著者

吉尾 清

出版者

岡山大学

雑誌

岡山大学経済学会雑誌 (ISSN:03863069)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.30, no.4, pp.1015-1052, 1999-03

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The purpose of this paper is to consider the problem of mendicity in London during 1800-1824. This paper shows that Matthew Martin's reports and the activities of the Society for the Suppression of Mendicity had a great influence on public policies toward the vagrants. First, I took up Martin's enquiry into the state of mendicity from 1800 to 1803. He endeavoured to discover the nature and extent of mendicity and to offer some suggestions for the general suppression of this evil. His report, in the form of a Letter to Lord Pelham on the State of Mendicity in the Metropolis, was published in 1803, and reissued in 1811. The members of Parliament acknowledged the problem of mendicity because of his reports. Secondly, I examined the reports ofthe Society for the Suppression ofMendicity founded in 1818. The managers of the Mendicity Society had already prepared the draft of this bill, when the subject of vagrancy wasbrought before the House of Commons. The views taken by the Mendicity Society were adopted in the vagrancy act of 1824.