THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 >■ 
 
 •2^ J^ 
 
 JJ 
 
 ^'.i^
 
 ro&e ^oor ?lnlu 
 
 THE ENGLISH CITIZEN: 
 
 HIS RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES.
 
 THE POOE LAW 
 
 BY 
 
 T. W. FOWLE, M.A. 
 
 KECTOB OF ISLIP 
 
 3L0ntJan 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited 
 
 NEW YORK : THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 1898 
 
 A II rights reserved
 
 
 J, iffjHfm 0^- 
 
 •^ 
 
 
 29 OCT.iy/-'^ 
 
 First Edition 1881 
 Sccorid Edition \%<jo. Reprinted iZ<jt,, 18
 
 / / ' 
 
 C3 
 
 me 
 
 PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 j^ In a series of books such as the Unglish Citizen it 
 t is, I think, best to suppress the individuality of the 
 ^ author as much as possible ; and beyond saying that 
 2c this edition of this book is the same as the former, 
 25 with some verbal alterations, and an appendix bring- 
 ~ ing down the subject to the present date, I should 
 _ not have thought it worth while to write a formal 
 % preface. But I cannot lose the opportunity of 
 1© acknowledging, with due thanks, the even more than 
 """ usual German thoroughness with which Dr. Aschrott, 
 ^ in his late German book on the Poor Law, has ap- 
 propriated this book of mine — treating it, in short, 
 as a kind of German Hinterland ; and of assuring 
 him in all seriousness that so far as I have helped 
 S him to expound the mysteries of English Poor Law 
 x: to his countrymen I am quite content. Perhaps, 
 however, the case is a little altered when his book 
 is translated back into English with a preface by 
 no less a person than Professor Henry Sidgwick, 
 containing the stereotyped intimation .that an urgent 
 (English) need has been sup]3lied in a remarkably 
 thorough piece of (German) work. However, I shall 
 not retaliate further than by a delicious illustration 
 
 411914
 
 vi PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION. 
 
 of the dangers that await — let us call it — unlicensed 
 appropriation. On p. 77 I quote from Sir F, Head 
 the story of the parish clerk who threatened to fight 
 the overseer if he did not pay him for ringing the 
 bell at paupers' funerals ; and on p. 114 I point 
 out that the clerk, i.e. of the Guardians, has a " su- 
 premacy much greater than is usually held by similar 
 officers." Dr. Aschrott " combines his information " 
 with the following disastrous result (p. 33): "In 
 many instances the clerk was the cliief or even the 
 sole actor. In answer to a question why certain 
 improper expenditure had been incurred, an overseer 
 stated, 'Why, sir, the clerk is a dreadful man, and 
 always threatens to fight me whenever I want to 
 stop such a charge.' And if the clerk's physical 
 powers were not usually exercised in this fashion, 
 knowledge and education often made him master of 
 the situation." To the British mind the idea of a 
 respectable country solicitor fighting an overseer is 
 "ood : better far is the idea of our familiar old friend, 
 the parish clerk, being, by virtue of superior know- 
 ledge, master of the situation. Well, after all, T 
 am but a country clergyman, and — perhaps he is.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Poor Law Principles . . . • 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 Poor Law iNSTiTDTioxb . . . .19 
 
 CHAPTER in. 
 Poor Law History . . . .54 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 Poor Law Reform . . . .75 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 Poor Law Administration . . .101 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 Poor Law Statistics . . . .156
 
 " To provide for us in our necessities is not in the power of Govern- 
 ment. It would be a vain presumption in statesmen to thint 
 they can do it. The people maintain them, and not they the 
 people. It is in the power of Government to prevent much evil 
 it can do very little positive good in this, or perhaps in anything 
 else. It is not only so of the State and statesman, but of all 
 the classes and descriptions of the rich ; they are the pensioners 
 of the poor, and are maintained by their superfluity. Tliey 
 are under an absolute, hereditary, and indefeasible dependence 
 on those who labour, and are miscalled the poor." — Edmunp 
 Burke.
 
 THE POOR LAW. 
 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 POOR LAW PRINCIPLES. 
 
 Legal provision for the relief of the destitute is not, hke 
 other national institutions, — for instance, Parliament, 
 courts of justice, or a standing army, — a plain and necessary 
 part of civilised social organisation, requiring no explana- 
 tion and needing no defence. On the contrary, such provi- 
 sion would seem at first sight artificial and even unnatural, 
 for it establishes a state of things in Avhich persons are 
 not obhged, unless they choose, to provide themselves 
 with the means of subsistence; while those who work for 
 their own living are compelled, whether they like it or 
 not, to maintain those who will not or cannot support 
 themselves. Hence it is always found necessary, in treat- 
 ing of this subject, to begin by showing why there ought 
 to be and in point of fact must be a Poor Law before we 
 can discuss profitably what Poor Laws ought to be, or de- 
 scribe what they have been. We have, therefore, no choice 
 but to ask the reader's attention to the reasons that have 
 impelled civilized societies to provide for the relief of
 
 2 THE POOH LAW, [chap. 
 
 destitution at the public cost, in order that he may the 
 better understand the past history and present arrange- 
 ments of the Poor LaAV in his own country. 
 
 Even the word "poor" requires explanation. It is 
 used to describe two different, though allied, classes of 
 persons, — first, those who are actually destitute ; second, 
 those who would be destitute but for that manual labour 
 which constitutes their "property," and is the chief source 
 of the wealth of mankind. This is what Burke alludes 
 to in the motto prefixed to this book, when he speaks 
 of the labouring class as being "miscalled the poor." 
 Elsewhere the same writer, who never touched upon any 
 subject that he did not adorn -with wise thought and 
 noble feeling, and who has done far more than any other 
 man to define and fix the principles of the English Con- 
 stitution, exclaims, " We have heard many plans for the 
 relief of the labouring poor. This puling jargon is not 
 as innocent as it is foolish. Hitherto the name of poor 
 (in the sense in which it is used to excite compassion) 
 has not been used for those who can but for those who 
 cannot labour — for the sick and infirm, for orphan infancy, 
 for languishing and decrepit age ; but when we afi"ect to 
 pity, as poor, those who must labour or the world cannot 
 exist, we are trifling with the condition of mankind. . . . 
 I do not call a healthy young man, cheerfid in his mind 
 and vigorous in his arms, — I cannot call such a man 
 poor ; I cannot pity my kind as a kind, merely because 
 they are men. . . ."• — {Third Letter on a Regicide Peace). 
 
 The same distinction is drawn in the Eeport of the 
 Commissioners in 1834 (page 227); but, rather unfortun- 
 ately, the word "poor" is there used in the sense which 
 Burke deprecated. Thus "the state of a person unable
 
 I.] POOR LAW PRINCIPLES. 8 
 
 to labour, or unable to obtain in return for his labour 
 the means of subsistence" is called "Indigence," and 
 " Poverty " is used to describe " the state of one who, in 
 order to obtain a mere subsistence, is forced to have re- 
 course to labour." In the Edinburgh Review for July 
 1836, the practical evils that resiilted from this ambiguity 
 in the use of the word " poor " are very forcibly pointed 
 out, and the practical conclusion thus summed up: — "In- 
 digence may be provided for, mendicity may be extir- 
 pated, but all attempts to extirpate poverty can have no 
 effects but bad ones." In the present treatise, therefore, 
 the word mil not be used ; but words such as indigence, 
 destitution, and the Hke, wiU be applied to one class, and 
 the other will be described by the more fitting title of 
 labouring or working people. 
 
 There is another popular misapprehension, which, 
 though exposed nearly fifty years ago, still does some- 
 thing more than linger on, even in quarters where more 
 accurate information might be looked for. Noticing the 
 results of the investigation into foreign systems of Poor 
 Law made in 1834, the Quarterly Review writes, "We 
 believe that the general impression, till very lately, has 
 been that England stands alone among nations in the 
 provision which her laws have made against destitution. 
 Certainly those who questioned the policy of this institu- 
 tion have continually inveighed against it as one of an 
 extraordinary and unexampled nature; while its advo- 
 cates have appeared to shrink from supporting their 
 views, as they might have done, by a reference to the 
 fact that its frindple has long since been adopted by all really 
 civilized communities." Although this investigation was 
 repeated upon a most extensive scale in 1874, and its
 
 4 THE POOR LAW. [chap. 
 
 results embodied in a volume which is the authority for 
 all statements concerning foreign Poor Laws contained in 
 this treatise, it is very doubtful whether the public mind 
 is at all disabused of the mistake. The existence of 
 pauperism in England is still very frequently set down 
 to some national peculiarity, whether for evil or good, 
 according to the taste of the writer, such as our system 
 of land laws, or our superiority in the virtue of social 
 benevolence. No doubt, in the English Poor Law, as in 
 other national institutions, there are some very strongly 
 defined characteristics, most of which, it may be here 
 said, redound to our credit as compared with other coun- 
 tries rather than the reverse. But the fact is that in all 
 civilized countries the same kind of difficulties concerning 
 the support of the indigent have been encountered, the 
 same sort of remedies been tried, and the same experi- 
 ences, mostly of a painful and disappointing character, 
 been gone througL Two or three facts in proof of this 
 may be adduced. Belgium has been called upon good 
 authority the "classic land of Pauperism." In France 
 the immediate result of the Revolution of 1789 was 
 to substitute for the system of pubhc benevolence then 
 existing a system of support founded upon legal rights, 
 which, however, only lasted four or five years. Holland 
 has tried the latest and perhaps the most advanced experi- 
 ment in Poor Law legislation no longer ago than 1870. 
 Finally, there are elaborate systems of poor relief in the 
 United States, vnih the result that in the typical State of 
 Massachusetts the amount of pauperism in proportion 
 to population was recently calculated at considerably 
 more than one half of that existing in England.^ 
 
 ^ See reports communicated to the Local Government Board in
 
 I.] POOR LAW PRINCIPLES. 5 
 
 What, then, is the " principle " that makes the institu- 
 tion of Poor Laws a necessary part of social organisation ? 
 Out of many answers that have been given to this ques- 
 tion there are two which, though inadequate, have played 
 so important a part in the history of Poor Law, and have 
 given rise to so much interesting discussion, that they 
 cannot be passed over in silence. They may be called 
 the " sentimental " and " utilitarian " reasons respectively: 
 the first, that all men have a natural right to the means 
 of existence ; the second, that society is compelled, in the 
 interests of its own self-preservation, to take some care 
 of destitute persons. Both these propositions are, in a 
 certain sense, true, though not so as to answer the ques- 
 tion before us. 
 
 The first or sentimental reason is expressed in such 
 phrases as the following : — " The right of every peaceful 
 and obedient member of society to the means of subsis- 
 tence;" or, "It is an admitted maxim of social polity 
 that the first charge on land must always be the mainte- 
 nance of the people reared upon it. This is the principle 
 of the English Poor Law " (Nicholls's History of the Poor 
 Law, vol. i. p. 2). This last opinion is very commonly 
 held and positively affirmed, but to estimate its true 
 value we have but to remember that no man from the 
 moment of his birth can enforce any claim to any 
 "rights" except what some one or other, or society 
 itself, chooses to allow him ; and, again, that if we start 
 from the rights of individuals, it is impossible to draw a 
 line between things which are and things which are not 
 "natural" rights. But it is more to' the purpose to 
 
 1875, with preface by Mr. Doyle, and special reports as to Holland 
 and the United States by Mr Sendall and ilr. Henley respectively.
 
 6 THE rOOR LAW. [chap. 
 
 point out that tins so-called right has been peremptorily 
 denied, and the denial even erected into a maxim of 
 State policy. Thus it has been said, "There is no 
 danger of which foreign legislation " (the allusion is more 
 especially to France) "appears to be more apprehensive 
 than the recognition of any right of working men to be 
 relieved, or even to have work found for them when 
 destitute. They are relieved, but always with the reser- 
 vation that such aid is given not of right but of charity " 
 (Doyle, p. 6). And M. Thiers has further laid down the 
 principle " that when the virtue of charity ceases to be 
 private, and becomes collective, it is essential that it 
 should preserve its character of a virtue, — that is to say, 
 that it should remain voluntary and spontaneous; for 
 otherwise it would cease to be a virtue, and would 
 become a dangerous compulsion." On the other hand, 
 the necessity of some provision for rehef of indigence is 
 so manifest that one French minister enunciated the 
 proposition " that no one has a right to public relief, but 
 that the bestowal of such relief is a duty incumbent on 
 the State." This, which the author of the report calls a 
 somewhat " illogical statement of the case," nevertheless 
 approximates, as we shall see, closely to the true prin- 
 ciple of Poor Laws. — {Report of the Relief of the Poor in 
 France, by E. Lee Hamilton, p. 136.) 
 
 It may be interesting to note the different positions 
 which various nations have taken up in respect of the 
 "right" to maintenance. Sweden in 1870, Denmark in 
 1866, re-enacting a law of 1683, and Prussia in 1871, 
 have expressly conferred upon all destitute persons the 
 right to such relief as is necessary. Holland in 1870 
 framed a new Poor Law, in which it was expressly laid
 
 I.] POOR LAW PRINCIPLES. 7 
 
 down that " no person has a right to relief, and that the 
 care of the poor is a moral not a civil duty ; that the 
 exercise of charity should be relegated to the Church or 
 to private charity ; but that where these agencies do not 
 exist it may become necessary for the State to intervene 
 in the interests of public decency and order," which is only 
 arriving at the same point by a different way. France 
 in 1793 formally declared that the relief of the desti- 
 tute was a national debt, but retraced her steps five years 
 later from experience of the evils entailed, — a measure 
 which included Belgium also. England, followed in this 
 by the United States, occupies an intermediate and, it 
 would seem, more intelligible position. Nothing is said 
 about the rights of persons to receive relief, but the duty 
 is cast upon localities to see that no person perishes for 
 want of the means of existence. There is, therefore, no 
 right that can be enforced by legal process ; but Lord 
 Chief-Justice Cockburn laid it down that there ought to 
 be some remedy if a destitute person is refused relief, 
 either by indictment, or, preferably, by mandamus (Glen, 
 Poor Law Orders, p. 62). The same rule appears to 
 obtain in Austria and some German States, an appeal 
 being allowed to a higher authority than the parish in 
 at least one State (Baden). It may be adduced as a 
 curious proof how practically the most extreme theories 
 end in the same results, that in Holland, until the year 
 1854, liability to repayment of rehef might be enforced 
 against charitable institutions, the point having been 
 decided against them in several instances. — (Sendall, p. 
 20.) 
 
 The plain truth is, that theories which start from the 
 rights or status of individuals lead us at last nowhere in
 
 // 
 
 8 THE POOR LAW. [cuap, 
 
 determining the principles upon which societies must and 
 ought to act. We have only to push the theory to its 
 extreme limits and see what we should come to. Thus 
 an Englishman might very fairly urge that the want of 
 any recognised title to relief would, under certain cir- 
 cumstances, produce a Revolution, and that, as a matter 
 of fact, the French Revolution was largely caused by the 
 existence of indigence driven to despair by the hopeless- 
 ness of relief. And a Frenchman might, -with equal 
 justice, retort that the bestowal of a legal right to relief 
 would, under certain circumstances, lead to practical 
 Communism, as it had done in England at the time of 
 the Poor Law Reform of 1834. 
 
 The second or utilitarian principle has been stated in 
 its naked and somewhat revolting common sense as 
 follows : — " AVhenever, for the purposes of Government, 
 we arrive in any state of society at a class so miserable 
 as to be in want of the common necessaries of life, a new 
 principle comes into action. The usual restraints, which 
 are sufficient for the well-fed, are often useless in check- 
 ing the demands of hungry stomachs. Hence ... it 
 may be expedient, in a merely economical point of view, 
 to supply gratuitously the wants of even able-bodied 
 persons, if it can be done without creating crowds of 
 additional applicants." — (Babbage, Principles of Taxation^ 
 quoted by NichoUs.) 
 
