1884-01-25 The Poor of Hamilton

On Friday, January 25, 1884, a meeting of representatives of Hamilton’s charitable societies was held in the Council Chambers of Hamilton City Hall. The meeting was called to discuss the possibility of every society combining their efforts with the relief efforts provided by the municipal government. The goal was to be better able to respond to the fast growing demands for assistance by destitute families throughout the city.

Hamilton Mayor J. J. Mason was elected chairman of the meeting. He began by stating that he believed that there was more destitution in Hamilton in January, 1884 than there ever had been in any previous time in the city’s history. He noted that during the previous few days since he had begun his term as mayor, he had received applications for relief from 132 persons. Since most of the applicants were heads of families, it represented between 600 and 700 people in Hamilton who found themselves in dire economic circumstances.

In response to the mayor’s observations, the idea had been put forward that each of the private charitable societies should get together and co-ordinate their efforts in order to avoid deception on the part of those who attempt to receive assistance from more than one source.

It was moved that a member of each of the charitable committees of the local benevolent societies should meet at the mayor’s office at 11 a.m. every morning to assist the mayor in the distribution of civic charity.

It was also suggested that any old warm clothing would be welcomed by the needy of the city. Hamilton Police Chief Stewart volunteered to receive any such donations at his office in the city hall.

It was also put forward that there should be a mass meeting to appeal for donations from the public if any of the benevolent societies’ relief funds became exhausted.¹

¹ “Combined Charities : Meeting of the Representatives of the Charitable Societies”

Hamilton Spectator.  January 26, 1884.

January 28, 1884 was the day when the first of the proposed meetings suggested by the mayor was held:

“”There were about twenty applicants for relief at the mayor’s office yesterday morning and representatives of the various charitable societies were present to after such cases as came within their rules.”²

² “The Diurnal Epitome : What Goeth On In and About the City”

Hamilton Spectator.  January 29, 1884 .

The following day, at a meeting of Hamilton City Council, Mayor Mason brought attention to the fact that “a number of people in this city are in an impoverished state and should have their wants attended to.

“Since Monday last he had received some 170 applications, many of whom he had visited and he had found them very destitute. He thought something should be done to supplement the amount appropriated by council for relief, as it would not cover the ground.

“These people he found mainly divided into three classes : men out of work, widows, and old and infirm people. He found those men out of work all anxious to get something to do.”³

³ “Board of Aldermen : First Business Meeting of the New Council”

Hamilton Spectator. January 29, 1884.

Considerable discussion arose over Mayor Mason’s statements on the demand for relief in Hamilton. When it was stated that many of those out of work were mechanics, Alderman Tuckett rose to flatly deny the allegation :

“He had been out with the mayor while visiting the poor, and had not found one mechanic in all the places visited. He believed there were very few mechanics indeed out of employment in the city at the present time.”³

Alderman Tuckett repeatedly challenged the mayor to read aloud from the notes he made while visiting the poor, but Mayor Mason declined to do so.

After some prolonged additional discussion that the sewers committee and the board of works committee for a special committee for the purpose of devising some scheme with the object of giving employment to those in the city who were out of work.

There was no attempt to increase the amount of funds already earmarked for the municipal relief efforts.

The Spectator, on the day after the council meeting, published a lengthy editorial, about the discussion on poor relief being hijacked by political gamesmanship:

‘ ‘The poor ye have always with you.’

“So it has been, and so it will be to the last syllable of recorded time.

“In Canada we have little real distress; but there are considerable numbers who are hardly able to keep the wolf from the door. Especially this is the case in winter, when additional fuel and additional clothing are required.

“There is the widow, generally with children, and too frequently in frail health; there is the orphan left wholly without protectors; there are the sick, unable to work, and needing comforts as well as the common necessaries of life; and there are the dissolute and the improvident, who save nothing when in regular employment  and are compelled to ask charity when work fails.

“At the same time, it is not possible to let them starve, even if their misfortunes are consequent upon their own folly and want of forethought.

“Then, in winter, when outgo is necessarily increased, with many, income is reduced. Sailors are out of work; most building operations are suspended; the foundries slacken their operations for a few weeks; the corporation work is reduced to a minimum. So that there are hundreds in a large city who can maintain themselves in comparative comfort during the summer, but who in winter are wholly or partly dependent on public or private charity.

“No doubt there are a considerable number of men in the city who are out of work. The brickyards are idle, building operations are suspended, vessels are laid up, corporation laborers have been dismissed, and it is quite true that some shops are not so busy as they were a while ago. But it is wholly untrue that any considerable number of mechanics are in want because of slackness in industrial works.

“There is a sacredness in sorrow and misery which calls all the finer feelings of our common humanity. That this widow in her affliction, this old man who has lost all his strength and his sons, this orphan all alone in the world, or even this strong man vainly looking for employment, must sit by a cold hearth hearing the pitiless storm beating at the door and knowing the cupboard is empty – is a most sorrowful thing, but it is not peculiar to any one country.

“Since the Divine Master used the words quoted at the head of this article, all ages have known suffering and all lands have held the sorrowful.

“Most men when they encounter misery think only of measures for relief. There are some who study how to turn it to personal or political advantage. We pity the man. It is a matter for profound humiliation that any can be found willing to use sacred sorrow as a weapon of political warfare, or a stepping stone to personal preferment .

“We regret very much indeed that any have sought to give this matter the turn it has.”⁴

⁴ “The City’s Poor”

Hamilton Spectator. January 29, 1884.