" If we had the powers the French authorities had....."

[Guest]

Hi all,

While looking for something related to the Stride murder I came across this piece from the Evening News on Oct 3rd. Its addressing the problem of the uncontrolled immigration to London by Europeans.

I recall that at least one senior officer lamented that if they had been given the authority that the French Police had that they would have been able to catch the man.

Is this the French policy that they were referring to?

"FOREIGN PAUPERS.

The East end of London is very much in men's minds and mouths at the present moment, for ghastly reasons - reasons upon which we may as well say at once we do not intend to enter now. The murders that have been committed in this unfortunate region will take their own place - and a unique place it will be - in the history of the last quarter of the nineteenth century. But there are other things belonging to the same period and the same district which will have to be noted by the historian of the future - things which the present horrors may press aside for the moment, but which are intrinsically of much greater importance and will leave a more lasting impression upon our destinies. "Ye have the poor with you always," is a mournful truth, applicable in some form or another to every part of the globe; but there is probably no spot in the world to which it is so peculiarly and directly applicable as the eastern side of our great Metropolis. For years past the Evening News has directed attention to some of the principal causes of this chronic poverty of the East end, and it has always placed to the forefront the free and unregulated importation of foreign paupers. These wretched men and women can exist in apparent comfort under conditions which are simply intolerable to any one born and bred in these islands; but their presence amongst us in such overwhelming numbers leaves the native born workman no option but to sink down to their degraded standard of wages and comfort, or else starve. Now this is not fair; it is not worthy of the name of competition; it helps no one, it profits no one, but a few unworthy sweaters and greedy vampires of that class. But as yet we have done nothing to stop or discourage this baleful importation. It is going on today as freely as ever, and will apparently go on tomorrow and the next day with increasing force. We have not even the assurance that when Lord Dunraven's committee has exhausted its apparently exhaustless inquiries we shall arrive at any definite scheme of prohibition or even regulation.

France is suffering from a somewhat similar evil; but, fortunately for herself, France is not dominated by a set of doctrinaire Dry as dusts who call themselves political economists, and therefore her action is somewhat different from our own. The President has signed a decree in reference to the importation of foreigners into France, and, as a consequence, that importation will be very seriously hampered for the future. The preamble of the decree recognises the evils arising from the number of foreigners residing in France, "which is already considerable, and is being constantly increased by emigration," and then President Carnot goes on to lay down some very stringent conditions and regulations. Every foreigner going to France must, within a fortnight of his arrival, declare to the mayor of the commune in which he proposes to settle the names of his parents, his nationality, the place and date of his birth, his last place of residence, his profession and means of subsistence, and the names, ages, and nationality of his wife and children, if any such accompany him. These declarations must be supported by all necessary vouchers, and in cases of changes of domicile fresh declarations must be made to the mayor of the new residence. Disregard of any of these formalities will involve police penalties, "without prejudice," as the decree significantly adds, "to the right of expulsion appertaining to the Minister of the Interior."

All comments are welcome.

Best regards.

[smezenen]

Great Britain and France where not the only places dealing with overcrowded very poor neighborhoods. Here in America we had New York City's Five Points Neighborhood. Named for the points created by the intersection of Park, Worth, and Baxter streets, the neighborhood was known as a center of vice and debauchery throughout the nineteenth century. Outsiders found Five Points threatening and fodder for lurid prose. Describing a visit in 1842, Charles Dickens wrote: "This is the place: these narrow ways diverging to the right and left, and reeking everywhere with dirt and filth. Such lives as are led here, bear the same fruit here as elsewhere. The coarse and bloated faces at the doors have counterparts at home and all the wide world over. Debauchery has made the very houses prematurely old. See how the rotten beams are tumbling down, and how the patched and broken windows seem to scowl dimly, like eyes that have been hurt in drunken frays."
The neighborhood took form by about 1820 next to the site of the former Collect Pond, which had been drained due to a severe pollution problem. The landfill job on the Collect was a poor one, and surface seepage to the southeast created swampy, insect-ridden conditions resulting in a precipitous drop in land value. Most middle and upper class inhabitants fled, leaving the neighborhood completely open to the influx of poor immigrants that started in the early 1820s and reached a torrent in the 1840s due to the Irish Potato Famine. It was situated close enough for a walking commute to the large mercantile employers of the day in and around the dockyards at the island’s southern tip, but it was far enough away from the built-up Wall St. area to allow a total remake of character.
At Five Points’ “height”, only certain areas of London’s East End vied with it in the western world for sheer population density, disease, infant and child mortality, unemployment, prostitution, violent crime, and other classic ills of the destitute. However, it was the original American melting pot, at first consisting primarily of newly emancipated African Americans (gradual emancipation led to the end of slavery in New York on July 4, 1827), and newly arrived Irish.
The rough and tumble local politics of “the ould Sixth ward” (The Points’ primary municipal voting district), while not free of corruption, set important precedents for the election of non-Anglo-Saxons to key offices. Although the tensions between the African Americans and the Irish were legendary, their cohabitation in Five Points was the first large-scale instance of volitional racial integration in American history. In the end, the Five Points African American community moved to Manhattan’s West Side and to the then-undeveloped north of the island.
Five Points is alleged to have sustained the highest murder rate of any slum in the world. According to New York legend, The Old Brewery, an overcrowded tenement housing 1,000 poor, is said to have averaged a murder a night for fifteen years, until its demolition in 1852.

Sources:

http://r2.gsa.gov/fivept/wifp.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Points,_Manhattan