Pensioner

“ When a pensioner begins to draw his pension at forty-five years of age, it will be less than if they did not draw it till they were fifty-five or sixty years of age, for the amount of shares will have to be divided so that they will last at least until the member is seventy-five years old. ”

“ And be it further enacted, That whenever any revolutionary pensioner shall die, the Secretary of War shall cause to be paid the arrears of pension due to the said pensioner at the time of his death; and all payments, under this act, shall be made to the widow of the deceased pensioner, or to her attorney, or if he left no widow, or she be dead, to the children of the pensioner, or to their guardian, or his attorney ”

“ Every Member of Congress likes to meet a pensioner for whom he has secured a pension. Neither has any thought of wrong in reviving such a memory. The ruling Mr. Blaine had made was simply stating a clear rule of the House about which there could be no doubt whatever. ”

“ Further, if the Court is of opinion that any pensioner mis-spends, wastes, or lessens his estate, or greatly injures his health, or endangers or interrupts the peace and happiness of his family, it may direct that the instalment may be paid to any clergyman, justice of the peace, or other reputable person for the pensioner's benefit. It may even go so far as to cancel the pension certificate. ”

“ So far from the pension being an inducement to self-maintenance in earlier years, the fact that a pension is due shortly is made a reason for asking for out-relief in the interim. And so relief is made to breed relief. But a further irony of fate remains to be recorded. When the Old Age Pensions Act was passed the greatest stress was laid upon the condition that old age pensioners or the "veterans of labour" should be entirely dissociated from all contact with the Poor Law. ”

“ In addition to all these arrangements for promoting a real community of interests between the company and its employees, there is a pension fund out of which retiring pensions, varying from one-fifth to one-fourth of the wages earned by the pensioner, are granted to employees who have served the company for a certain number of years, or who find themselves disabled from further service by age or by disease. ”

“ The grant of parish relief under the old ways has been humorously likened to a State pension, which, when it has once been given, is never supposed to be revoked during the lifetime of the privileged pensioner. ”

“ That no pensioner shall be paid in the country, unless the above-mentioned affidavit has been timely received by the paymaster of this fund in London.
13. That if a pensioner does not claim his pension in person, or transmit an affidavit for three half years, he shall be considered as dead; but if such pensioner shall afterwards furnish satisfactory proof of his identity to the Court of Directors, he shall be again placed on the pension list, and be allowed arrears for two years, but for no longer period. ”

“ A pensioner, not classed as incompetent, may direct that all or any portion of his pension money be sent to his wife, minor child or dependent relative; the governor of a branch may prevent hurtful, wasteful, or extravagant use of the pension money by retaining a sufficient amount until the danger has passed; pension money standing to the credit of a member sick in hospital will be paid directly to him in such amounts only as are necessary for his personal use ”

“ Old people in the late sixties have no longer been dying of starvation in the terror of losing the pension through accepting poor relief, and the greater independence of the State pensioner is heartening many. ”

“ Old age pensioners, many at least of whom might have provided for their own old age by reasonable prudence in their earlier years, are designated without distinction as the "veterans of labour." Since the removal of the pauper disqualification a good many people who have been in receipt of parochial relief for years have become these veterans of labour, and have obtained, or are qualifying for, an old age pension. ”

“ Congress passed a law whereby those people receiving pensions, who entered soldiers’ homes or hospitals had to pay that money either to the superintendent of the hospital, the President of the Soldiers’ Home, or the Governor of the Home, to be cared for the benefit of the pensioner. Those who had beneficiaries at home received the benefit of their portion of the pension under supervision of the Pension Office, the Pension Office having machinery to find out what beneficiaries had dependents, etc., and what proportion of the pension should be paid to them. ”

“ The Old Age Pension directly relieves the rates by keeping the pensioner out of the workhouse, or gives his family the opportunity of a fuller life by releasing the money hitherto required for his support. The Insurance Act should eventually abolish all that very large proportion of pauperism which is produced by casual sickness, prevent the deterioration which so often follows the temporary loss of work, and maintain the average level of industrial efficiency at a higher level than before. ”