 Now this statement contains two undeniable and im- 
 portant truths. It declares that the good of the com- 
 munity, and not the rights of individuals, is the legitimate 
 cause of legal provision for destitution, and it pays regard 
 to the fact that in all countries Poor Law legislation has 
 been devised to meet certain plain and growing Q\i\s, that
 
 1.] POOR LAW PRINCIPLES. fi 
 
 were endangering the social fabric. Its error is that it 
 overlooks these moral or humanitarian considerations 
 which are just as necessary to the well-being of society 
 as material or economical conditions, and which would 
 compel the establishment of a system of State rehef even 
 could it be shown that as a matter of policy or of economy 
 no such relief was needed. And by separating off the 
 indigent class from the rest of society, it lays itself open 
 to the retort that Poor Laws, so far from being capable 
 of being defended on grounds of general expediency, 
 have always been instituted in the selfish interests of 
 privileged classes. The opinion is attributed to Mr. 
 Nassau Senior that they "originated in ignorance, sel- 
 fishness, and pride, and in an attempt substantially to 
 restore the expiring system of slavery." Others have 
 expressed the same idea by ascribing Poor Laws to the 
 survival of FeudaHsm — that is, to the policy which 
 separates the labouring classes from ownership of the 
 land. And finally, the expediency of State relief in the 
 interests of the working people themselves is thus seri- 
 ously challenged by so eminent an authority as Mr. 
 Malthus : — "I feel persuaded that if Poor Laws had 
 never existed in this country, though there might have 
 been a few more instances of very severe distress, the 
 aggregate mass of happiness among the common people 
 would have been much greater than at present." He 
 ascribes their " tendency to depress the condition of the 
 'poor'" to four causes, — "the impulse they give to the 
 increase of population without increasing the supply of 
 food," the consumption of food in workhouses by non- 
 workers, the artificial rise in the price of provisions, 
 together with the lowering of the price of labour, so that
 
 10 THE POOR LAW. [ciiAr. 
 
 " they impoverish the class of people whose only posses- 
 sion is their labour," and "may be said to create the 
 poor whom they maintain." 
 
 This brief survey of the curiously different points of 
 view from which the provision of State relief has been 
 regarded by leading authorities will enable the reader to 
 compare the various opinions that have been held respect- 
 ing it, and also to apprehend the general principle which, 
 as being common to all theories concerning it, may be as- 
 signed as the actual cause of Poor Law legislation. For all 
 are agreed, whatever may be the reason they give for their 
 conclusion, that indigence must be relieved by some one 
 or other, and at the cost of the community, by whatever 
 name we choose to call the process by which the relief 
 is conveyed. This law or fact we may express in the 
 following terms : — That every society upon arriving at a 
 certain stage of civilization finds it positively necessary for its 
 own sake, — that is to say, for the satisfaction of its own human- 
 ity, and for the due performance of the purposes for which 
 societies exist, — to provide that no person, no matter lohat has 
 been his life, or tuhat may he the consequences, shall perish for 
 want of the hare necessaries of existence. Even if history 
 did not make it plain to us, as we shall see when we 
 come to treat of the origin of Poor Law in England, that 
 this was the simple matter of fact principle Avliich gave 
 rise to the institution of State relief, a very slight con- 
 sideration of what is involved in the idea of a society 
 would teach us that, in the higher and more dehcate tj^jes 
 of social organization, what we might call the moral life 
 of the community is incompatible with the spectacle of 
 unrelieved indigence connived at by the comfortable and 
 prosperous classes. It is precisely the "few more cases
 
 I.] POOR J AW PRINCIPLES. 11 
 
 of very severe distress," the possibility of which Mr, 
 Malthus admits, that people feel must be dealt with some- 
 how, and that so as to give a reasonable certainty that 
 there "svill be nothing to shock our natural feelings of 
 humanity and kindness. How can men enjoy life with 
 the knowledge that their neighbours are starving ? Or 
 how can a State call upon its citizens to fight for their 
 country, or to tax themselves for such objects as govern- 
 ment, justice, religion, if all these, which are the moral 
 glory of mankind, do not avail to prevent other citizens 
 from dying in the agonies of cold and hunger ? Of nations, 
 as of men, it may be truly said, that if they have not 
 charity they are nothing. 
 
 The actual condition of things out of which this 
 feehng of humanity struggled into existence was the 
 embarrassment men felt in pimishing (with frightful 
 penalties) vagrancy and mendicancy, or even crime itself, 
 without affording some assurance that the bodily wants 
 which drive persons to these courses were not altogether 
 unprovided for at the public cost. Moreover, as the 
 social conscience became more mature, there arose a dim 
 and indistinct feeling that pauperism and crime were due 
 to inherited conditions of moral and physical evil, for 
 which paupers and criminals were in no sense responsible, 
 but which had to a large extent gro"vvn out of the selfish 
 neglect or mischievous ignorance of the nation itself in 
 previous ages. Who, for instance, that has ever realised 
 the injuries which the labouring classes have endured 
 from State interference with their work and wages, or 
 from State non-interference with their dwellings and 
 surroundings, could, with any peace of conscience, leave 
 those unhappy persons upon whom the curse has fallen
 
 12 THE POOR LAW. [chap. 
 
 to perish in want, disease, or ignorance t The thing ia 
 impossible, and because it was found to be impossible, 
 therefore, — apart from all theories and independently of 
 all results, — the public relief of destitution, together with 
 laws for its administration, became a recognised part of 
 the duties undertaken by civilized States. 
 
 This reference to the natural operation of humanity, 
 as a thing due from society to its own self-respect, is to be 
 found virtually in all the reasons which legislators or 
 writers have assigned as being the principle of Poor Law 
 administration in their respective countries.^ We shall, 
 however, content ourselves with adducing the authority 
 of Mr. J. S. Mill, whose account of the matter is in 
 agreement with what has been stated above, and will 
 probably, from its directness and simplicity, commend 
 itself to the reader as a satisfactory statement of the facts 
 of the case : — '•' Apart from any metaphysical considera- 
 tions respecting the foundation of morals, or of the social 
 union, it will be admitted to be right that human beings 
 should help one another, and the more so in proportion 
 to the urgency of the need ; and none needs help so 
 urgently as one who is starving. The claim to help, 
 therefore, created by destitution is one of the strongest 
 which can exist, and there is primd facie the amplest 
 reason for making the relief of so extreme an exigency as 
 certain to those who require it as by any arrangements 
 of society it can be made." — (PoUt. Economy, v. xd. 13). 
 
 It is worth while to observe how the various theories 
 mentioned above fall into their proper place when once 
 we have a plain matter of fact principle to go upoiL 
 
 ^ It is very clearly stated as the "principle" of poor relief in 
 the report from Massachusetts. — Mr. Henley's Eeport, p. 78.
 
 I.] POOR LAW PRmOIPLES. 13 
 
 Take, for instance, the question of "rights." Every 
 destitute person has a right to relief, not because his 
 "status," i.e. his miserable condition, gives him a title to 
 it (which is an obsolete idea suitable only to primitive 
 stages of social growth), but because the State has made 
 for its own purposes a contract to stand between its 
 citizens and death by starvation ; for, as it has been well 
 said, every Government enactment securing relief to the 
 indigent is of the nature of a compact between the State 
 and each of its members. And for practical purposes, 
 either by legal rehef or organised charity, this right is 
 conferred by every civihzed society. 
 
 Once more, this principle enables us to draw a clear 
 Une between State rehef and private charity. The 
 motive of the former is primarily and chiefly the welfare, 
 or, at any rate, the resolution of the giver; whereas 
 charity ceases to be charity if the giver puts his own 
 comfort or interests before the needs of the recipient. 
 Hence there can be no such thing as legal charity, and, 
 melancholy as the assertion may sound, it neverthe- 
 less follows that although, of course, all human beings 
 ought to act humanely towards each other, yet we are 
 not to look, in a system of State rehef, for moral graces 
 such as gratitude from the recipient, or liberahty from 
 the official giver who dispenses other people's money. 
 " Free charity indeed," exclaimed a blunt Dutchman, in 
 a parhamentary debate, " with my neighbour's hand in 
 my pocket !" This distinction may turn out in the future 
 to be of much importance in mapping out the two 
 provinces of legal relief and voluntary charity. 
 
 We shall see, when we come to deal with it, how 
 far the history of Poor Laws in England bears out the
 
 14 THE POOR LAW. [chap. 
 
 opinion already alluded to, that they Avcre due neither to 
 humanity nor genuine utilitarianism, but to the interests 
 of mere class selfishness. At present it may be sufficient 
 to observe that the true statement of the case ^yould 
 seem to be that the selfishness of the upper classes took 
 advantage of the growing spirit of humanity, and made 
 a kind of tacit bargain -with, it, Avhereby, upon condition 
 that localities provided for the relief of the "impotent," 
 they were authorized to reduce the able-bodied labourer 
 to a state of practical slavery, under the plea of setting 
 him to work. But we have little doubt that the Eeport 
 of the Committee of the House of Commons in 1817, — 
 viz. "the princif)le of a compulsory provision for the 
 impotent, and for setting to work the able-bodied, origin- 
 ated in motives of the purest humanity," — contains, with 
 the omission of the word " purest," a true description of 
 the origin of Poor Laws in England. At any rate the 
 motive of humanity, let it have been ever so small, has 
 long survived the interests of selfishness, and may be 
 assigned as the decisive reason why Poor Laws have 
 continued to exist long after they could, with any plausi- 
 bility, be described as instruments designed to oppress 
 or enslave the labouring classes. 
 
 Seeing, then, that societies cannot allow any of their 
 members to perish from preventible causes, the first and 
 main object of Poor Law legislation is plainly to provide 
 a certain maintenance for all indigent persons, — that is, 
 those who, from any cause whatever, have come to such 
 a condition as that, without help, they would die of want. 
 But then, as Mr. Mill goes on to point out, in all cases 
 of helping there are two sets of consequences to be con- 
 sidered, — the consequences of the assistance itself, and
 
 i.l POOR LAW PlllNCIPLES. 15 
 
 the consequences of reljang on it. "The former are 
 generally beneficial, but the latter for the most part 
 injurious." This, indeed, is a very mild statement of the 
 evils which, as a matter of history, have arisen from 
 relying upon the certainty of relief, whether by public 
 law or private charity. We shall endeavour to give some 
 faint idea of them when we come to deal with the old 
 English Poor Law, under which they rose to a height 
 unprecedented, perhaps, except in Belgiiun. At present 
 we merely indicate the chief sources from which they 
 flow, although in truth they are so subtle, so intricate, 
 and so mixed, that it is difficult to describe them gene- 
 rally, much more to arrange them under heads. 
 
 (1.) The knowledge that the necessaries of life can be 
 had for the asking naturally induces men who are not 
 really destitute to throw themselves upon the State for 
 aid. Hence State rehef inevitably promotes idleness, 
 with its kindred vices. 
 
 (2.) The same knowledge induces men to look for- 
 ward to being supported by State relief whenever the 
 time shall come that they are really destitute ; whence 
 comes dependence, AA^th all the faults that follow in its 
 train. 
 
 (3.) The same knowledge quenches the natural senti- 
 ment of the human heart tow^ards relatives or friends, 
 the care of whom is thrown off' upon the law in place of 
 those to whom it properly belongs. Hence inhumanity 
 and selfishness. 
 
 (4.) The provision of State relief, especially if the true 
 principles of social or political economy are not under- 
 stood, leads to interference with the natural course of 
 trade and employment, besides benefiting particular
 
 18 THE POOR LAW. [chap. 
 
 interests or localities (generally those who least need it) 
 at the expense of poorer or weaker neighbours. 
 
 If, then, the first great object of Poor Law legislation 
 be the provision of relief for the destitute, we may pro- 
 perly describe the second object as the prevention of the 
 evils and abuses that flow from the first. And in point 
 of fact the history of Poor Laws, down to recent times, 
 is one long melancholy record of admitted and repeated 
 failures to deal with evils that recur with monotonous 
 persistency, or break out in new forms, or evade the 
 best meant schemes for putting them down. Naturally 
 enough a mere policy of repression was first attempted, 
 and by degrees a second principle, which may be almost 
 called the charter of Poor Law reform, was arrived at, 
 and is now in theory everywhere admitted, though stUl 
 in practice too often sinned against. We take the 
 description of it from the singularly able report on the 
 further amendment of the Poor Law in 1839 by Mr. 
 Lefevre, Sir George Nicholls, and Sir George Cornewall 
 Lewis, to which we would gladly refer the reader for 
 full information on the theory and practice of poor 
 relief, but that it is unfortunately out of print. They 
 say (p. 45):— 
 
 " The fundamental principle with respect to the legal 
 relief of the poor is, that the condition of the pauper 
 ought to be, on the whole, less eligible than that of the 
 independent labourer. The equity and expediency of 
 this principle are equally obvious. Unless the condition 
 of the pauper is, on the whole, less eligible than that of 
 the independent labourer, the law destroys the strongest 
 motives to good conduct, steady industry, providence, 
 and fru2;alitv among the labouring classes, and induces
 
 I.] POOR LAW rRINCIPLES. 17 
 
 persons, by idleness or imposture, to throw themselves 
 upon the poor rates for support. But if the independent 
 labourer sees that a recurrence to the poor rates will, 
 while it protects him against destitution, place him in a 
 less eligible position than that which he can attain to by 
 his own industry, he is left to the undisturbed influence 
 of all those motives which prompt mankind to exertion, 
 forethought, and self-denial. On the other hand, the 
 pauper has no just ground for complaint if at the same 
 time that his physical wants are amply provided for, his 
 condition should be less eligible than that of the poorest 
 class of those who contribute to his support" 
 
 In the last clause the two fimdamental principles of 
 Poor Laws are brought together, i.e. relief for the desti- 
 tute, but so as that their condition shall be worse than 
 if they had taken pains to support themselves. There 
 is, however, a third, and, though subsidiary, hardly 
 less important object at which legislation has aimed 
 with but scanty results in different countries. Partly 
 because there are deteriorating effects upon the class 
 which cannot be altogether met by measures directed 
 against abuses by individuals, partly because when once 
 the State has interfered between men and the natural 
 consequences of their own behaviour, it cannot help 
 being drawn into further measures on their behalf, there 
 emerges another object, which may be described as the 
 prevention of the pauperising effects of State relief by 
 measures calculated to raise the condition of the working 
 classes. Thus the description of the objects of legal 
 provision for the support of the poor in Massachusetts 
 is as follows : — " This intervention is generally limited 
 to the relief of absolute necessity to save life or pre- 
 
 c
 
 18 THE POOR LAW. [chap. i. 
 
 vent disease and suffering. But incidentally it aims at 
 improving the condition of the poor, by teaching and 
 training the young for work and self-dependence, by 
 inculcating morality and promoting industry, cleanliness, 
 and temperance." — (Mr. Henley's Report, p. 78.) 
 
 We have thus, then, arrived at the three main objects 
 which Poor Laws are framed to carry out, and round 
 which all their various institutions and provisions can be 
 arranged. These are — 
 
 (1.) Relief measures to support the indigent. 
 
 (2.) Repressive measures to put down, and 
 
 (3.) Remedial measures to prevent, the abuses and 
 evils which are sure to be engendered by a system of 
 State relief. By what means men have attempted to 
 attain each of these three objects will be detailed in the 
 next chapter.
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 POOR LAW INSTITUTIONS. 
 
 We propose in this chapter to enumerate, with such 
 brief description and comparison as is possible, the 
 various institutions, enactments, and arrangements which 
 Poor Laws have called into existence. By way of giving 
 as clear and comprehensive a view as the nature of the 
 subject allows, we shall classify them under the follow- 
 ing six heads : — 
 
 I. The Authorities by whom") 
 
 II. The Funds from which I .... , . . , , 
 ^^^ ^, ^ ^ , [■ rehef is admmistered. 
 
 III. ihe Persons to whom 
 
 IV. The Methods by which 
 V. Repressive Measures. 
 VI. Remedial Measures. 
 
 The above classification does not pretend to any 
 scientific accuracy, which, to say truth, would be an 
 almost impossible undertaking : thus the " House " is at 
 once a method of rehef and a repressive measure. But 
 the reader will, we trust, be enabled to compare the 
 various fonns which poor rehef has assumed in differ- 
 ent countries, and to discern from what states of society 
 or modes of thinking they have grown up.
 
