But if you change the location of your observations to Spain, especially Portugal, the opposite spectacle will strike you. You will meet on your way a badly nourished, badly dressed, ignorant, and coarse population, living in half-cultivated countrysides in miserable homes; nevertheless, in Portugal, the number of indigents is insignificant. Mr. de Villeneuve estimates that in that country, there is one poor person per 25 inhabitants. The celebrated geographic expert Balbi had some time ago put the figure at one poor person per 98 people.
Instead of comparing foreign countries, compare one part of the same country to another and you will come to a similar result: you will see a proportional increase, on the one hand, of those who live comfortably, and, on the other hand, of those who resort to public contributions in order to live.
The average proportion of indigents in France, according to the calculations of a conscientious writer*, all of whose theories I am far from approving, is one poor person per 20 people. But one notes immense differences among the different parts of the country. The department of Nord, surely the richest, most populated, and the most advanced in everything, counts nearly a sixth of its population for whom charitable help is necessary. In the Creuse, the poorest and least industrialized of all our departments, one only meets one indigent per 58 people. In these statistics, La Manche is indicated as having one poor person per 28 residents.
I think that it is not impossible to give a reasonable explanation of this phenomenon. The effect that I have described is due to several general causes, which would take too long to discuss in depth, but that one can at least point out.
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* Mr. de Villeneuve, according to Alexis de Tocqueville's notes
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