by Daniel Defoe
at the time of their entering 5s. down with 1s. 4d. per quarter,
which is to the setting up and support of an office with clerks and
all proper officers for the same; for there is no maintaining such
without charge. They receive every one of them a certificate sealed
by the secretary of the office, and signed by the governors, for the
articles hereafter mentioned:
If any one of the women become a widow at any time after six months
from the date of her subscription, upon due notice given, and claim
made at the office in form as shall be directed, she shall receive
within six mouths after such claim made the sum of 500 pounds in
money without any deductions, saving some small fees to the
officers, which the trustees must settle, that they may be known.
In consideration of this, every woman so subscribing obliges herself
to pay, as often as any member of the society becomes a widow, the
due proportion or share, allotted to her to pay towards the 500
pounds for the said widow, provided her share does not exceed the
sum of 5s.
No seamen's or soldiers' wives to be accepted into such a proposal
as this, on the account before mentioned, because the contingencies
of their lives are not equal to others--unless they will admit this
general exception, supposing they do not die out of the kingdom.
It might also be an exception that if the widow that claimed had
really, bona fide, left her by her husband to her own use, clear of
all debts and legacies, 2,000 pounds, she should have no claim, the
intent being to aid the poor, not add to the rich. But there lie a
great many objections against such an article, as -
1. It may tempt some to forswear themselves.
2. People will order their wills so as to defraud the exception.
One exception must be made, and that is, either very unequal matches
(as when a woman of nineteen marries an old man of seventy), or
women who have infirm husbands--I mean, known and publicly so; to
remedy which two things are to be done:
1. The office must have moving officers without doors, who shall
inform themselves of such matters, and if any such circumstances
appear, the office should have fourteen days' time to return their
money and declare their subscriptions void.
2. No woman whose husband had any visible distemper should claim
under a year after her subscription.
One grand objection against this proposal is, how you will oblige
people to pay either their subscription or their quarterage.
To this I answer, by no compulsion (though that might be performed
too), but altogether voluntary; only with this argument to move it,
that if they do not continue their payments, they lose the benefit
of their past contributions.
I know it lies as a fair objection against such a project as this,
that the number of claims are so uncertain that nobody knows what
they engage in when they subscribe, for so many may die annually out
of two thousand as may make my payment 20 pounds or 25 pounds per
annum; and if a woman happen to pay that for twenty years, though
she receives the 500 pounds at last, she is a great loser; but if
she dies before her husband, she has lessened his estate
considerably, and brought a great loss upon him.
First, I say to this that I would have such a proposal as this be so
fair and so easy, that if any person who had subscribed found the
payments too high and the claims fall too often, it should be at
their liberty at any time, upon notice given, to be released, and
stand obliged no longer; and, if so, volenti non fit injuria. Every
one knows best what their own circumstances will bear.
In the next place, because death is a contingency no man can
directly calculate, and all that subscribe must take the hazard; yet
that a prejudice against this notion may not be built on wrong
grounds, let us examine a little the probable hazard, and see how
many shall die annually out of 2,000 subscribers, accounting by the
common proportion of burials to the number of the living.
Sir William Petty, in his political arithmetic, by a very ingenious
calculation, brings the account of burials in London to be one in
forty annually, and proves it by all the proper rules of
proportioned computation; and I will take my scheme from thence.
If, then, one in forty of all the people in England die, that
supposes fifty to die every year out of our two thousand
subscribers; and for a woman to contribute 5s. to every one, would
certainly be to agree to pay 12 pounds 10s. per annum. upon her
husband's life, to receive 500 pounds when he died, and lose it if
she died first; and yet this would not be a hazard beyond reason too
great for the gain.
But I shall offer some reasons to prove this to be impossible in our
case: first, Sir William Petty allows the city of London to contain
about a million of people, and our yearly bill of mortality never
yet amounted to 25,000 in the most sickly years we have had (plague
years excepted); sometimes but to 20,000, which is but one in fifty.
Now it is to be considered here that children and ancient people
make up, one time with another, at least one-third of our bills of
mortality, and our assurances lie upon none but the middling age of
the people, which is the only age wherein life is anything steady;
and if that be allowed, there cannot die by his computation above
one in eighty of such people every year; but because I would be sure
to leave room for casualty, I will allow one in fifty shall die out
of our number subscribed.