 20 THE POOR LAW. [chap 
 
 Attempts have been made to classify Poor Laws 
 according to the systems that obtain in various nations, 
 but with a success so doubtful that it does not seem 
 worth while to fatigue the memory of the reader by 
 adding another to the hst. It must be, however, under- 
 stood, that there will meet us at every turn a plain, 
 broad distinction between the Teutonic or Scandinavian 
 and Protestant nations of the north, and the Latin and 
 CathoHc nations of the south. This makes it all the 
 more to be regretted that there is no available informa- 
 tion about the present state of things in Switzerland, 
 except a brief account, as far back as 1834, of the 
 Canton of Berne, where things appear to have been as 
 bad as they were in England at that time, and from much 
 the same causes. — (Mr. Morier's Eeport. See Quarterly 
 Review for December 1835, which contains a brief sum- 
 mary of the Reports from foreign countries.) 
 
 As our object is to gain a general idea of what Poor 
 Law has been and has done, before entering into the 
 details of English legislation, we shall allude to the 
 latter as Httle as possible in this chapter, reserving it 
 for fuller treatment hereafter. 
 
 L The Authorities hy whom poor relief is adminis- 
 tered. — As the way in which the various authorities — 
 local {i.e. parochial, or communal), municipal, provincial, 
 and central — came to be concerned in the administration 
 of Poor Law, is a matter of historical growth, we may 
 divide the history roughly into three periods : that before 
 the Reformation, that between the Reformation and the 
 French Revolution, and lastly, the ninety years that have 
 elapsed since that event. In the fiirst period there was
 
 n.] POOR LAW INSTITUTIONS. 21 
 
 virtually no Poor Law at all, only a series of enactments, 
 horrible in their revolting severity against pauperism, 
 especially in the form of vagrancy ; and another series, if 
 possible, more detestable, against the rights of free labour. 
 But the indigent and miserable were left to the care of 
 the Church, which, it must be confessed, was rich enough 
 and powerful enough to make it certain that relief in 
 some shape would be forthcoming to those who needed it. 
 The monasteries afforded food and shelter to the mendi- 
 cant, and something like out-relief to the destitute 
 inhabitants of the districts in which they were placed. 
 There was also a claim upon lords of the manor for the 
 maintenance of their dependants, a state of things which 
 survived in Eussia until the year 1864. Something, too, 
 ^vas done by trade guilds towards the support of their 
 own members, traces of which, — as for instance in the 
 case of the London companies, — still remain. But for a 
 genuine survival of mediaeval arrangements we must 
 look to the Turkish empire, in which (Mahomet having 
 exhorted his people to show kindness to the poor, not to 
 oppress the orphan nor repulse the beggar) poor relief 
 is still expressly associated with religious institutions. 
 The mosques have been endowed with large funds for 
 ecclesiastical and charitable purposes, one portion of 
 which was set aside by Suleiman the Magnificent for the 
 support of institutions such as Poor Laws provide else- 
 where, including, however, baths and fountains. And 
 the Greeks, at any rate in Constantinople, provide for 
 the wants of their own people in a somewhat similar 
 way, by committees of five leading members selected 
 from the congregation of each parish church at an 
 annual vestry meeting.
 
 22 THE POOR LAW. [chap. 
 
 At the Eeformation it became evident that the 
 nations which had accepted the change in reh'gion could 
 no longer, for a variety of reasons, of which the splitting 
 up into sects and the confiscation of Church property may 
 be assigned as the chief, depend upon the Church for the 
 adequate administration of relief. This was due not so 
 much to the mere dissolution of the monasteries, as 
 Adam Smith puts it, but to the altered relations between 
 Church and State ; and especially to the conception of a 
 National Church, which made it natural for the State to 
 prescribe, or itself to undertake, functions and duties 
 hitherto appropriated to the Church, regarded as an 
 independent body. A curious and convincing proof of 
 this is to be found in the fact that in Sweden, where 
 the connection between Church and State has always 
 been of the closest, the " first State law which laid the 
 foundation of poor relief was the Church ordinance of 
 1571." It is possible, moreover, that the special form 
 which Poor Law legislation everywhere adopted, namely, 
 the parochial or communal, was determined by a revival 
 of the old principle of local government, of which the 
 village community was the primitive type, being regarded 
 as a self-contained society capable of making fit provision 
 for the wants of its own members. However this may 
 be, there sprang up everywhere, during the earlier part of 
 this second period, the simplest form of Poor Laws, which 
 consisted in a command from the State that each parish 
 should in some way or other maintain its own poor, and 
 shoidd appoint " overseers " to discharge the duty thus 
 legally imposed upon it. At Hamburg, so early as 1529, 
 directions were pubhshed for the guidance of the over- 
 seers ; " to visit the houses in their respective districts
 
 rr.] POOR LAW INSTITUTIONS. 23 
 
 once every month, in order to make themselves acquainted 
 with the circumstances of the poor ; to provide employ- 
 ment for those who were able to work ; to lend money 
 without interest to those who were honest, and could 
 with a little assistance maintain an independent posi- 
 tion; and lastly, to grant permanent relief to the dis- 
 abled and sick."^ It would be difficult, with all our 
 experience, to give a better account of the spirit which 
 ought to preside over the administration of poor relief 
 than this ; and we may add, a similar spirit may be 
 (though more faintly) discerned in English legislation 
 during the reigns of the Tudor kings, previous to the 
 definite establishment of poor relief in 1601. Two 
 years later, in 1531, the Emperor, Charles V., directed 
 collections to be made in all places throughout the 
 Netherlands for the settled poor — the idlers and rogues 
 to be set to work, poor women and children provided 
 for ; the latter put to school, and afterwards placed out 
 in service or in trade. ^ A law of the German Empire, 
 in 1577, compelled parishes "to support then- own poor, 
 send away strangers, and provide accommodation for the 
 sick." And to take an instance from Scandinavian 
 nations, the "fundamental code" of Denmark, dated 
 1683, formally asserted the right of needy persons to 
 receive public assistance. 
 
 Thus there was established all over northern Europe 
 
 ^ The references throughout this chapter are, except when indi- 
 cated, to the Reports on Poor Laws in foreign countries, published 
 in 1875. As they can easily be found under each separate State, 
 it has not been thought worth while to encumber our pages with 
 special references. 
 
 2 Quarterly Review, December 1835, which also quotes from the 
 Capitularies of Charlemagne. " Suos quaeqiie civitas alito pauperes.''
 
 24 THE POOR LAW. [chap. 
 
 an artless but thoroughly well-meaning system of poor 
 relief, according to which each locality was expected 
 to make provision for the three main classes of paupers, 
 the vagrant, the impotent, and the able-bodied out of 
 work, using upon the whole its own discretion in 
 furtherance of this end, subject to certain enactments 
 which were more of the nature of suggestions than of 
 positive obligation. Something of this still hngers on in 
 the Baltic Provinces of the Russian Empire, with the 
 parish committee, parish wardens, the power to set men 
 to work, and (what was added afterwards) magisterial or 
 police control. 
 
 Meanwhile, in southern Europe, during the same period, 
 except that in France purely ecclesiastical management 
 of charities had been to some extent combined with State 
 supervision, things went on much as they had done before 
 until the French Eevolution. Then, and at each succeed- 
 ing revolutionary outbreak, attempts were made to in- 
 augurate a system of national compulsory relief imder the 
 influence of the sociahstic spirit ; but the struggle ended 
 in the establishment of a form of poor relief that may 
 be described as organized charity with each local com- 
 mune for the area of administration. Perhaps the 
 most impressive and final argument against legal or State 
 relief was the spectacle of the abuses which a continuance 
 of bad legislation had introduced into all the countries 
 where Poor Laws had taken root. To the Committee of 
 the National Assembly our Poor Law seemed, and with 
 justice, to be the "plague spot of England." But then 
 the French Revolution itself gave the impulse to that 
 series of reforming movements all over Europe which 
 has lasted till the present time, and produced remarkably
 
 11.1 POOR LAW INSTITUTIONS. 25 
 
 similar effects in various countries. This is our third or 
 reforming period, during which Poor Laws, among other 
 institutions, have been everywhere made the subject of 
 careful inquiry and sweeping changes, especially in respect 
 of the authorities to whom their administration has been 
 committed. "Whence has arisen the state of things now 
 existing, which we will proceed briefly to sketch, taking 
 the authorities in the order of parochial (or communal), 
 provincial, central, and municipal. 
 
 Before doing so one preliminary distinction must be 
 drawn that reflects little credit upon our national reputa- 
 tion for common sense. Other countries found ready 
 made to their hands a living and useful system of local 
 government upon which they could and did graft the 
 administration of poor rfchef. In England alone the 
 humihating truth must be confessed that no such system 
 was to be found, and that whatever local government we 
 possess at this moment has to a great extent grown up 
 out of our Poor Law legislation. Thus the Local Govern- 
 ment Board of to-day is merely the old Poor Law Com- 
 mission of 1834, with new duties attached to it. The 
 Guardians of Unions have by very slow degrees come to 
 have other than Poor Law functions intrusted to them ; 
 while, as though to emphasise our most characteristic 
 defects, the rate by which moneys (in rural parishes) are 
 I'aised for all local purposes is still called the Poor Eate. 
 What a curious chapter in the history of legislation does 
 this one small fact point back to ! 
 
 (1.) The Parish or Commune is all over Europe re- 
 cognised as the unit of Poor Law administration, though 
 under very different conditions. In Norway alone, where 
 a plan of very minute subdivision prevails, do the local
 
 28 THE POOR LAW. [chap. 
 
 authorities appear to be in any way independent of the 
 parish; they consist of special commissions, with the 
 clergyman at their head in villages, and a magistrate in 
 towns. The abuses, however, Avere such that in 1863 
 the power of levying special rates was taken from them 
 and given to the parish, to which they are now virtually 
 responsible. In most countries the Communal Board is 
 also the primary Poor Law authority ; this is the case in 
 Sweden, Denmark, Prussia, Holland, Bavaria, Austria, 
 and also in Italy and Portugal, where their duties in re- 
 spect of poor relief are of a very minor character. But 
 this arrangement is modified by the fact that in all the 
 more important cases the Communal Board is empowered 
 and expected to elect sjiecial committees, partly out of 
 their own number, partly such of the leading inhabitants 
 as are most fit to be trusted with the work, and who, as 
 in Prussia, are compelled to serve under a penalty. In 
 France, although the commune is still the administrative 
 area, the separation of Poor Law duties from the com- 
 mune goes a step further, " for the Legislature has sepa- 
 rated the management of the funds destined for the poor 
 from that of the municipal finances ; and the interests 
 of the poor are confided to other hands than those which 
 undertake the general interests of the commune." After 
 much contention, it was settled in 1872 to continue the 
 plan of two separate (unpaid) commissions in each Com- 
 mune : one to superintend the indoor relief of hospitals, 
 asylums, and almshouses, the other to direct the local 
 Board of out-relief (Bureau de hienfaisance), which every 
 commune is at liberty to establish, though until recently 
 two -thirds of the whole country appear to be without 
 them, their place in some cases being supplied by a
 
 n.] POOR LAW INSTITUTIONS. 27 
 
 humbler but similar institution called the Bureau de 
 Chariti. These committees are, however, still connected 
 with the communal authorities, who appoint two mem- 
 bers, together with the mayor as ex officio chairman. 
 The remaining members are nominated by very various 
 authorities, such as the Prefect, the Court of Appeal, 
 the Chamber of Commerce, the Bishop of the Diocese, 
 the Presbyterian Council, and the Jewish Consistory. 
 AVhen appointed, they appear to be practically inde- 
 pendent of the Commune, though not of other higher 
 authorities. 
 
 The same system obtains in Belgium, but the Com- 
 munes elect all the members of the committees and in- 
 spect their accounts, and thereby exercise a much larger 
 control. In Saxony, on the other hand (which presents 
 perhaps an instance of the most careful and elaborate 
 Poor Law legislation to be found out of England), we 
 have the opposite extreme of an almost complete separa- 
 tion of the Parochial from the Poor Law authorities. 
 The plan there is, that the "Head Boroughs" of the 
 villages (themselves nominated by the Government) 
 shall constitute a Poor Law Board, composed of the 
 " inhabitants of the district who are conspicuous by their 
 intelligence, their experience, the active interest they 
 show in all matters of public utihty, and the confidence 
 they enjoy among their fellow -citizens." It is further 
 prescribed that landowners, clergymen, schoolmasters, 
 presidents of private charitable institutions, and physi- 
 cians, should be always invited to join the committees, 
 and that such officials as the Head Boroughs themselves, 
 judges, and trustees of charitable foundations, should be 
 members- ex officio.
 
 28 THE POOR LAW. [chap. 
 
 The employment of assistant officers seems generally 
 left to the discretion of the local authorities, who do not, 
 as far as can be seen, rely much upon paid help. In 
 France, the duties of relieving officers, — besides, of course, 
 the work of indoor-relief, — is largely performed by mem- 
 bers of female rehgious orders, who, it is said, discharge 
 the various tasks of supervision, inquiry, and furnishing 
 reports, with much devotion and intelligence. They 
 receive salaries for their work. In New York State, 
 incredible as it may sound, the overseers were — perhaps 
 are — paid a fee for each pauper relieved. It is only 
 necessary to add that in most countries of Northern 
 Europe there exists a power of forming Unions of small 
 parishes for such objects as the establishment of work- 
 houses, or the suppression of mendicity, and, on the 
 other hand, of dividing large districts and placing them 
 under local sub -committees. It does not very clearly 
 appear how far these powers are acted upon, but prob- 
 ably not to so great an extent as to interfere with com- 
 munal authority or responsibility. 
 
 (2.) The duties of provincial authorities, are, as might 
 be supposed, of the slightest. We may notice, however, 
 that in some places they exercise a control over the 
 accounts; that (e.g. in Prussia, where there are thirty- 
 six provincial Unions) they relieve those who cannot be 
 made chargeable to any special Commune ; that they 
 sometimes decide disputes between Poor Boards, especi- 
 ally in respect of "settlement;" and that in France the 
 establishments for abandoned children and lunatics are 
 departmental and not communal, as also is the Correc- 
 tional Workhouse or D6p6t de MendiciU. The depart- 
 ment may also, in case of necessity, subsidise the
 
 II.] POOR LAW INSTITUTIONS. 29 
 
 communal treasury, and the budget of all charitable 
 estabhshments is submitted to the Prefect. 
 
 (3.) There is no special department of the Central 
 Government charged with the duty of managing the 
 administration of poor rehef, except in Sweden, which 
 framed its laws upon the EngHsh model, and where it is 
 said the working people used to demand out-rehef be- 
 cause they had been told it was given in England. 
 There we find a Central Board and an officer called his 
 Majesty's Governor. Elsewhere the State does Httle but 
 exercise such general control as a Minister of Interior 
 can always bring to bear upon local or provincial autho- 
 rities. Sometimes the State, as in Prussia, distributes a 
 small sum of money on its own account, generally to the 
 widows and orphans of soldiers, sometimes in aid of local 
 Unions. In France aU establishments for indoor-relief 
 are under State supervision, and are, of course, liable to 
 be interfered with by zealous ministers. But as a rule 
 that which constitutes the special excellence of the 
 English system, — control by a central authority, able to 
 impart something of scientific exactness into the adminis- 
 tration of relief, — is not sought for in foreign countries, 
 unless it be to some extent in the United States, where 
 there are Central Boards, who examine and pass accounts, 
 can admit and transfer paupers to the various charitable 
 institutions, and possess certain "advisory" powers. 
 But it is impossible to give any adequate idea of so very 
 complicated a system as that which prevails in the 
 United States. 
 
