The clergy, who have great influence over the lower classes, exert themselves much to cultivate the good feeling which subsists among them towards one another.
12. Have you any other observations to make on the relief afforded to the poor at Venice?--Besides the voluntary contributions and the assistance of the commune and the Government, the several charitable institutions (of which there are no less than 10) in this city, have annual incomes derivable from various bequests in land and other property, amounting to 483,000 Austrian livres (or 16,000_l._ sterling). Last year the commune contributed 359,000 Austrian livres (or 11,970_l._ sterling) and the Government 460,000 Austrian livres (or 15,330_l._ sterling). The Government contributes annually for the foundlings and the insane of the eight Venetian provinces, 1,000,000 of Austrian livres (33,000_l._ sterling). I should remark, that among other resources which the commission of public charity have at their command, is a tax upon the theatres and other places of public amusement.
The total expenditure of the commission of public charity may be taken approximately at 3,000,000 of Austrian livres, or 100,000_l._ sterling annually, for the city of Venice alone, which is now declared to contain a population of 112,000.
Mendicity is not permitted in the streets of Venice, and although distress does force mendicants to appear when they can escape the vigilance of the police, yet I do not believe that 20 beggars are to be met with in this large and populous city.
The poor in every parish in Venice have the benefit of a physician, a surgeon and medicines gratis; the expense of these is paid by the commune.
Every commune in the Venetian provinces is bound to support the poor and the indigent within its limits, whether they be natives of the commune or not. No commune or parish can remove from it a pauper, because he may have been born in another. Ten years’ residence entitles a man to a settlement in a different parish from that of his birth. When a commune to which a pauper does not belong affords him relief, it is always reimbursed by his own parish.
Every commune derives funds from local taxes; the communes of towns from taxes on certain articles of consumption; the communes in the country, where articles of consumption are not taxed, from an addition to the capitation tax, which is levied by the State, but all communes have, more or less, sources of revenue from land, houses, and charitable bequests, which are very frequent in these states.