“ The pension is diminished by £1 for every complete pound of income over £34, and by the same sum for every complete ten pounds’ worth of net accumulated property. The pension is paid each month. Pensioners may be disqualified at any time by a Magistrate, who may order a pensioner to forfeit instalments of the pension in cases of drunkenness. ”

“ To be a Prodigal's Favorite—then, worse truth,
A Miser's Pensioner—behold our lot! ”

“ And can eternity belong to me,
Poor pensioner on the bounties of an hour? ”

“ The pensioners had found his fate more bitter than that of his predecessors. Of course they knew that one of them must die each year. What harm was there in that? Pensioners may not be old. Can their dim eyes no longer distinguish the cards, can their trembling hands no longer lift the glass, what is life for them, and what are they for life? ”

“ Poor pensioner on the bounties of an hour? ”

“ Every Pensioner receives a liberal allowance of provisions and clothes, with a shilling a week for pocket-money. The nurses—widows of seamen, and of whom there were lately a hundred and five—in addition to provisions, have each an annual allowance of from eighteen to twenty pounds. A library is provided for the exclusive use of the Pensioners. The office of governor of Greenwich Hospital is generally conferred on veterans of the highest rank and standing in the service,—such as Hood, Keats and Hardy, the friend and companion of Nelson. ”

“ It is the highest time to stop in this mad career. Much of the damage done cannot be repaired. But effectual efforts can at least be set on foot to eliminate the fraudulent cases from the pension roll. We suggested already a year ago that to this end the public display of a list of local pensioners, with a statement of the disabilities, in every post-office in the country would be a great help. The proposition of the Times that a commission composed of old soldiers be charged with conducting an examination of the whole pension roll seems to us commendable. ”

“ The pension list, at the close of Harrison's administration in 1892, amounted to a sum greater than Germany annually expends on its gigantic army. So far as the pensioners are genuinely disabled veterans, the people make no complaint, appreciating the sacrifices which the soldiers were compelled to make in the dreadful contest. ”

“ When we recall that employer as well as employee as a rule belonged to the gild and this was a real mutual organization in which there was a sharing of the various risks of life, we see how eminently well adapted to avoid abuses this old system was. Where the pensioners appeal to a government pension system, abuses are almost inevitable. ”

“ Old Age Pensions.—The Old Age Pensions law, enacted in 1898, provided for the free grant of pensions, not exceeding £18 a year, to persons of sixty-five years and upwards who had lived for twenty five years in the colony. Pensioners must be British subjects, poor, and not ex-criminals or of notoriously bad character. ”

“ If we add 180,000 Old Age Pensioners, we reach the figure of nearly a quarter of a million persons, out of a total population of under four and a half millions, dependent wholly or partially for their living on the State, exclusive of Army and Navy pensioners ”

“ But proper care will be taken that the pensioners themselves shall be regularly paid twice a year, in whatever part of England, Scotland, or Ireland they may reside, provided they duly observe the orders and directions contained in the instructions. ”

“ The commuted pensioners were veteran soldiers, entitled to a small yearly pension for wounds or length of service, and who accepted the offer made to them by our government in 1832, to commute their pensions for four years' purchase, and a grant of one hundred acres of land in Canada. ”

“ There must have been hundreds of such old pensioners scattered up and down the country, and judging from the number of cases in which one man is sent to receive the maintenance lately given to another, deceased, some houses had at least one of them permanently on the premises. ”

“ There are about 2,450 pensioners residing at the various branches of the homes for disabled volunteer soldiers, whose pensions annually amount to about $300,000, which have been paid to the treasurer of the home and disbursed under the direction of the managers, who claim that this course is justified by the law and necessary in order to secure proper discipline and good order among the inmates. ”