 (4.) In respect of large cities every other nation ex- 
 cept our OAvn has understood — first, that they require a 
 different organization from that which answers in rural
 
 80 THE POOR LAW. [chap. 
 
 or small places; secondly, that emancipation from the 
 control of the Town Council must lead to administrative 
 weakness. Hence there is no such thing as separate 
 Boards of Guardians in large towns, except once more 
 in America, though in many places the plan has been 
 adopted of establishing a Board of Relief that " should 
 have its root in the municipality, and yet act independ- 
 ently of it." At Hamburg, indeed, which is the parent 
 of this system, the General Board for the Relief of the 
 Poor is only connected with the Town Coimcil by having 
 representatives from it, and being presided over by a 
 burgomaster. In Leipzig the "Directorium" is authorized 
 by the Council to administer relief, and is liable to con- 
 trol, or even dismissal, by superior authority ; in other 
 respects it chooses its own officers and modes of carrying 
 on its work. In Paris (and Lyons) there is a special 
 administration, with twenty districts for outdoor -relief, 
 each with a council held at the mairie, the mayor being 
 president, and the whole subject to the Prefect of the 
 Seine. It is, however, impossible to enter more fully 
 into details, though, when we come to speak of modes of 
 investigation, we shall have to recur to the very interest- 
 ing and valuable experiments that are being carried on 
 in some German cities. Suffice it to say that Committees 
 or Boards, connected more or less closely with the 
 municipalities, are everywhere the rule. 
 
 II. The Funds from ivJiich relief is administered. — 
 These may be classified as follows : — (a) Rates ; (b) 
 Special Taxes ; (c) Communal Property ; (d) Endow- 
 ments ; (e) Charitable Ofi'erings ; (/) Repayment recovered 
 from paupers or their fx'iends. These form the revenue
 
 II.] POOR LAW INSTITUTIONS. 31 
 
 of the Communes, and we may complete the list by 
 adding (g) Subsidies from the revenue of the State, and 
 (h) of the Department. Setting aside our own country, 
 where the funds are raised entirely by local rates, and 
 America, where they are paid by appropriations out of 
 the general taxation of the towns and of the States, the 
 invariable rule is that the necessary funds are provided 
 by the Commune from one or more of the above-named 
 sources (with subsidies from the State), and are made 
 over to the Communal Committee or Poor Board to 
 which the administration of relief is entrusted. That 
 is to say, the ordinary communal revenue does not (with 
 the possible exception of Denmark) defray the cost of 
 poor relief, which is provided for by special portions 
 of the communal resources that have been either by 
 law or private gifts appropriated to the relief of desti- 
 tution. 
 
 We shall select as an example of the various sources 
 from which conamunal poor funds are commonly derived 
 the case of Saxony, which includes all the more import- 
 ant ones, and may therefore give the reader a fair idea 
 of the state of things that prevails generally. They are 
 no less than fifteen in number, and may be supplemented 
 by rates if required. 
 
 Casual Eeceipts. — (1.) Collections at weddings and 
 other Church ordinances. 
 
 (2.) Taxes levied wherever there is a change in the 
 ownership of property. 
 
 (3.) Legacies and donations. 
 
 (4.) Duties upon inheritances. 
 
 (5.) Money collected in boxes at post-offices, inns, 
 etc. etc
 
 82 THE POOR LAW. [chap, 
 
 (6.) Taxes paid for public performances, exhibitions, 
 etc. etc. 
 
 (7.) Fines appropriated by law for poor relief. 
 
 Regular Eeceipts. — (8.) Collections made at churches, 
 and gifts from Church property. 
 
 (9.) Contributions from the revenues of communities. 
 
 (10.) Voluntary house to house collections, or, in lieu 
 of this, rates, wherever they have been declared perma- 
 nent by the Poor Law Board. 
 
 (11.) Contributions of private clubs. 
 
 Other Eeceipts belonging to the Poor Law Fund 
 itself. — (12). Interest and rent of property. 
 
 (13.) Paupers' work. 
 
 (14.) Repayments by paupers who have subsequently 
 prospered. 
 
 (15.) Property left by paupers who have died in 
 public hospitals. 
 
 How far in rural districts these sources of income 
 require to be supplemented by the communal treasury it 
 is impossible to say ; but if Hamburg, Berhn, and Elber- 
 feld may be taken as fair specimens of the state of things 
 in German towns, the supplementary grant far exceeds 
 the original revenue. Thus at Hamburg in 1870 the 
 private revenue was £25,783, and the grant from the 
 public treasury was £60,453. At Berhn the grant in 
 aid was nearly five times the amount of the Poor Fund, 
 £136,867 to £28,650, and of this latter £8684 was 
 recovered from paupers or their relations. At Elberfeld 
 the two were more nearly equal, though the grant 
 from the municipal funds was still the larger, £7424 to 
 £5901. 
 
 We shall now select a few other characteristic or
 
 ri.] POOR LAW INSTITUTIONS. 33 
 
 important sources of revenue that are made use of in 
 other countries. 
 
 In Sweden the Commune levies a special tax on manu- 
 facturers who have drawn together a large working popu- 
 lation, and it also receives compensation from the State 
 for relief granted to soldiers, sailors, and labourers in 
 public employ. Norway levies a tax (communal) on 
 cards, spirits, and beer. Sweden, again, exacts a Poll 
 Tax upon every male over eighteen to the amount of 
 6Jd. per annum, and upon every female to the amount 
 of 3|d. Saxe Coburg approiiriatcs the profits of a 
 gymnasium. Leipzig sends round subscription collectors 
 armed "tvith powers that recall the old joke, " There is no 
 compulsion, only you must," for it is " kno\Aai. that those 
 who deny themselves or refuse to contribute are liable 
 to be summoned and taxed." Austria confiscates part of 
 the property of Catholic clergymen who die intestate. 
 Rome demands a contribution from newly created 
 cardinals. Bavaria insists that workmen employed out 
 of their own commune shall pay to a sick fund, and 
 compels employers to make some provision for their 
 work-people, generally by contributing to a benefit clul). 
 Charities in France derive benefits from burial-grounds, 
 theatres, pawnshops (so also in Italy), and lotteries. 
 The Greek Committees make a good thing out of the 
 sale of candles ; while, to crown the list, a single caged 
 nightingale is said to pay five thalers a year to the poor 
 fund at Elberfeld. 
 
 In Holland, we may add, the sources of public relief 
 are almost entirely charitable, and it is only after rigorous 
 investigation that the law allows subsidies to be made 
 to the various charitalilc institutions to whicli the reliev- 
 
 P
 
 34 TIIK VOOll LAW. [cnAr. 
 
 ing of the destitute is formally made over, and which 
 are all more or less subject to municipal control. But 
 even so the tendency to rely upon public money seems 
 exceedingly strong, as indeed is sure to be the case. 
 Thus, in 1871, out of a total expenditure of £897,1.39, 
 32 per cent (£287,011) was provided from the public 
 revenue, of which £203,247 went to subsidise the 
 charities. 
 
 The evidence from France points to a similar conclu- 
 sion. There the customary municipal subsidy varies in 
 amount from more than one half in the department of 
 the Seine (Paris) to somewhat more than one sixth in 
 the provinces. If to this we add the fact that the State 
 or the Department maintain certain institutions for indoor- 
 relief (in France the State maintains seven in whole or 
 in part, one of them being an asylum for the bhnd, 
 founded in 1260 by St. Louis), we shall appreciate the 
 force of the remarks made in the report from Belgium : — 
 " In theory the relief of the poor is essentially a com- 
 munal duty, and should cost nothing to the province or 
 the State. In practice, however, both these bodies are 
 obliged to assume some share of the burden." So that 
 the distinction between legal and charitable rehef, as 
 practised in England and France respectively, becomes 
 comparatively unimportant. Both systems have indeed 
 their one strong point. In England the wholesome rule 
 (too much of late departed from) that localities should 
 defray the cost of their own poor relief tends to keep 
 pauperism down. In France (and elsewhere) the organiza- 
 tion and supervision of charity prevents a thousand evils. 
 
 III. Thyose to ivhom relief is administered. — The causes
 
 II.] POOR LAW INSTITUTIONS. 35 
 
 and conditions of indigence are everywhere the same, and 
 produce the same classes of pauperised persons. These 
 need not, therefore, be separately treated, but we shall 
 attempt to give a general view of all the various lands of 
 persons to whom the name Pauper has been or may be 
 correctly applied. 
 
 There is a broad distinction made by nature itself 
 between the impotent and the able-bodied. The first 
 may be divided into tAvo classes : those who have never 
 had the chance of providing for themselves, and those 
 who have had the chance and neglected to use it. The 
 second also may be divided into those who are (presum- 
 ably) willing to get their own living, but are prevented 
 by adverse circumstances, and those Avho notoriously 
 decHne to work. Hence we have these four classes : — 
 
 First, The impotent who suffer from no fault of their 
 own, among whom may be included (a) the constitu- 
 tionally infirm, e.g. the blind ; (b) imbeciles of different 
 kinds ; (c) fatherless children, whether orphans, deserted, 
 or bastards. 
 
 Second, The impotent who might have done better for 
 themselves by the exercise of virtue and forethought. 
 These include (d) the aged ; (e) the permanently sick 
 (i.e. who have become so more or less early in life) ; 
 (/) lying-in women (unmarried). 
 
 Thirdly, The able-bodied who, as being settled in one 
 place, and having some ostensible means of gaining a 
 living, are nevertheless out of work. Under this head 
 may be included paupers (r/) from lack of employment, 
 (Ji) from temporary illness, {i) from insufficient wages to 
 support the families dependent on them. 
 
 Fourthly, The able-bodied who notoriously prefer idle-
 
 36 THE rOOR LAW. [cirAP. 
 
 ness to work, and who may be divided into (j) mendi- 
 cants and (Jc) vagrants. 
 
 To these eleven classes we may add a twelfth, namely 
 — (/) Widows Avith families, whom, though "able-bodied'' 
 themselves, they cannot nevertheless be expected to 
 maintain, even with full employment. These form every- 
 where the recipients of poor relief called paupers, and a 
 mere glance at the list will serve to show how varied are 
 the problems which Poor Law administration is expected 
 to grapple with, and how likely it is that mistakes should 
 be made. 
 
 IV. The Methods hy which relief is administered. — 
 These once more are the same in aU places, and are too 
 familiar to need explanation. They are divided into two 
 kinds, corresponding broadly vnth the two classes of 
 impotent and able-bodied, as above described ; that is to 
 say, indoor-relief as generally employed for the former, 
 and out-relief for the latter, — vagrants, however, being 
 exceptionally dealt with. Of these we may also enu- 
 merate twelve principal ones, as foUows : — 
 
 Indoor-relief, comprising {a) poorhouses (this general 
 term includes almshouses and workhouses, which practi- 
 cally are not distinguishable) ; (h) hospitals ; (c) asylums ; 
 {d) schools, including reformatories ; (e) vagrant wards. 
 
 Out-relief, comprising (/) gifts of money ; {g) gifts in 
 kind ; (li) giving of employment ; (?) apprenticing of 
 children ; {j) medical attendance ; (k) burial. 
 
 To these may be added, as something that partakes 
 of the nature of both out and indoor relief, and is per- 
 haps older than either, the curious plan of (/) boarding 
 out which still survives in some places. Of this (the rest
 
 II.] POOR LAW INSTITUTIONS. 37 
 
 speak for themselves) a brief explanation may not be 
 uninteresting, especially as we shall come upon some 
 trace of it in the "Roundsman" of the old English Poor 
 Law. It was found convenient in early times, and in 
 thinly -populated agricultural districts, to lodge the 
 paupers out, — that is, to place them with householders in 
 rotation, to be fed and sheltered. This custom, which 
 was once widely extended, and still lingers on in parts of 
 Austria and Sweden, is in full operation in Norway alone, 
 where it is called the "L^gd." In 1832 very minute 
 regulations were issued to prevent abuses, the superin- 
 tendent of the Isegd being required to report improper 
 conduct on either side, and have the parties fined or 
 imprisoned. The peasants to this day uphold the system, 
 behoving that it takes no more to feed an extra guest, 
 and that to receive him keeps alive the feeling of volun- 
 tary benevolence. But the farmers, who are liable to 
 have whole families quartered upon them for relief, 
 either in their own houses or at the paupers' home, make 
 many complaints of indolent and impertinent guests. 
 
 The reader will not expect any account of the multi- 
 tudinous varieties of operation by which the above- 
 mentioned (12) methods are appHed to the relief of the 
 (12) classes of indigent persons covered by the name 
 pauper : there is the less occasion for this, inasmuch as, 
 compared with the general resemblance, the differences 
 are but superficial. Practically, whether by State-guar- 
 anteed support, or by organized and subsidised charity, 
 or by a mere abundance of voluntary benevolence (as in 
 Italy and Portugal), there are established all over Europe 
 local authorities to whom the pauper can apply in ex- 
 pectation of receiving that sort of relief which is deemed 
 
 411914
 
 38 THE POOR LAW. [chap. 
 
 Buitablo to liis case, and whicli, we strongly suspect, 
 differs very little indeed in different countries. On the 
 other hand, the absence of those two main points of the 
 English system, central control and the workhouse test, 
 does certainly produce some results which it is well 
 worth our while to point out. 
 
 First, we may notice that there is a unanimous com- 
 plaint on the part of all English inquirers that foreign 
 countries fall far below our own in the important parti- 
 cular of obtaining trustworthy statistics ; Sweden, which 
 possesses a central Department, being the only exception. 
 Thus, of France it is said that "statistics are collected 
 somewhat irregularly;" of Belgium, that "there are no 
 published Poor Law returns for the whole kingdom since 
 1858;" of Prussia, that "the absence of statistical in- 
 formation in a country where social subjects are so closely 
 studied is attributed to the fact that each commune 
 would start from a more or less different basis ;" of the 
 United States, "that a sound basis for calcidating the 
 comparative amount of pauperism in England and 
 America is altogether wanting," Massachusetts, however, 
 forming a partial exception. 
 
 From the absence of local control it follows that the 
 communal authorities, — that is, the Poor Law Board, which 
 represents them, — possess a discretion as to the adminis- 
 tration of relief far beyond that enjoyed by an English 
 Board of Guardians. The State contents itself vnth, at 
 most, laying down certain prmciples, and then leaving it 
 to the Poor Law Boards to carry them out in their own 
 way ; even in Sweden the Poor Law Boards determine 
 independently the manner of relief, which may, accord- 
 ing to the law, " vary with the peculiarities of the dis-
 
 II.] POOR LAW INSTITUTIONS. 39 
 
 trict." In Saxouy " the State interferes only in cases 
 of necessity." Generally speaking, the rule is that the 
 State insists upon the commune providing relief for the 
 destitute, defines who the destitute are, and then leaves 
 it to the discretion of the local authorities. Of this rule 
 the Prussian law of 1871 may serve as an example : — 
 "Every German has, in case of distress, the right to 
 demand of his commune a roof, the absolute necessaries 
 of life, medical attendance in case of illness, and in case 
 of death a suitable burial. Relief may be granted either 
 by admission into a poorhouse or hospital, or by allotting 
 work proportioned to the strength of the pauper, either 
 in such an institution or out of it." 
 
