Memoir on pauperism here published with an introduction by gertrude himmelfarb is an interesting example both of his method of inquiry and of his social theory and it centres on a very modern theme public welfare and dependency it was written after a visit to england and like democracy in america. Legal charity has not only taken freedom of movement from the english poor but also from those who are threatened by poverty from memoir on pauperism inspired by a trip to england at a time when that nation was in the throes of political social and economic strife and poverty was rampant political philosopher alexis de tocqueville developed his theories on civil s. Immediately after completing the first volume of democracy in america alexis de tocqueville wrote his memoir on pauperism it was inspired by a visit to england two years earlier and was surely in his mind while he was writing democracy in the memoir tocqueville seeks to understand why the most impoverished countries of europe in his time have the fewest paupers while the most opulent country england has the most. The memoir on pauperism delivered to the royal academic society of cherbourg in 1835 and printed in the proceedings of the academy was not included in the collected edition of tocquevilles works published soon after his death reprinted in a french academic journal in 1911 it was little known until its translation into english by the american . 6 alexis de tocqueville second memoir on pauperism for i cannot believe that it is wise to place all the fortune the poorer classes of a great king dom in the same hands and as it were in one place so that an admittedly improbable though not impossible event can ruin in one blow their last resources and bring despair to entire populations who having nothing to lose would easily descend upon the goods of others