Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 2.djvu/611

 PUBLIC CHARITY AND PRIVATE PHILANTHROPY 597

law requires that the community granting the aid shall be reim- bursed by that commune in which the recipient (if he have wife and family with him) has last been in continuous residence for a period of two years. If he has not been in continuous residence anywhere for that length of time, or if more than two years have passed since he left a community, a larger district state, province, or county (Krets) to which the recipient may belong politically is made responsible for the aid he receives. Assistance granted to foreigners invariably falls back upon the state. This system of reimbursement, it must be distinctly understood, is merely a financial measure for the purpose of equalizing the burdens of poor relief among the several com- munities ; it does not give to the poor any legal right to claim the aid of a district. Whether, in any individual case, aid is really necessary, and of what kind, and in what amount, all of these questions are decided by the authorities in whose district the applicant is living. Complaint because of the refusal of aid can be registered only with the officers of the association, not in a court of law.

In view of the great variety of organizations for poor relief, the poor laws are content to make one general requirement, viz., that aid is to be granted in case of need, within the range of necessity. Details as to plan of work, organization, etc., are left for the province or the community to decide. In what man- ner the work is to be carried on must, as we have pointed out above, be determined by local conditions such as the wealth of the church and ecclesiastical orders, the wealth of the commu- nity at large, the extent of the population, and the administrative system underlying the work. In smaller communities and less densely populated localities, where the entire field can be easily surveyed, a moderate fund is raised for charitable purposes, the dispensation being left entirely in the hands of a salaried official (mayor or alderman). Occasionally we find a community pos- sessing such liberal endowments that public relief is hardly necessary. In the poorer rural districts people generally prefer to furnish their dependents provisions and necessaries of life,