Secondly, it must be allowed that our payments falling due only on
the death of husbands, this one in fifty must not be reckoned upon
the two thousand, for it is to be supposed at least as many women
shall die as men, and then there is nothing to pay; so that one in
fifty upon one thousand is the most that I can suppose shall claim
the contribution in a year, which is twenty claims a year at 5s.
each, and is 5 pounds per annum. And if a woman pays this for
twenty years, and claims at last, she is gainer enough, and no
extraordinary loser if she never claims at all. And I verily
believe any office might undertake to demand at all adventures not
above 6 pounds per annum, and secure the subscriber 500 pounds in
case she come to claim as a widow.
I forbear being more particular on this thought, having occasion to
be larger in other prints, the experiment being resolved upon by
some friends who are pleased to think this too useful a project not
to be put in execution, and therefore I refer the reader to the
public practice of it.
I have named these two cases as special experiments of what might be
done by assurances in way of friendly society; and I believe I
might, without arrogance, affirm that the same thought might be
improved into methods that should prevent the general misery and
poverty of mankind, and at once secure us against beggars, parish
poor, almshouses, and hospitals; and by which not a creature so
&n
bsp; miserable or so poor but should claim subsistence as their due, and
not ask it of charity.
I cannot believe any creature so wretchedly base as to beg of mere
choice, but either it must proceed from want or sordid prodigious
covetousness; and thence I affirm there can be no beggar but he
ought to be either relieved or punished, or both. If a man begs for
more covetousness without want, it is a baseness of soul so
extremely sordid as ought to be used with the utmost contempt, and
punished with the correction due to a dog. If he begs for want,
that want is procured by slothfulness and idleness, or by accident;
if the latter, he ought to be relieved; if the former, he ought to
be punished for the cause, but at the same time relieved also, for
no man ought to starve, let his crime be what it will.
I shall proceed, therefore, to a scheme by which all mankind, be he
never so mean, so poor, so unable, shall gain for himself a just
claim to a comfortable subsistence whosoever age or casualty shall
reduce him to a necessity of making use of it. There is a poverty
so far from being despicable that it is honourable, when a man by
direct casualty, sudden Providence, and without any procuring of his
own, is reduced to want relief from others, as by fire, shipwreck,
loss of limbs, and the like.
These are sometimes so apparent that they command the charity of
others; but there are also many families reduced to decay whose
conditions are not so public, and yet their necessities as great.
Innumerable circumstances reduce men to want; and pressing poverty
obliges some people to make their cases public, or starve; and from
thence came the custom of begging, which sloth and idleness has
improved into a trade. But the method I propose, thoroughly put in
practice, would remove the cause, and the effect would cease of
course.
Want of consideration is the great reason why people do not provide
in their youth and strength for old age and sickness; and the
ensuing proposal is, in short, only this--that all persons in the
time of their health and youth, while they are able to work and
spare it, should lay up some small inconsiderable part of their
gettings as a deposit in safe hands, to lie as a store in bank to
relieve them, if by age or accident they come to be disabled, or
incapable to provide for themselves; and that if God so bless them
that they nor theirs never come to need it, the overplus may be
employed to relieve such as shall.
If an office in the same nature with this were appointed in every
county in England, I doubt not but poverty might easily be
prevented, and begging wholly suppressed.
THE PROPOSAL IS FOR A PENSION OFFICE.
That an office be erected in some convenient place, where shall be a
secretary, a clerk, and a searcher, always attending.
That all sorts of people who are labouring people and of honest
repute, of what calling or condition soever, men or women (beggars
and soldiers excepted), who, being sound of their limbs and under
fifty years of age, shall come to the said office and enter their
names, trades, and places of abode into a register to be kept for
that purpose, and shall pay down at the time of the said entering
the sum of sixpence, and from thence one shilling per quarter, shall
every one have an assurance under the seal of the said office for
these following conditions:
1. Every such subscriber, if by any casualty (drunkenness and
quarrels excepted) they break their limbs, dislocate joints, or are
dangerously maimed or bruised, able surgeons appointed for that
purpose shall take them into their care, and endeavour their cure
gratis.
2. If they are at any time dangerously sick, on notice given to the
said office able physicians shall be appointed to visit them, and
give their prescriptions gratis.
3. If by sickness or accident, as aforesaid, they lose their limbs
or eyes, so as to be visibly disabled to work, and are otherwise
poor and unable to provide for themselves, they shall either be
cured at the charge of the office, or be allowed a pension for
subsistence during life.
4. If they become lame, aged, bedrid, or by real infirmity of body
are unable to work, and otherwise incapable to provide for
themselves, on proof made that it is really and honestly so they
shall be taken into a college or hospital provided for that purpose,
and be decently maintained during life.
5. If they are seamen, and die abroad on board the merchants' ships
they were employed in, or are cast away and drowned, or taken and
die in slavery, their widows shall receive a pension during their
widowhood.