 The conditions of indoor- relief are also in some rc- 
 sj)ects different from what they are in England, owing 
 to the absence of the Workhouse Test. In foreign 
 countries the functions of an English workhouse are 
 divided between almshouses where rehef is administered, 
 and correctional houses where repression is carried on to 
 an extent unknown amongst ourselves. These last belong 
 to our next division, and will be mentioned hereafter, 
 As to the almshouses, the inmates are much the same as 
 in an English workhouse, namely, the aged, infirm, and 
 sick ; the number of children, it is to be hoped, is grow- 
 ing less. But, as the poorhouse is not used as a test of 
 want, the need of repressive discipline is not felt; and 
 the natural sentiments of compassion towards the kind 
 of persons who occupy it tend to make it a tolerably easy 
 and even indulgent place of residence. Complaints upon 
 this head are constant. Thus, to take two instances, the 
 worlchouse in Copenhagen was said some ten years ago 
 to be an example of all that such an institution should
 
 40 THE rOOR LAW. [chap. 
 
 not be. Brandy to the amount of 6000 quarts, and 
 tobacco to the amount of 1000 dollars, were sold every 
 year to the inmates, of whom in 1867 about half absconded 
 with property belonging to the house. At Elberfeld the 
 poorhouse, though not very well arranged, is occupied 
 by a contented set of inmates, who are well fed and clad, 
 and enjoy their freedom, — those who can work going out 
 by day to do it, and receiving for their own use whatever 
 they earn above the cost of their maintenance. "In 
 short" (as the rejiort says) "an old Elberfeld pauper 
 smoking his eternal pipe in the day -room of the poor- 
 house may well feel that he has got a comfortable asylum 
 for the close of his days." We may notice that the alms- 
 house or asylum for the aged and infirm is an important 
 institution in America, where also it was liable to many 
 of the worst abuses of the old English poorhouse ; but 
 these have been of late years reformed by sending the 
 able-bodied paupers, tramps, and others, who used to 
 throng to them in winter or when suffering from disease, 
 to houses of correction. In America the adaptation of 
 houses to the different classes of paupers seems excel- 
 lently done. 
 
 It may be mentioned here that the practice of exact- 
 ing from indoor paupers remunerative labour eith^* at 
 their own trades or at some occupation suitable to their 
 capacity, still prevails on the Continent, — at any rate 
 among the northern nations. Public opinion in England 
 has clearly pronounced this to be an economical and also 
 a Poor Law mistake. But this general rule does not apply 
 to task-work done at houses of correction. 
 
 As to out-relief in foreign countries, it would seem to 
 be, as might be ex^Dected, upon the whole much more
 
 II.] rOOR LAW INSTITUTIONS. 41 
 
 capricious and unequal, much more unsatisfactory, and, 
 in proportion to its amount, more pauperising, than in 
 England, where in truth there is not much to boast of. 
 It is kept down certainly in France, and probably elsewhere, 
 by the fact that it is limited not by the extent of destitu- 
 tion to be relieved, but by the amount of the funds which 
 the authorities have to spend. But then this leads to a 
 system of small temporary doles that pauperise mthout re- 
 lieving. Then again, the Biu-eaus are said to be too nume- 
 rous and badly arranged. Then again, there are the usual 
 complaints that the administration of relief is confided to 
 overseers, often small shopkeepers, who have no time to 
 obtain the necessary information, and, being afraid of in- 
 cm-ring odium, "fall into habits of blind and wholesale 
 benevolence." And lastly, there is a growing conviction 
 that in every case the amount of pauperism depends not 
 upon the circumstances of the working classes, but upon 
 the facility with wliich help may be obtained. The 
 crucial instance is Belgium, where the communes pos- 
 sessed of the largest charitable resources have the most 
 paupers, and Luxembourg, with next to no revenues, has 
 also next to no pauperism. 
 
 It may serve to illustrate the confusion and uncer- 
 tainty still prevalent upon this subject, that in America 
 the State of New York, on the one hand (taught by the 
 disastrous results of indiscriminate charity), in 1876 re- 
 solved to make no appropriation of funds for out-relief, 
 and that the State of Massachusetts in the same year 
 passed an Act for the express purpose of extending it. 
 
 V. Repressive Measures. — We shall, take the means 
 whereby legislators have endeavoured to prevent the
 
 42 THE POOli LAW. [chap. 
 
 abuses of poor relief in their chronological order, and 
 arrange them as follows : — 
 
 (a) Punishment, or the simple remedy of earlier times, 
 now confined to vagrants, impostors, and incorrigibles. 
 
 (b) Settlement, or the first limitation of the conditions 
 upon which relief was given, i.e. that a pauper had only 
 a claim for relief upon his own parish. 
 
 (c) Compulsory maintenance, including jiayments by 
 friends, and repajonents by the pauper himself. 
 
 Direct repression, including (d) house test ; (e) labour 
 test ; (/) correctional houses ; (g) criminal punishment ; 
 and (h) investigation, this latter being used not only as 
 a means of discovery, but as a repelHng measure. These 
 methods of direct repression form the modern solution 
 of the pauper difficulty, and touch by far the hardest 
 and most debated problems of poor rehef. 
 
 The broad distinction between the English method of 
 applying repression (which, of course, we shall consider 
 at length in its place) and the foreign may be summed 
 up in one short but important proposition. In England 
 every other mode of repression is much less stringent 
 than elsewhere, because the worldiouse test has super- 
 seded them all. With us the relieving authority can 
 offer the House, whenever there is any uncertainty as to 
 the reality of the destitution, and the result naturally 
 follows that, having this formidable and efficient weapon 
 to fall back on, punitive regulations even in the case of 
 "tramps" are almost unknown; settlement is becoming 
 quite a simple and easy matter ; the distinction between 
 relief in money and in kind, which is much thought of 
 on the Continent, is practically neglected ; maintenance 
 by friends is not half enough insisted on ; and investiga-
 
 II.] POOR LAW INSTITUTIONS. 43 
 
 tiou, as elsewhere understood, there is far too little. 
 Leaving this, however, for its proper place, we go on to 
 give some account of the principle of repressive measures 
 as carried out all over the world. 
 
 (1.) Punishment Avas the only remedy provided against 
 pauperism (then known only under the forms of begging, 
 whether by mendicants or vagrants) during all those 
 long centuries when punishment was least deserved by 
 the pauper, and might, from our present point of view, 
 with much more reason have been inflicted on the in- 
 fiictors. Pauperism was to a great extent caused, and 
 certainly aggravated, by legislation either economically 
 vicious, or else directed avowedly against the interests of 
 the working classes in a spirit that can only be excused 
 by the fact that it marked the period of transition from 
 slavery to independence. Then it was sought to extir- ) 
 
 pate it by means that "makes this part of (English) 
 history look like the history of savages in America. . 
 Almost all severities have been inflicted, except scalp- 
 ing." In England, France, Spain, and the German . . 
 Empire, we read the same dismal tale of Avhipping, j 
 
 branding, the pillory, burning the ear, cropping the ear, 1 1 
 couples chained together to cleanse sewers, long terms 
 of imprisonment, and, finally, death itself, in hundreds 
 every year in every country. A good deal of this severity 
 still remains in the treatment of vagrants even now. In 
 France Napoleon decreed that vagrancy should cease, 
 but, as a French writer remarks, " the beggars made a 
 mock of him who made a mock at kings. He is gone — 
 they remain." (It is a tempting epigram to say that if 
 in France the vagrant mastered the conqueror of kings, 
 in England the pauper proved too much for the conqueror
 
 44 THE rOOR LAW. [chap. 
 
 of the conqueror, during whose pre-eminence in poHtics 
 nothing was done to abate the evil.) And, generally, it 
 may be said of all countries except our own that police 
 regulations of a character so harsh as to tend to defeat 
 their own purpose is the method adopted for dealing 
 with beggars, the old plan of sending them back to their 
 own parishes after imprisonment still finding favour. 
 Two exceptions, however, are noteworthy. In Italy 
 (the history of which is full of quaint stories of beggar 
 companies and their rights and customs) the infirm even 
 now, — that is, by a law of 1865, — receive a license to beg 
 upon condition of being civil, and not disgusting people 
 by the exliibition of their sores, thereby carrying the 
 mind back to the old Scotch days of that prince of 
 mendicants, the King's Bedesman, Edie Ochiltree by 
 name. And in Poland there are no restrictions at all 
 upon professional mendicancy, owing, it is said, to the 
 old Sclave superstition that it is unlucky to turn a 
 beggar away. Does this same superstition, it might be 
 asked, at all account for the persistency with which 
 beggars are relieved by persons much poorer than them- 
 selves in English country places 1 
 
 (2.) Settlement. The meaning of this innocent-look- 
 ing word, big with legal intricacies and manifold disaster 
 to the interests of the working people, is merely that 
 paupers must be relieved in the place in which they are 
 "settled," or have "gained a settlement," and that if 
 they are relieved in any other parish than their own 
 they must be sent back to it, and the expenses of their 
 maintenance charged upon it. The place of settlement 
 or domicile, as it is called abroad, is primarily the place 
 where a man is born. No doubt the law of settlement
 
 n.] POOR LAW INSTITUTIONS. 45 
 
 was not at first intended as a means of repression. 
 The Eeformation Avas marked in some respects by a 
 return to the old primitive notion of village government, 
 and it seems to have been thought that each j^arish was 
 an independent community, capable of maintaining its 
 own indigents. But as society advanced, and men, 
 hitherto chained to their own parishes, began to move 
 about in the Avorld, a second principle, — the principle, as 
 it may be called, of universal selfishness, by which every 
 other nation, class, city, or even village, is regarded as 
 a kind of rival, if not enemy, against which "protective" 
 measures have to be taken, — began to come into operation. 
 The larger and wealthier parishes, on the one hand, the 
 landowners on the other, reaped the advantage of the 
 labour of workpeople, and then devised the law of settle- 
 ment as an excuse for passing them back to their own 
 parishes in age or sickness. In Germany the evil was 
 aggravated to an intolerable extent by the jealousies of 
 the small States, and was not finally grappled with till 
 the establishment of the German Empire some ten or 
 eleven years ago. 
 
 But whatever its origin, settlement was always prac 
 tically a repressive measure. It went upon the simple 
 principle that each locality knew most about its OAvn 
 paupers, and could deal best -with them, and it fixed the 
 penalty of confinement to the place of settlement upon 
 the pauper's head. Hence, as less artless measures of 
 repression have prevailed, and a sense has grown up 
 that the interests of localities are after all identical, the 
 law of settlement has become far more lenient and 
 simple. A few instances of the present state of the law 
 may Ije useful. In France the Bureau of out-relief (or
 
 46 THE TOOK LAW. [chap. 
 
 out-charity as it might be called) may not relieve, except 
 the recipient has been domiciled in the commune at least 
 one year. In Belgium the term of residence was first 
 one year, then four, then eight, and finally it was pro- 
 posed, in the interests of the rural communes, to diminish 
 it to one. In the German Empire, where the laws of 
 the separate States prescribed different periods, a Federal 
 law of 1870 prescribed two years as sufficient to obtain 
 a settlement. In Sweden a person's settlement is in the 
 Union where he was last registered for Poll Tax, which 
 would seem practically to abolish it. But in Holland 
 alone has settlement been formally done away, and 
 the task of relief been "committed to the humanity of 
 the whole nation in its different localities." But then 
 Holland relies so entirely, in theory at any rate, upon the 
 charities, that the abolition of settlement is rendered all 
 the easier. 
 
 On the other hand, the State of Massachusetts in 
 1874 increased the already numerous ways of obtaining 
 settlement (resembling what will meet us in English 
 Poor Law history), with the intention of increasing the 
 proportion of outdoor to indoor relief, — a curious retro- 
 cession, due, we suspect, to the prevalence of American 
 sentiment in a sphere where sentiment has wrought 
 infinite harm to the very persons it meant to benefit. 
 
 (3.) Maintenance by friends and repayment by the 
 pauper himself form a just and obvious mode of repres- 
 sion, to which recourse is had universally. Here once 
 more we give a few leading instances. The duty of 
 maintenance in some cases (Sweden and Denmark) does 
 not extend beyond parents and children ; and in the 
 latter country it would appear that the maintenance of
 
 II.] POOR LAW INSTITUTIONS. 47 
 
 children is confined to eighteen years of age, and of parents 
 to cases of disordered intellect. In France and Germany 
 the duty ascends in the direct line, and is extended to 
 children-in-law ; in Italy brothers and sisters are in- 
 cluded, and (apparently) by local regulations in some 
 places in Germany, e.g. Berlin. In America the ordin- 
 ary rule of direct ascent and descent prevails, but is " not 
 well enforced, because of the vexation, expense, and dis- 
 agreeable duty of enforcing it " (Massachusetts Report, 
 p. 86). In Saxony even distant relations "may be 
 invited by the Poor LaAV Board, in an appropriate 
 manner, to fulfil the moral duties incumbent upon them 
 in this respect." But what is the eff'ect of this moral 
 suasion does not appear. 
 
 As to repayment, great and laudable stress is laid upon 
 this wholesome discipline in many countries. Thus, in 
 Sweden the Poor Law Board has the right of mastership 
 over the pauper until he has repaid the sum expended 
 on his behalf. In Denmark the pauper's eff"ects arc 
 registered, so as to prevent him pa^vning or selling his 
 property, and the Commune has even some claim against 
 his heir ; in any case, relief is regarded as a debt to be 
 paid even before rent or service, should his circumstances 
 improve. The same holds in Germany, where the Com- 
 mune inherits the pauper's property, and where con- 
 siderable sums are retained as repayments. Thus the 
 Commune often comes into possession of articles of 
 furniture (sharing it with Avidows and children), which 
 it sometimes lends out to deserving persons. In 1870 
 Berlin inherited ^437 from this source. 
 
 (4.) Direct repression. Even if experience had not 
 settled the matter, it might have been taken for certain
 
 48 THE POOR LAW. [rnAP. 
 
 that, sooner or later, r,he need would arise for stronger and 
 more direct measures of repression when once an induce- 
 ment had been held out to idle and worthless persons to 
 avail themselves of the public bounty. And as a matter of 
 fact nearly every nation has had occasion to reform its 
 Poor Laws during the last half-century in this direction. 
 That is to say, there has been a recurrence to some sort 
 of i^enal legislation, in order to carry out the great prin- 
 ciple of repression, which no one disputes in words, that 
 the condition of the pauper should be less favourable 
 than that of the self-supporting labourer. The English 
 solution of the problem, namely, the imposition of the 
 workhouse test, has found no favour with foreign Legis- 
 latures, though strongly recommended by high authorities. 
 The reasons are partly sentimental, partly moral. The 
 first is the familiar argument that it is wrong to disturb 
 family ties, a doctrine which in France is pushed to the 
 extreme of relieving the sick at home in preference to 
 sending them to hospitals. Upon the same ground the 
 workhouse at Leipzig was finally closed in 1849, after 
 the experiment had been twice tried. The American 
 argument is much the same, Avith the cry of economy 
 superadded. Thus the Boston overseers declare that 
 "this plan would separate families, permanently pau- 
 perise them, and is a doubtful measure of humanity or 
 economy, as a little relief occasionally in many cases is 
 all that is required, and is not necessarily demoralising," 
 (This last clause would seem to most English authorities 
 fatally erroneous.) But these arguments do not satisfy 
 the more advanced and thorough German thinking 
 Avhich is summed up in a report on the Elberfeld system 
 by L. F. SeyfTardt, printed in the Reports from foreign
 
 II.] rOOR LAW INSTITUTIONS. 49 
 
 countries. There the " moral development of the indi- 
 vidual," "who positively deteriorates under the work- 
 house system," is the argument relied on, the sentimental 
 arguments coming second. The writer does not appear 
 to have a very practical knowledge of the working of 
 the English system, for he fails to notice that as a 
 matter of fact the test is so effective that few persons 
 who would be thought worthy of out-relief, still fewer 
 who would deteriorate in the workhouse, ever find their 
 way "svithin its walls, — at any rate, with the intention of 
 remaining there for any length of time. 
 
