let me ask, is to throw themselves between such men and their prey, should they resolve to purchase the poor themselves, or confer them on a partisan of dubious politics but of undisputed depravity. The very man, in all probability, through whose influence the poor have thus been sold to secure a wavering vote, becomes both the surety and overseer of their keeper. This system is mainly practiced in agricultural towns, and let me ask, is there a man in any one of these, who aspires to the name of a farmer, who would in any contingency, offer his cattle at auction to be kept by the lowest bidder, and depend solely for their treatment on such security as taken for that of their pauper poor? Would he not ridicule such a proposition? Would not the strong common sense that seems native to our soil, instinctively teach him, that no bonds nor supervision could compel a dishonest man to fulfill such a contract to his own injury. There would be a cheat somewhere. Bog hay would be substituted for English; or the straw on which it was contracted the cattle should lie would be given to them for provender. It is high time that this miserable system of venduing the poor, revolting alike to common humanity and to every precept of the Christian religion, was abolished in our land. Out of it have grown some of the most dreadful abuses that have ever been perpetrated on man on his fellow man. Through it, numberless open as well as secret and unheard of cruelties have been inflicted on poor, feeble, helpless, down-trodden, broken –spirited fellow mortals – placed by their afflictions and misfortunes beyond the pale of our civil, legal, social, and religious institutions; delivered over to be tormented, by the most cruel of their species, with no friend on earth to appeal to, with none to complain to, save the righteous God in Heaven, who has promised that he will hear the cry of poor and needy, and fearfully avenge their wrongs. Doubtless there are instances (and I have seen such) where the poor have been and are now made comfortable under this system, but such instances form exceptions rather than make a general rule.

The method adopted by some towns of contracting with individuals to keep their poor, making their comfort the first and prominent object, is far less objectionable than that of venduing; and when carried out in good faith and in a liberal spirit, is perhaps quite as good a system as that adopted by towns that own Asylums, where the poor are compelled to go without distinction. To separate an old person from a home that they have long been accustomed to, be it ever so homely, is very much like tearing an old tree from the ground, be it ever so poor, in which it has grown. Though you convey the one to a more splendid house, and transplant the other into a more genial soil, they will both, in all probability soon wither and die. It is cruel when the few grains of sand are running low in life's glass, to rend an old man from the discomforts, (if you please,) of a home around which are entwined the cherished remembrances of his childhood's days, and send him away to die. Better leave him to breathe his last sigh where his first breath was drawn to look for the last time on the sun from the window, through which he first gazed at its beams.

The 4th named system, adopted by some towns, viz: to own an Asylum to which all persons who are destitute of a home and friends are sent, and to administer out-door relief to such as have, is probably the most humane and Christian-like plan that in the present state of society, can be persued. It is urged by some against this plan, that by adopting it, the public is liable to be subjected to imposition. To meet this it might be said, that other plans subject the poor to impositions, which they are quite as unable to bear as the public. It is a maxim, I believe, in law, that it is better that nine guilty persons should escape, than one innocent person should be condemned. This is a sound Christian-like maxim, and one that will apply as well in our relations with the poor, as with criminals, nay, far more so, for in most cases of imposition practiced by the poor on the public, the agents of the public are a party to them, in some degree. They sometimes designedly connive at what they know to be an imposition, to save trouble or silence importunity, or they designedly betray their trust to gratify friendly feelings, or minister to of the thousand little hidden and indescribable ramifications of selfishness, that pervade the social fabric. No individual or community was ever yet made poor by the practice of a liberal, discriminating charity, carried out in good faith, void of any selfish motives luring at heart, and founded solely on love to God and his creatures. Look where we will, we shall find that those communities that are the most forward in promoting good and liberal things, are ever the most prosperous, even in pecuniary affairs, and by far the most blessed in other respects. They are twice blessed, in blessing others, they are blessed themselves. They give unto the poor, and it is returned to them again; good measure pressed down, shaken together and running over.

I feel great confidence in recommending this mixed plan of granting relief of their poor, to every town in the State which has not yet adopted it. In building an Asylum, I would recommend that it should be placed on a public road, and on good land if it is to be procured , such as is suited to garden and fruit culture, that the inmates of the house should not be obliged to go far to their work, and expose themselves to the vicissitudes of the weather, far from any shelter. Being situated on a road renders the house easy of access to the public, and brings its affairs more or less before the people who pass it, this operates as a safeguard in some measure for the good treatment of the poor. Besides these advantages, the passing and little incidents that occur on the road tend not a little to dissipate the tediousness that often connects itself with the monotonous life the old and decrepit are forced to lead. There may be counter advantages in some instances, that would render a situation off the road, and perhaps near the water, preferable; but I believe that such will not often occur. Every citizen of the town should take an interest in their Asylum and occasionally visit it – which they will not be liable to do so often if it be located in a place difficult of access, as they would if situated on a road that they necessarily pass in attending to their daily concerns.

Transcription (C) 2002, William Saslow from:
[1] Thomas R. Hazard, Report on The Poor and Insane in Rhode Island; Made to the General Assembly at its January Session, 1851, Providence: Joseph Knowles, State Printer, 1851, pps 85-89.