“ This act, putting comparatively large sums of money within the reach of pensioners, excited the greed of many veterans, and served to establish the procuring of pensions in great quantities as a regular industry and one of the most profitable in the country. ”

“ In-pensioners have their home in the hospitals, and receive board, lodging, and tobacco money in lieu of their proper pensions; out-pensioners draw their money, amounting to from 11⁄2d. to 3s. 10d. a day, from the staff officers of pensioners, one of whom is established in every large town, and live where they please. Navy in-pensioners are supported at Greenwich hospital, and the out-pensioners draw their pensions from the military staff officers, and also live where they please. ”

“ By his recommendation these impositions were rendered impossible by the organisation of the pensioners into a corps with staff officers, and in this manner the pensioners were also rendered a body capable of affording assistance to the state on emergency. ”

“ About one man in ten of all those who enlisted in the late war are reported as receiving pensions, exclusive of the dependents of deceased soldiers. On the 1st of July, 1875, the number of pensioners was 234,821, and the increase within the ten years next thereafter was 110,304. ”

“ Every phase of human need was looked to. We are just beginning to realize our obligations to care for the old, and the last twenty years has seen various efforts on the part of governments to provide old-age pensions. In the Middle Ages according to the laws of the gilds the man who had paid his dues for seven years would then draw a weekly pension equal to something more than five dollars now, for all the rest of his life if he were disabled by injury, or had become incapacitated from old age or illness. ”

“ The second great function of the Elizabethan Poor Law was the relief of the impotent, and under it practically every poor person had an old age pension. Those who have studied the old parish books will tell you that in most parts of England almost the whole labouring population—young, middle-aged, and old—were upon the rates, and outdoor relief was universal. There is no difference, but in name, between old age pensions and outdoor relief, except that old age pensions are more attractive, because they are on a higher scale and are free from the name of pauperism. ”

“ The English old-age pension law is a mere gratuity in the nature of outdoor relief, giving to everybody who has reached a certain age, without reference to any previous service, tramps or drones as well as workmen. ”

“ The cost of the old-age pension system has greatly increased, as might have been expected, for the reason that an increasing number of old persons who previously would have come under the poor-relief system are now receiving old-age pensions. ”

“ If it is proposed to give him an Old Age Pension of 5s. a week, a chorus of voices exclaim that he will be demoralised—they mean that he will not work so hard if he thinks he need not die in the workhouse. ”

“ With regard to the aged, we have since 1908 in every County and Burgh a Local Pension Committee awarding domiciliary pensions to no fewer than 70,000 persons over 70, or more than treble the number of aged persons maintained by the Parish Councils as Poor Law Authorities, many, indeed, having been saved from the pauper roll. ”

“ When he has completed twenty-one years’ service, he may retire with a pension for life of from tenpence to fourteen-pence a day; and when worn-out by age or infirmity, he may bear up for that magnificent institution, Greenwich Hospital, there among old comrades to end his days in peace. ”

“ During the period of disablement, the worker is entitled to benefits ranging from 30 to 100 percent of his wage, depending on the severity of the disablement and on his income. Prolonged or permanent disability entitles the worker to a pension.
Old-age pensions are based on the years of service and kind of work performed. The pensionable age is fifty-five for women and sixty for men, but earlier retirement is possible for certain categories of work. ”

“ There’s enough to pension many widows and orphans in order to maintain our prestige. Don’t smile, for I’m not talking about myself, and I have my pension, even though a very small one, insignificant considering the services my husband rendered, but I’m talking of others who are dragging out miserable lives! ”

“ In my opinion, based upon such statements as these and much other information and observation, the abuses which have been allowed to creep into our pension system have done incalculable harm in demoralizing our people and undermining good citizenship. I have endeavored within my sphere of official duty to protect our pension roll and make it what it should be, a roll of honor, containing the names of those disabled in their country's service and worthy of their country's affectionate remembrance. ”