 But the point of interest is to observe how other 
 countries have met the difficulty. They begin by draw- 
 ing a broad distinction between ordinary distress and 
 destitution due to the pauper's own fault, and then 
 proceed to visit the latter with a correctional disciphne 
 the like to which is quite unknown amongst oiu"selves. 
 And no doubt, granting that it is within the province 
 and the capacity of the State to take cognisance of 
 degrees of moral turpitude, it is refreshing to hear of 
 correctional workhouses to which applicants of bad 
 character are forth-vvith consigned and made to work. 
 We have alluded to these before in connection with the 
 punishment of vagrants, but it is by no means confined 
 to this class of paupers. Thus in Berlin the police can 
 order drunkards to be confined there for any period from 
 one day to two years; so also in Sweden, Denmark, 
 Bavaria, and Baden, where idleness and prostitution are 
 added to the list of punishable ofi'ences ; while at Elber- 
 feld itself imprisonment for play, drink, idleness, and 
 even the loss of means of support, was only abolished a 
 few years ago against the will of the Poor Law adminis- 
 
 E
 
 50 THE POOR LAW. [chap. 
 
 trators. In France, on tlic contrary, the Ddputs de 
 MendiciU appear to be confined to the punishment of 
 the vagrants or beggars for whom they were established. 
 But the plan of correctional houses appears to have 
 reached its greatest development in America. In New 
 York, by a refinement of American humour, an able- 
 bodied person applying for relief is obliged to endorse an 
 order for admission to a worldiouse for a definite period, 
 thereby accomphshing the in other respects not very 
 difficult task of "committing himself," and, when there, is 
 set to some repulsive form of labour. And in Massa- 
 chusetts, under an Act known as the Pipers and Fiddlers' 
 Act, not merely rogues and vagabonds but (amongst 
 others) stubborn children, common drunkards, night- 
 walkers, brawlers, persons who neglect . their families, 
 frequenters of taverns and gaming-houses, and common 
 pipers and fiddlers, may be, upon conviction, committed 
 to the house of correction. At one time ordinary paupers 
 Avere inmates of the same house, but there are now 
 separate establishments. 
 
 There remains the larger class of paupers, whose 
 faults, whatever they may be, do not amount to punish- 
 able crime. For these the only alternative mode of 
 repression is to make things very uncomfortable for them 
 by strict investigation and close supervision. This is the 
 secret of the celebrated system in vogue at Elberfeld and 
 other German cities, which the author above quoted 
 expressly describes as a substitution for the worldiouse 
 test. At Elberfeld, a town of 71,000 popidation, there 
 are 18 overseers and 252 visitors, one overseer with 14 
 visitors having charge over each section into which the 
 town is divided, which makes one officer to about every
 
 II.] POOR LAW INSTITUTIONS. 51 
 
 2G0 inhabitants. The visitors meet in their sections 
 once a fortnight (the overseer presiding) to report and 
 decide on applications for relief, the conditions of obtain- 
 ing which are, that the applicant (if able-bodied) should 
 be out of work, should be able to show that he has tried 
 to obtain it, and should be willing to do what work is 
 found for him. But before obtaining it he must answer 
 every question in a "Question Paper," which really 
 seems in our English eyes a kind of instrument of mental 
 torture. It begins (at Leipzig, where there is the same 
 system) with a little homily upon the necessity of can- 
 dour, obedience, and modesty, and upon the results of 
 pauperism to the recipient. He must give information 
 as to every detail of his life, e.g. his work, change of 
 residence, property, furniture. He must not keep a dog, 
 nor go to a place of public entertainment. He is 
 " constantly," i.e. not less than once a fortnight, looked 
 up by the visitor, and every change is noted and re- 
 ported. He must declare whether his family leads a 
 moral and honest life, and " specify which members do 
 not." The visitor is expected to reprimand disorderly 
 conduct, to enforce cleanliness and honesty, to warn 
 parents of their duties — especially education — towards 
 their children, and children of theirs — especially rever- 
 ence — towards their parents. In short, he must " strive 
 to exercise a healthy influence over the moral feehngs of 
 the poor." 
 
 There can be no doubt as to the efficiency of this 
 system of investigation as a repressive measure. In 1852 
 the number of paupers at Elberfeld was estimated at 
 4000 in a population of 50,000, or about 1 in 12. In 
 1873 it was 1863 in a population of 71,000, or about 1
 
 52 THE POOR LAW. [oitap. 
 
 in 38. But it is somewhat ominous that, as in the case 
 of our own country, a reaction set in, and there were in 
 1873 800 more paupers than in 1869; the increase in 
 population is, however, not stated for any year later than 
 18C9, and the growth of pauperism is in part set down 
 to the late Franco-German war. But, under any circum- 
 stances, the results are much the same as in the best 
 English Unions. 
 
 VI. Remedial Measures. — Upon these we do not 
 propose to speak at length. Some of them, such as 
 moral supervision, procuring (private) employment, have 
 been touched upon already, though the appointment of 
 trustees in Saxony for drunkards and extravagant per- 
 sons, to prevent them becoming chargeable, deserves a 
 special word of mention. Others, such as loans, migra- 
 tion, emigration, allotments (more than 2000 persons 
 rent potato ground of the Commune in Berlin, upon the 
 recommendation of the Poor Law Board), do not need 
 explanation. Others, such as sanitary inspection, school 
 attendance, and vaccination, are only accidentally united 
 with poor relief administration. But the truth is, that 
 although the raising of the working classes above the 
 need of pauperism is in theory set forth as one, if not 
 the principal, object of legislation, yet what was said of 
 the New York Society for Improving the Condition of 
 the Poor applies in all cases : — "Its design is stated to 
 be 'the elevation of the physical and moral condition of 
 the indigent, and, so far as is compatible with these 
 objects, the relief of their necessities.' In practice its 
 operations are confined to the giving of relief" 
 
 But the trial of remedial measures is perhaps yet to
 
 II.] POOR LAW INSTITUTIONS. 53 
 
 come, and meanwliile the bare statement of such aims 
 testifies to a growing desire to promote the welfare of 
 labour. And though Burke's dictum is unquestionably 
 true, that it is "not in the power of Governments to do 
 much positive good," yet they can and ought to remove 
 the evils which the ignorance or selfishness of previous 
 generations have allowed to grow up. And especially 
 something can be done to put the relations of charity 
 and State relief upon a sounder footing. As a specimen 
 of what has been attempted, and of what may be hoped 
 for hereafter, we may fittingly bring this chapter to a 
 close with the mention of the plan which the city of 
 Boston adopted some years ago. The Corporation built, 
 at a cost of 200,000 dollars, a Bureau of relief, at which, 
 besides the offices for the overseers, there were also offices 
 set apart for various charitable organisations, a registra- 
 tion of charities, and temporary homes for Avomen and 
 children. Apphcants are referred then and there to the 
 particular charity which can deal with their case, and 
 thus some progress is made in what must be pronounced 
 the capital article of future administration of relief, — 
 namely, the separation between cases which can be dealt 
 with by the public authorities without doing more harm 
 to the community than they do good to the individual, 
 and those which require the patience, the painstaking, 
 and the benevolent sympathy that can be looked for 
 from charity, and from charity alone. 
 
 \\oy 
 
 ^KJ*^'
 
 CHArTEE III. 
 
 POOR LAW HISTORY.^ 
 
 The existing system of poor relief in England is so 
 entirely, both as to its principles and its institutions, a 
 matter of gradual growth, that in giving some account of 
 the earlier Poor Law we shall be virtually describing the 
 essential elements and main features of that which is at 
 present established. And as the history, even in the 
 Ijrief compendium Avhich is all that we can attempt, is both 
 interesting and valuable, whereas the details of adminis- 
 tration can "with diiSculty be made so, we are the less 
 reluctant to beg the reader's attention to what is, in 
 truth, a singular episode in the annals of our social pro- 
 gress. 
 
 The old Poor Law came to an end, as hiost people 
 know, in 1834; previous to which time it may be divided' 
 into three distinctly marked periods. 
 
 ^ The authorities for the next two chapters are mainly — NichoUs's 
 History of the English Poor Law ; the Keport of the Poor Law 
 Commissioners in 1834 ; the Sixth Report of the Poor Law Com- 
 mission in 1839 ; an article in the Edinburgh Review, Number 149, 
 on Poor Law Reform, attributed to Mr. Nassau Senior ; and an 
 article in the Quarterly Revieio, Number 106, attributed to Sir 
 Francis Head, on English Charity. Reference has been made to the 
 original standard work on the subject — Sir Frederick Eden's ^tate of 
 the Poor, published in 1797.
 
 cnAP. III.] POOR LAW HISTORY. 55 
 
 First, down to the death of Elizabeth in 1603, or 
 more strictly to the famous Act which definitely estab- 
 hshed poor rehef in England in 1601. 
 
 Second, down to a somewhat uncertain date, for which 
 the accession of George III. in 1760 may be taken as a 
 convenient point. 
 
 Third, down to the Eeforra of 1834. 
 
 The First Period. — Down to the reign of Elizabeth it 
 cannot be said that Poor Laws, in our sense of the word 
 (i.e. measures for the relief of destitution), existed at all; 
 they might more fittingly be called laws against the poor 
 and the rights of labour. The attempt was made per- 
 sistently for 250 years, so far as the passing of repressive 
 and penal laws could accomplish it, to reduce the labourer 
 to the state of servitude from which it is but fair to re- 
 member he was but just emerging. To carry out this- 
 object he was confined to his~ place of birth; he was 
 compelled to work for wages fixed, sometimes by law (e.g. 
 that he should accept the current wages of the last five 
 or six years), sometimes by justices, themselves employers 
 of labour, every half-year according to the price of pro- 
 visions; and if, from any vague idea of bettering his 
 condition, he wandered abroad in search of work at the 
 highest attainable price, he rendered himself liable to 
 barbarous punishments (mentioned in the last chapter), 
 which there is some reason for believing were not very 
 commonly inflicted. At any rate, each successive Act 
 testified to the failure of the attempt, " not^vithstanding 
 the good statutes before made," and we may therefore 
 content ourselves with one illustration of the spirit that 
 rfoverned the whole series. The Act of Henry IV.,
 
 56 THE rOOR LAW. [chap. 
 
 passed in 1405, recites that tlio law preventing the re- 
 moval of labourers into large towns was evaded by the 
 practice of apprenticing quite young children to divers 
 crafts within cities and boroughs, " so that there is so 
 great scarcity of labourers and other servants of hus- 
 bandry that the gentlerien and other people of the 
 realm be greatly impoverished;" which practice it then 
 proceeds to forbid (except the parent have property in 
 the borough), upon pain of forfeiture of the indentures, 
 of one year's imprisonment, and of fine levied upon the 
 parent at the king's pleasure, and upon the employer to 
 the amount of one hundred shillings. 
 
 As is commonl}'^ the case, things were at the darkest 
 before the dawn. At no time were the vagrancy laws 
 more severe or more severely administered than in the 
 reign of Henry VIIL, when, as the modern undergraduate 
 may Hke to know, his predecessors swelled the number 
 of "valiant rogues," under the title of "Oxford and 
 Cambridge scholars that go about begging." But during 
 this time of social dislocation and religious strife the 
 labourer did but share the fate which befell all that Avas 
 best and worthiest in the nation. It is more pleasant 
 and not less profitable to observe that the tide of amend- 
 ment was already setting strongly in, and that the 
 struggle between the old and the new spirit, which was 
 nowhere more clearly marked than in the treatment of 
 the indigent, was ended by the victory of the latter, 
 sooner perhaps in England than in other countries. The 
 older spirit was still represented by the enactment of the 
 old ferocious laws against "sturdy vagabonds ;" but so 
 early as 1536 the first distinction was drawn between 
 "poor impotent, sick, and diseased people, not being able
 
 III.] POOR LAW HISTORY. 57 
 
 to work, who may be provided for, holpen, and relieved," 
 and "such as be histy, who, having their limbs strong 
 enough to labour, may be daily kept in continual labour, 
 whereby every one of them may get their own living 
 with their own hands." To carry out the first object 
 the clergy were to exhort the people to charitable offer- 
 ings, and were to keep a book to show how the money 
 raised was expended. The idea thus started spread 
 rapidly. In 1551 it was enacted that in order to provide 
 for the "impotent, feeble, and lame, WHO ARE POOR IN 
 VERY DEED," collectors of alms at church on Sundays 
 should be appointed ; that, in case of refusal, the Bishop 
 is to send for the recusant to expostulate with him, and — 
 by a later Act — should bind him over to appear before 
 the Justices, Avho, after " charitably and gently persuading 
 him," should themselves levy a tax upon him at their 
 discretion. But it is satisfactory to think that all through- 
 out the reign of Elizabeth the " poor in very deed " felt 
 more and more the effects of that growing spirit of human- 
 ity which was distilled from that splendid company of 
 men who gathered round her throne. A register of im- 
 potent folk was to be kept, and a convenient dwelling- 
 place found for them ; officers, under the name of collec- 
 tors, overseers, governors, censors, wardens, were ap- 
 pointed to relieve them ; provision was made for main- 
 tenance by relations, the case of illegitimate children 
 being expressly included ; houses of correction were 
 ordered to be built, and "stuff" for work provided. So 
 that the definite establishment of a system of poor relief 
 in ] 601 was only the completion of previous measures 
 by the addition of a compulsory rating instead of volun- 
 tary or quasi -voluntary contributions. And it is, we
 
 58 THE POOR LAW. chap. 
 
 think, clear beyond reasonable doubt that it was the 
 growing sense of what the nation owed to itself, the 
 mere consideration of natural humanity and collective 
 responsibility, that was the immediate and efficient 
 cause of the institution of Poor Laws, as we now under- 
 stand them. 
 
 The Second Period. — The Act of IGOl, the " foundation 
 and text -book of English Poor Law," dealt with the 
 .authorities, the funds, the recipients, and the methods 
 of poor relief. As to the first of these, it was ordered 
 that two or three overseers were to be nominated in 
 every parish in Easter week, under the hand and seal of 
 Justices of the Peace, and were to take order with con- 
 sent of the justices for carrying out the Act. As to 
 funds they were to raise weekly or otherwise such sums 
 of money as they thought fit by taxation of every inhabi- 
 tant, the parson heading the list — a post of honour and 
 of burden which, owing to the nature of his income, he 
 occupies to this day. In the case of poor parishes a rate 
 in aid to be levied upon the Hundred or county was per- 
 mitted, but not, it should seem, acted upon in practice. 
 As to the recipients and methods of rehef, a distinction 
 was drawn between children whose parents could not 
 keep them, persons able to work but without occupa- 
 tion, and the impotent, e.g. the lame, old, and blind — 
 the first were to be apprenticed, the second set to work 
 ("stock" 6.(7. of flax being provided by the overseers), 
 the third relieved. As to repression, liability to maintain 
 was extended to grandparents, and it was taken for 
 granted that a person's right to relief would arise in 
 his birthplace.
 
 III.] POOR LAW HISTORY. 59 
 
 The wisdom of the Act is almost as remarkable for 
 what it omitted as for what it prescril^ed. It took notice 
 of the only two classes who come legitimately within the 
 province of Poor Laws, — the idle who will not, and the 
 impotent who cannot, work ; and with these it dealt by 
 methods simple indeed and vague, but essentially true 
 in principle. The "industrious poor," as Sir Matthew 
 Hale expressly noticed, were not, and were never intended 
 to be (as they never ought to be) included within its 
 scope ; while vagabonds were left to the criminal law, the 
 labour test being adopted for persons resident in their 
 parish and able to work if they pleased : it was only in 
 case of refusal to work that this class was to be committed 
 to prison. One hundred years afterwards, in 1696, a 
 preamble of an Act in the reign of William III. shows 
 how clearly the statesmen of that time imderstood the 
 meaning of the Act to be as we have stated it : " That the 
 money raised only for the rehef of such as are as well 
 impotent as poor may not be misapplied and consumed 
 by idle, sturdy, and disorderly beggars." And so long 
 as the principle of this Act was adhered to, which, with 
 one lamentable exception, was the case for one hundred 
 and sixty years, the working of the Poor Laws was fairly 
 successful. 
 