6. If they were tradesmen and paid the parish rates, if by decay
and failure of trade they break and are put in prison for debt, they
shall receive a pension for subsistence during close imprisonment.
7. If by sickness or accidents they are reduced to extremities of
poverty for a season, on a true representation to the office they
shall be relieved as the governors shall see cause.
It is to be noted that in the fourth article such as by sickness and
age are disabled from work, and poor, shall be taken into the house
and provided for; whereas in the third article they who are blind or
have lost limbs, &c., shall have pensions allowed them.
The reason of this difference is this:
A poor man or woman that has lost his hand, or leg, or sight, is
visibly disabled, and we cannot be deceived; whereas other
infirmities are not so easily judged of, and everybody would be
claiming a pension, when but few will demand being taken into a
hospital but such as are really in want.
And that this might be managed with such care and candour as a
design which carries so good a face ought to be, I propose the
following method for putting it into practice:
I suppose every undertaking of such a magnitude must have some
principal agent to push it forward, who must manage and direct
everything, always with direction of the governors.
And first I will suppose one general office erected for the great
parishes of Stepney and Whitechapel; and as I shall lay down
afterwards some methods to oblige all people to come in and
subscribe, so I may be allowed to suppose here that all the
inhabitants of those two large parishes (the meaner labouring sort,
I mean) should enter their names, and that the number of them should
be 100,000, as I believe they would be at least.
First, there should be named fifty of the principal inhabitants of
the said parishes (of which the church-wardens for the time being,
and all the justices of the peace dwelling in the bounds of the said
parish, and the ministers resident for the time being, to be part)
to be governors of the said office.
The said fifty to be first nominated by the Lord Mayor of London for
the time being, and every vacancy to be supplied in ten days at
farthest by the majority of voices of the rest.
&nbs
p; The fifty to choose a committee of eleven, to sit twice a week, of
whom three to be a quorum; with a chief governor, a deputy-governor,
and a treasurer.
In the office, a secretary with clerks of his own, a registrar and
two clerks, four searchers, a messenger (one in daily attendance
under salary), a physician, a surgeon, and four visitors.
In the hospital, more or less (according to the number of people
entertained), a housekeeper, a steward, nurses, a porter, and a
chaplain.
For the support of this office, and that the deposit money might go
to none but the persons and uses for whom it is paid, and that it
might not be said officers and salaries was the chief end of the
undertaking (as in many a project it has been), I propose that the
manager or undertaker, whom I mentioned before, be the secretary,
who shall have a clerk allowed him, whose business it shall be to
keep the register, take the entries, and give out the tickets
(sealed by the governors and signed by himself), and to enter always
the payment of quarterage of every subscriber. And that there may
be no fraud or connivance, and too great trust be not reposed in the
said secretary, every subscriber who brings his quarterage is to put
it into a great chest, locked up with eleven locks, every member of
the committee to keep a key, so that it cannot be opened but in the
presence of them all; and every time a subscriber pays his
quarterage, the secretary shall give him a sealed ticket thus
[Christmas 96] which shall be allowed as the receipt of quarterage
for that quarter.
Note.--The reason why every subscriber shall take a receipt or
ticket for his quarterage is because this must be the standing law
of the office--that if any subscribers fail to pay their quarterage,
they shall never claim after it until double so much be paid, nor
not at all that quarter, whatever befalls them.
The secretary should be allowed to have 2d. for every ticket of
entry he gives out, and ld. for every receipt he gives for
quarterage, to be accounted for as follows:
One-third to himself in lieu of salary, he being to pay three clerks
out of it.
One-third to the clerks and other officers among them.
And one-third to defray the incident charge of the office.
Thus calculated. Per annum.
100,000 subscribers paying 1d.
each every quarter Pounds s. d.
1,666 3 4
=============
One-third To the secretary
per annum and
three clerks 555 7 9
Pounds per annum.
{ To a registrar 100 }
{ To a clerk 50 }
{ To four searchers 100 } 550 0 0
One-third { To a physician 100 }
{ To a surgeon 100 }
{ To four visitors 100 }
{ To ten committee-men, }
{ 5s. each sitting, }
{ twice per week }
One-third { is 260 }
to incident{ To a clerk of }
charges, { committees 50 }
such as { To a messenger 40 } 560 15 7
{ A house for the office 40 }
{ A house for the }
{ hospital 100 }
{ Contingencies 70 }
15s. 7d. ==============
1,666 3 4
All the charge being thus paid out of such a trifle as ld. per
quarter, the next consideration is to examine what the incomes of
this subscription may be, and in time what may be the demands upon