 We shall give three instances of the chief altera- 
 tions which were made during this period. The first 
 concerns the authorities by whom rehef was to be ad- 
 ministered. In 1691 an Act recites that overseers, upon 
 frivolous pretences, but chiefly for their own private ends, 
 gave relief to what persons and number they think fit, 
 by which means the rates are daily increased, contrary 
 to the true intent of the Statute of the 43d of Elizabeth
 
 60 THE POOR LAW. [chap. 
 
 The remedy provided was the very sensible one that a 
 register should bo kept of paupers with the amount of 
 the relief given them ; that this register should be pro- 
 duced once a year at a vestry meeting ; that the cases 
 should be examined into, and a new list made out for the 
 ensuing year as the parishioners shall allow ; and that no 
 one else during that year should " receive collection " 
 (ie. relief) except by authority of one Justice, or by 
 order of the Bench of Justices at Quarter Sessions. 
 
 From this last clause, or rather from the perversion 
 of its plain meaning, sprang "all our woes." For it 
 appears from an Act of George I., some thirty years later, 
 that a practice had sprung up of Justices ordering relief 
 to any applicants who came to them without the know- 
 ledge of the parish officers, or upon false or frivolous 
 pretences, "whereby they have obtained relief" (this 
 phrase is characteristic ; the blame was not, as in the case 
 of the overseers, attached to the giver, for in those days 
 Justices could do no wrong), " which hath greatly contri- 
 buted to the increase of the rates." Unfortunately the 
 usurpation was not promptly stopped, but it was merely 
 ordered that the applicant should be required to show 
 that he had first of all applied for relief to the parish 
 authorities, who should then be summoned to show cause 
 why relief should not be given. Hence, in the words of the 
 Eeport of 1834, which lays the blame of most of the harm 
 that followed upon this perversion of the law, " The Act 
 which Avas passed to remedy this abuse " (i.e. of the 
 Justices' interference) enabled the Justice, on the pauper's 
 statement of some matter which the Justice should judge 
 to be a cause for relief, to summon the overseers to show 
 cause why relief should not be given, and to order such
 
 III.] POOR LAW HISTORY. 61 
 
 relief as he should think fit — an order against which 
 there was no appeal" The results of this enactment we 
 shall see presently. 
 
 The second point concerns the important article of 
 indoor -relief, and that, too, as a test of destitution. 
 Owing to the increase of expenditure the idea of build- 
 ing houses for the reception of paupers became popular, 
 though it was mixed with the notion, so plausible in itself, 
 but so wi'ong in principle and disastrous in effects, that 
 the paupers could be put to remunerative labour. In 
 1696 John Locke had suggested the establishment of 
 working schools, and the provision of materials for the 
 employment of labourers at the public cost. Next year, 
 at the instance of a Mr. John Carey, a workhouse was 
 built at Bristol by special Act of Parhament, and being 
 used as a test of destitution produced in a short time 
 such excellent results that the example was followed by 
 Worcester, Hull, Norwich, and other places. And in the 
 Act of George I. above mentioned it was enacted that 
 parishes might either singly, or in unions of two or more, 
 provide houses for the reception of the indigent, and 
 
 that " NO POOR WHO REFUSED TO BE LODGED AND KEPT 
 IN SUCH HOUSES SHOULD BE ENTITLED TO ASK OR 
 
 RECEIVE PAROCHIAL RELIEF." The immediate effect of 
 this measure was, as might have been expected, satis- 
 factory. The expenditure which was estimated (perhaps 
 too highly) in 1698 at £819,000 was returned in 1750 
 at £619,000 in spite of the increase of population. But 
 after the zeal of the first founders had passed away, and 
 the evils incident to a system of management without 
 central supervision had crept in, the tide of evil soon set 
 in again, and in the next period in 1776 the expenditure
 
 62 THE POOR LAW. [chap. 
 
 was <£1, 52 1,000, and in 1785, upon an average of three 
 years, the enormous sum of J^l,912,000. 
 
 Upon the whole, however, it must be said that during 
 the second period, i.e. down to 1760, the working of the 
 Poor Laws was fairl}'^ successful. It is true the expendi- 
 ture was increasing, just as it did in our own time some 
 twelve years ago, but it had been partially met, as it was 
 by ourselves, by increasing the rigour of the workhouse 
 test. And it is to be noted that the reign of George II. 
 is fixed upon by the best authorities as the time when 
 the condition of the working classes was more prosperous 
 than it had been before or has been since — until com- 
 paratively recent days. On the other hand, the genus 
 of future evil had been already sown, and were further 
 aggravated by the third change in the law which we are 
 next to indicate.'^ 
 
 This third point concerns the law of settlement 
 which, — not, however, by any effect of the Act of Eliza- 
 beth, — was made during this period intolerably harsh and 
 oppressive. Philosophy knows how to make excuses for 
 mistakes, or even for what appears to us wickedness, 
 when it grows out of the spirit of the age in its advance 
 
 ^ The favourable opinion above expressed is borne out, valeat 
 quantum, by an examination of the accounts of my own parish of 
 Islip. These are contained in one book, dating from the year 1713 
 to 1781, and are arranged every year upon the same plan. Taking 
 the year 1760 as a specimen, I find that the accounts extend over 
 ten pages of a very large book, and are divided into the weekly pay 
 of such impotent folk as would receive relief now, and "extra 
 ordinaries," the latter being made up of doles to sick persons, pay- 
 ment of rent, molecatching (? "moldkeln" £1 : 3s.), birdmindiug, 
 " anafterdavy " (1 affidavit), burial, and official jom'neys, etc. The 
 weekly relief was about £46, the extraordinaries £22 ; total for the 
 year, £68 : 9 : 6. Twenty years before the amount of relief was
 
 111.] POOR LAW HISTORY. 63 
 
 towards a better state ; but philosophy is thrown away 
 upon such a reign as that of the second Charles, the 
 wickedness of which was due to a deliberate reaction 
 against all that had been best and worthiest in preceding 
 reigns. In the sphere of Poor LaAvs another and not 
 unsuccessful attempt was made to reduce the working 
 classes to practical servitude. By an Act of 1662, itself 
 a confused and illogical medley, it was enacted at the in- 
 stance chiefly of the members for London and Westmin- 
 ster, that at the complaint of the overseers the Justices 
 might, within forty days of any person's coming to dwell 
 in a strange parish, order him to be removed back to his 
 own place of settlement, unless he could give security to 
 the new parish against becoming chargeable to it, — that 
 is to say, persons could be removed not merely when they 
 were chargeable, but upon the chance that they might 
 become so. The reason for this almost incredible viola- 
 tion of the rights of liberty was, that "poor people are 
 not restrained from going from one parish to another, 
 and therefore do endeavour to settle themselves in those 
 parishes where there is the best stock," etc. etc. By this 
 Act it may -with truth be said that the iron of slavery 
 entered into the soul of the English labourer, and made 
 
 only £37 : : 10, and twenty years afterwards it had reached the 
 sum of £142 : 10 : 1, payments for labour having become much more 
 common. The accounts are always passed by some half-dozen 
 parishioners, and signed as " allowed " by two Justices. I may per- 
 haps be permitted, under shelter of a note, to express my firm con- 
 viction that this old system of management, plus a workhouse for 
 each locality, supported by the county rates and used as a test, 
 plus also a prohibition to give out-relief to the able-bodied, and 
 subjected to strict supervision and audit, would be at this moment, 
 IN COUNTRY PLACES, a better and more effective administration 
 than the present one, necessary as that had become in 1834.
 
 04 THE POOR LAW. [chap, 
 
 him cling to his parish as a shipwrecked sailor to his 
 raft. From the very first it was the fruitful parent of 
 fraud, injustice, lavish expenditure, ill-will, and endless 
 litigation. So early as 1685 an Act of James II. recites 
 " that poor people at their first coming into a parish do 
 commonly conceal themselves " (what a picture for a free 
 country !), and enacts that the forty days of power of re- 
 moval shall be counted from the time they give notice to 
 the overseers of their residence in the parish, which notice 
 was in 1691 ordered to be read in church, so that the 
 fugitive might be himted down by any who objected to 
 his presence. The same Act of 1691 did, however, lessen 
 the burden by establishing derivative settlements, such 
 as payment of taxes for one year, serving an annual ofiice, 
 liiring for a year, and apprenticeship. In connection 
 with this last, and as a specimen of the spirit of fraudu- 
 lent selfishness which the law of settlement naturally 
 aroused in different parishes, it may be mentioned that 
 in 1758 a law was passed to put down a very base 
 arrangement, whereby "great numbers of persons have 
 been unwarily bound apprentices by certain deeds, not 
 indented {i.e. not by legal indenture), by which many 
 of them have suffered great loss and damage on account 
 of their having been refused a settlement in such parish 
 where they have been bound, and have been removed to 
 the parish where their last legal settlement was before 
 such apprenticeship," It is indeed a surprising fact that 
 in England some 130 years ago a man should be driven 
 by force of law from the place where he had served his 
 time as an apprentice, and intended to pursue his trade 
 in peace.
 
 III.] POOR LAW HISTORY. 65 
 
 The Third Period. — The administration of Poor Law 
 during the seventy years of this period may be described 
 as the exact antithesis to the first. In that, as we have 
 noted, the main object of legislation was to restrict the 
 wages of the labourer for the benefit of the employer ; in 
 this the object Avas to maintain the rate of (agricultural) 
 wages at a certain level, no matter Avhether the employer 
 could aflPord to give it or not. An opinion got abroad 
 that it was the duty of the State to provide what the 
 State miglit deem a proper subsistence for the working 
 classes, the origin and fallacy of which have been neatly 
 exposed in the following " syllogism " : — 
 
 "It is the duty of the Legislature to provide for all 
 the poor {i.e. the destitute)." 
 
 "All the labouring classes are poor {i.e. without 
 property)." 
 
 Therefore " It is the duty of the Legislature to pro- 
 vide for all the labouring classes." 
 
 The first definite embodiment of this opinion in the 
 law of the land was made in 1795, under circumstances 
 that show how commonly accepted the notion had 
 become. The nation was entering into the agony of 
 the great war with France, prices were rising beyond all 
 past experience, and to keep the people in good humour 
 at any cost had become a State necessity. And so, on M 
 
 May 6, 1795, at Speenhamland, near Newbury (the date I ' 
 and place deserve to be solemnly recorded), the Berkshire 
 magistrates issued an edict in which they declare that 
 they will in future make certain calculations and allow- 
 ances for the relief of all poor and industrious men and 
 their families, and then proceeded to fix a scale of relief 
 proportioned to the price of wheat and the number of 
 
 F
 
 66 THE POOR LAW. [chap. 
 
 the family. This is the celebrated " Sijeeuhamland Act 
 of Parliament," which was immediately followed in many 
 counties, and much more cheerfully obeyed than is wont 
 to be the case with the Acts of its more august rival at 
 Westminster. Not but what the Berkshire legislators 
 were merely giving practical shajje to the opinions and 
 proposals, which, though they did not pass into laws, 
 show what was the state of feeling in the House of 
 Commons itself. Mr. Whitbread introduced a Bill 
 authorising Justices to fix a minimum of wages, as 
 before (so certain is the law of reaction and retaliation) 
 they had attempted to fix a maximum ; and subsequently 
 he complained that upon searching the statute-book he 
 could find no law to COMPEL THE farmers to do their 
 DUTY. Mi\ Fox thought that the magistrates should 
 protect the poor from the injustice of grasping employers. 
 Mr. Lechmere opined that no agricultural labourer could 
 support himself and his family with comfort. Mr. Pitt, 
 who evinced a much profounder knowledge of the sub- 
 ject, and Avho denounced the law of settlement as inter- 
 fering with the free circulation of labour, and proposed 
 an annual Poor Law budget to prevent abuses, neverthe- 
 less introduced a Bill for authorising allowances out of 
 the public rates, including the present of a cow or other 
 domestic animal. 
 
 The prevailing ignorance of economical laws is not 
 altogether excusable, for Adam Smith was but just dead ; 
 Bentham was alive, and criticised Pitt's proposals with 
 trenchant severity; Burke (who, however, died in 1797), 
 at least knew better, as did probably Pitt himself. But 
 it is a melancholy tiibute to the power of sentimental 
 error (palliated by the circumstances of the times) that
 
 III.] POOR LAW HISTOEY. 67 
 
 all the injury inflicted upon the labouring classes by the 
 deliberately hostile legislation of Plantagenet or Tudor 
 statesmen was but as dust in the balance compared with 
 what they suffered from the benevolent measures of some 
 of the best men that have ever ruled in England. As it 
 has been well expressed : " The poor might well say, We 
 can deal with our enemies, only save us from our friends." 
 
 The Poor Law Acts passed during this period are too 
 numerous to be even mentioned, and yet they bear no 
 proportion to the number of propositions made and the 
 amount of discussion evoked. Eoughly speaking, the 
 Acts during the eighteenth century part of this seventy - 
 five years were intended to give expression to the new 
 policy of sentimental care for the interests of the poor ; 
 while those of the second part were some feeble and 
 illusive attempts to grapple with evils, by the growing 
 extent of which popular opinion was excited, and at 
 length seriously alarmed. We can but allude to some 
 of the more important of them.^ 
 
 We may remark first that the beginning of George 
 Ill's reign was creditably distinguished by a number of 
 measures for the benefit of the working people, which, 
 
 1 Among the many abortive proposals of this period a plan, 
 which received the support of Burke, to enable the " poor " to pur- 
 chase terminable annuities of the overseers, upon the security of the 
 rates, deserves mention : it shows how the ideas of many modern 
 reforms were started at this time. The scheme of Compulsory 
 Insurance has not even the dubious merit of originality ; for in 
 1786 Mr. Acland proposed that every labourer between twenty and 
 thirty should be compelled to pay 2d. weekly, and women l^d., as 
 insurance against sickness. The parish authorities were to be 
 treasurers and managers. But it does not appear that this further 
 interference with the libei'ty of the working classes gained much 
 support.
 
 rNl 
 
 ;* v. WE8TMIH8TEfi J "j 
 
 68 *^l||^MrT! POOR LAW.- [chap. 
 
 though partaking more of a charitable or benevolent 
 character than of the nature of Poor Laws, ought to be 
 noticed. Thus pauper children were ordered to be sent 
 not less than five miles out of London to be brought up, 
 and " guardians " appointed to look after them ; the 
 duration of apprenticing was diminished from 24 to 21 
 years of age ; parish authorities were punished for making 
 payments in bad money to the poor ; regulations were 
 passed for friendly societies, hospitals, lying-in hospitals, 
 penitentiaries, and the apprenticing of children to the 
 king's ships ; and finally, by an Act which shows the 
 spirit of the age at its best, an Act of Elizabeth concern- 
 ing building cottages in rural places (itself at the time a 
 singularly well meaning measure, for it provided that 
 each new cottage should have four acres of land at- 
 tached to it, and he inhabited hy one family alone) was 
 repealed upon the ground that it " laid the industrious 
 poor under great difficulties to procure habitations, and 
 in other respects has been found inconvenient to the 
 labouring part of the nation." This sounds plausible 
 enough, but we may suspect that some selfish interests 
 in the way of settlement were at the bottom of it, 
 and certainly the prohibition against overcrowding was 
 repealed. 
 
 The principal Poor Law Acts of the close of the 
 eighteenth century concerned the formation of Unions, 
 building and inspection of workhouses, regulations for 
 apprenticing, rating, and the definite establishment of 
 out-relief, to which may be added an alteration in the 
 law of bastardy, tending also to the relaxation of morals. 
 
 The first of these was Gilbert's Act in 1782. It 
 recites the great increase of expenditure, and the increased
 
 III.] ^ POOR LAW HISTORY. 69 
 
 sufferings of the poor notwithstanding, lapng the blame 
 upon the parochial authorities, from whom it proceeds 
 to take away the administration of relief in all parishes 
 which should adopt the new Act. Power was given to 
 form Unions or Incorporations by voluntary arrangement 
 of adjacent parishes, and to build a workhouse for the 
 Union. With the customary confidence in the Justices, 
 it was enacted that they should apj)oint visitors and 
 guardians ; the latter being paid, and, therefore, resem- 
 bling the modern relieving officer, and being under the 
 control of the Justices and visitors (themselves supposed 
 to be of the social standing of the Justices), by whom the 
 poor rehef administration was carried on. Sixty-seven 
 Incorporations were thus formed, some of which, by an 
 anomaly only possible in England, survive in name to 
 this day, e.g. at Oxford, and have caused a good deal of 
 trouble. The guardians were expressly forbidden to 
 send any but the "impotent" to the workhouse, and by 
 an ever-recurring fallacy were ordered to find suitable 
 employment for the able-bodied near their own homes. 
 Four years later returns procured by the same Mr. 
 Gilbert showed that the cost of relief had risen from 
 £1,529,780 in 1776, to an average of £2,004,238 for 
 1783-5, being an increase of £474,458, or more than 
 30 per cent. 
 
 In 1790 inspection of poorhouses by the Justices 
 was ordered, or by other persons, such as clergymen and 
 doctors, under their authority. Particular complaint was 
 made of infectious diseases, and the absence of discipline 
 and classification was already producing the abuses that 
 were found to exist forty years later. 
 
 Fresh regulations concerning parish apprenticing were
 
 70 THE POOR LAW. [chap. 
 
 made in 1792, by Avhich penalties were enacted for mis- 
 usage, such misusage having been in part occasioned by 
 a dehberate attempt to get rid by discharge of the 
 apprentices whom the masters had unwilhngly received. 
 Perhaps no part of the old Poor Law was more prolific 
 of ill-will, craft, and cruelty than this. 
 
 The inexcusable rigour of the law of settlement, which 
 had not escaped the generous indignation of Burke, was 
 dealt with in 1795 by an Act which finally forbade the 
 removal of persons from any parish until they had 
 become actually chargeable to the rates, and which in 
 all cases enabled the Justices to suspend an order of 
 removal if the pauper were unfit to travel, because, as the 
 Act recites, persons were often removed in time of sick- 
 ness to the danger of their hves. Glimpses hke these 
 show what hard-hearted cruelty had crept into the 
 administration of the old Poor Law, and how natural it 
 is for well meaning but mistaken kindness to produce in 
 practice the very opposite results to what it intends. 
 
 The decisively fatal step of legalising out-relief to the 
 able-bodied, and in aid of wages, was taken in 1796. It 
 will be remembered that an Act of 1722 had estabhshed 
 a kind of workhouse test, and this was now formally 
 rescinded upon the ground stated in language now 
 become familiar, " That it was inconvenient and oppres- 
 sive, inasmuch as it often prevents an industrious poor 
 person from receiving such occasional relief as is best 
 suited to his particular case, and in certain cases holds 
 out conditions of relief injurious to the comfort and 
 domestic situation and happiness of such poor persons." 
 Accordingly, the parish authorities were empowered to 
 give relief to any industrious person at his o'wn residence
 
 III.] POOR LAW HISTORY. 71 
 
 in case of sickness or distress — distress being practically 
 defined as the not having an income which the Justices 
 thought sufficient. And it Avas expressly added that 
 refusal to enter a poorhouse should not be a cause for 
 withholding relief. Moreover, the Justices were autho- 
 rised to order relief for a certain time to persons who 
 " are entitled to ask and receive such relief at their own 
 houses." The result, of course, was that the "bread- 
 scales" became a sort of bye-law in every county, and 
 that what the farmer did not give in wages was made up 
 from the rates. The labourers, being no longer paid 
 according to their earnings, rapidly deteriorated, and it 
 is significant that in one town (Winslow) so early as 1795, 
 they are desci'ibed as having become "very lazy and 
 imperious." 
 
 In 1801 recourse was once more had to the infalli- 
 bility of Justices, who were made the rating, as they 
 had already become the relieving, authority. They were 
 authorised not merely as before to quash an illegal rate, 
 but to amend it by altering names and amounts. And 
 in order, as the Act passed two years later declares, "to 
 render Justices of the Peace more safe in the execution 
 of their duty," the penalty for an illegal decision to be 
 recovered from a Justice was limited to 2d., unless it was 
 plain that he was actuated by improper motives. Of 
 these no one accuses the English magistracy as a body, 
 nor even of consciously yielding to self-interest in adjudi- 
 cating upon matters in which they Avere perhaps the 
 most interested persons present, but they Avere placed in 
 a position of antagonism to the Poor Law officials which 
 made impartiality impossible, and duties Avere imposed 
 upon them which it Avas out of the question that they
 
 72 THE POOR LAW. [citap. 
 
 could have the opportunity or the information for dis 
 charging properly. 
 
 The last touch to the picture of industrial demorali- 
 sation was added in 1809 and 1810, when two Bastardy 
 Acts were passed with the object — still from the same 
 sentimental feeling — of favouring the woman at the 
 expense of the man. It is difficult to believe, but it is 
 nevertheless the truth, that by these Acts any woman, 
 before her child was born, could, upon her mere unsup- 
 ported oath, cause any man to be sent to prison unless 
 he could indemnify the parish against any expense in 
 respect of the child said to be his. This marks the 
 lowest point reached by Poor Law legislation, and as 
 usual, the consequences to the character and position of 
 the persons, i.e. in this case the women, whom it was 
 desired to protect from the ill effects of their own con- 
 duct, were in the long run far more injurious than to 
 the men, just as the labourer suffered far more from 
 legislative benevolence than the employer. 
 
 After this the nation could but look on in a kind of 
 paralysis at the inordinate growth of moral abuses, of 
 industrial disaster, of ruinous ex]Denditure. The expen- 
 diture doubled itself between the years 1783, when it 
 stood at £2,004,238, and 1803, when it had arisen to 
 £4,267,965, gradually increasing till it reached in 1817 
 its maximum, represented by the enormous sum of 
 £7,870,801 in a population of about 11,000,000. Curi- 
 ously enough this was about the sum reached in 1871, 
 when the population was about doubled, and all the 
 costly arrangements for asylums, infirmaries, and district 
 schools were included. 
 
 But dissatisfaction grew with the cost ; and discussion
 
 iiL] POOR LAW HISTORY. 73 
 
 by competent persons, of whom Mr. Malthus was the 
 chief, prepared the piibhc mind for a thorough reform 
 upon rational and, what was a new feature in English 
 legislation of that time, scientific principles. An able 
 report of a Committee of the House of Commons in 1817 
 laid a finger upon the worst blots, and made a variety of 
 useful proposals. The only practical results of any 
 importance were the constitution of select vestries for 
 the administration of relief, who were instructed to dis- 
 tinguish between the "deserving and the idle, extrava- 
 gant, and profligate poor." Assistant overseers were to 
 be appointed, and the power of Justices to order relief 
 was somewhat curtailed in places where select vestries 
 had been established. Further facilities were created 
 for building workhouses, and for the first time relief 
 might be given on loan. Several places adopted the 
 provisions of this Act, and set an example of what could 
 be done in the way of reform. Amongst these Southwell 
 and Bingham, Cookham and Hatfield, deserve to be men- 
 tioned. 
 
 We bring this chapter to a close with the mention of 
 an Act of 1828 to provide for the care of pauper lunatics. 
 As there is no class in the world more deserving of com- 
 passion and more in need of public relief, it shows how 
 capricious and untrustworthy is a policy directed merely 
 by sentiment, that this was the first occasion in which 
 the State made special provision for this unfortunate 
 class of human beings. As to the rest, this was the state 
 of things down to the reform of 1834. The public funds 
 were regarded as a regular part of the maintenance of the 
 labouring people engaged in agriculture, and were ad- 
 ministered by more than 2000 Justices, 15,000 sets of over-
 
 74 THE POOR LAW. [chap, iir 
 
 seers, and 15,000 vestries, acting always independently of 
 each other, and very commonly in opposition, quite uncon- 
 trolled, and ignorant of the very rudiments of political 
 economy. And the £7,000,000 or more of public money 
 was the price paid for converting the free labourer into a 
 slave, without reaping even such returns as slavery can 
 give. The able-bodied pauper was obliged to live where 
 the law of settlement placed him, to receive the income 
 which the neighbouring magistrates thought sufficient, 
 to work for the master and in the way which the parish 
 authorities prescribed, and very often to marry the wife 
 they found for him. He was, in short, as has been truly 
 said of him, a "work of art, and not the natural offspring 
 of the English race."
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 POOR LAW REFORIVL 
 
 Tn February 1834 was published perhajis the most re- 
 markable and startling document to be found in the 
 whole range of English, perhaps, indeed, of all, social 
 history. It was the Report upon the administration and 
 practical operation of the Poor Laws by the Commis- 
 sioners who had been appointed to investigate the subject. 
 In the list of nine gentlemen who composed the Com- 
 mission there is not to be found a single ornamental 
 name, the Bishop of London (Blomfield), who heads the 
 list, having a deserved reputation for practical sagacity 
 and powers of business. Mr. Sturges Bourne represented 
 the older Poor Law reformers, while the names of Mr. 
 Nassau Senior and Mr. Edwin Chadwick (the future 
 Secretary to the Board) are better known to more re- 
 cent times. It was their rare good fortune not only to 
 lay bare the existence of abuses and trace them to their 
 roots, but also to propound and enforce the remedies by 
 which they might be cured. It is seldom indeed, that 
 the conditions of so vast and sweeping a reform are found 
 co-existing. The evils were gross and alarming; there was 
 a ministry that had been carried into power by an out- 
 burst of reforming zeal ; above all, there was a readiness 
 to be guided by principles of purely scientific legislation,
 
 76 THE POOR LAW. [chap. 
 
 which at a later period gave us Free Trade, Financial 
 Ecform, Colonial Administration, Titlie Commutation, 
 and the beginning of Law Eeform, and for which the 
 exigencies of parliamentary government, and the over- 
 flowings of passion and sentiment, allow but too small 
 and limited a scope. Their success was therefore at once 
 inevitable and deserved. 
 
 The Report opens with these words : — " It is now our 
 painful duty to report that the fund which the 43d of 
 Elizabeth directed to be employed in setting to work 
 children and persons capable of labour, but using no daily 
 trade, and in the necessary relief of the impotent, is 
 applied to purjDOses opposed to the letter, and still more 
 to the s^jirit, of that law, and destructive to the morals 
 of that most numerous class, and to the welfare of all." 
 It is a duty, which, even at this distance of time, is also 
 painful, to give the briefest possible sketch of the results 
 of their investigation. And this not merely because it 
 is the only way of understanding the need and nature of 
 the remedies they proposed, but because the Eeport 
 ought to be kno%vn (by students of social science in the 
 original) by the general public as a picture of the/condi- 
 tion to which a mistaken course of legislation, together 
 ■svith obstructive and selfish ignorance, can reduce the 
 greatest nations at the very height of their power and 
 fame. 
 
 I. The Officials by whom the Poor Law was 
 THEN ADMINISTERED. — These were the overseers, vestries, 
 and magistrates. The former were taken from the shop- 
 keeping or farming class, and served not even for a year 
 but for six, three, or even two months, so that they had
 
 IV.] POOR LAW REFORM. 77 
 
 no opportunity, even if desirous, of introducing regularity 
 into the administration. The office was disagreeable, 
 unpopular, and unpaid, and specially obnoxious to busy 
 men. There were no books kept by which the cost of the 
 relief, or the reasons of giving it, could be examined, 
 the only check being that of submitting the mere items 
 of moneys paid to the vestry, and getting them allowed 
 by the Justices. Against partiality, favouritism, and 
 jobbing there was no check ; against embezzlement very 
 little. If the overseers refused relief, the pauper could 
 summon them before the magistrate, whose order they 
 must obey; but a more dreaded tribunal at the beer-shop, 
 with a more stringent procedure in the way of arson and 
 violence, was at hand to compel obedience. They were 
 " as a body found wholly incompetent," " anxious to get 
 through the year with as little unpopularity and trouble 
 as possible." Their duties were delegated to wives, 
 children, and shopmen. Tradesmen were obliged to 
 yield to demands for doles upon pain of losing custom, 
 nor were assaults at all uncommon. Lastly, in very 
 many cases the men charged with these resj)onsible 
 duties were barely able to read and write. ^ 
 
 ^ May we lighten up a gloomy subject by some extracts from 
 Sir F. Head's witty, and, at the same time, instructive article in 
 the Quarterly Review, No. 106. Here is an overseer's answer to a 
 circular of the Poor Law Commission requiring information : — " It 
 will never do we any good to alter the law in our parish, as our 
 parishs very small and there is no probabilitis of alter our kearse 
 at all. There is no persons fitter to manage the parish better than 
 ourselves. — T. T., ovcrsear." 
 
 In answer to an inq^uiry why a shilling was paid for tolling the 
 bell at every pauper's death, the overseer replied in a whisper, 
 "Why, sir, the clerk is a dreadful man, and always threatens to 
 fight me whenever I wants to stop that ere charge." 
 
 \ I
 
 78 THE POOR LAW. [chap. 
 
 The vestries, whether open or representative, were of 
 the same class as the overseers, though with less sense of 
 responsibility and more pride of ofl&ce. They rendered 
 no account, were not obliged to keep any record of the 
 members present, or of their speeches and votes, and had 
 a direct interest in giving relief in aid of earnings. In 
 particular, a dead set was made at the tithe owners, and 
 there were several cases in which wages were lowered, 
 and rates increased for the express purpose of throwing 
 
 It is somewhat unfair to quote the following stoiy, for the 
 heroine of it, if she be alive, — as, for her praiseworth}^ exertions to 
 do her duty, she fully deserves to be, — would still be far below three 
 score years and ten ; but as a picture of the times it is irresistible. 
 The Assistant Commissioner " found himself in a carpeted parlour, 
 seated at a large oak table, with the parish accountant by his side. 
 Slie was the yeoman's sister, a fine, ruddy, healthy, blooming, 
 bouncing girl of eighteen. As her plump, red finger went down 
 the items, it was constantly deserting its official duties to lay aside 
 a profusion of long black ringlets, which occasionally gamboled 
 before her visitor's eyes. She had evidently taken great pains to 
 separate, as cleverly as she could, the motley claimants on the 
 parish purse, just as her brother had divided his lambs from his 
 pigs, and his sheep from his cows. She had one long list of 
 ' labourers with families ; ' ' widows ' were demurely placed in one 
 corner of her ledger ; ' cesses ' stood in another ; vagrants or 
 trampers crossed one page ; those receiving constant relief sat still 
 in another ; at last the accountant came to two very long lists — 
 one was composed of what she called low women ; the other, veiled 
 by her curls, she modestly muttered were ' Ai%jittimites."' 
 
 The governor of a large workhouse was asked to show his 
 "dietary." He slowly led the way to the dining-hall, and, point- 
 ing to the paupers' dining-table, said, "Here it is, sir." 
 
 Another did not know how many inmates there were in the 
 house, for whom he was, at the moment, serving up dinner, but 
 was quite sure that an old blind pauper — one Mrs. Smith — who 
 "had such a capital memory," could answer the question, which 
 she at once did.
 
 IV.] POOR LAW REFORM. 79 
 
 part of the payment of wages upon their heads. ^ A 
 common remark was, " Why should the farmers keep the 
 labourers to save the gentry and householders 1" A 
 competent witness declared that the farmers would rather 
 pay 75 per cent in poor rates, and 25 per cent in wages, 
 than in the inverse proportions. Scandalous scenes at 
 vestry meetings Avere common, and in the larger places 
 the higher classes ceased to attend. 
 
 The real pivot, however, upon which the system turned 
 was the Justices, Their position was that of charitable 
 gentlemen to whom the oppressed poor could appeal 
 against the tyranny of the overseers. In the first place, 
 they fixed the "scale" of income that every labourer 
 ought to have, adjusting it Avith great nicety to the 
 price of bread and the size of his family. In the Speen- 
 hamland " scale," if the gallon of bread was Is., a single 
 man's income was 3s., husband and wife 4s. 6d., and 
 Is. 6d. for every child up to seven, making 15s. for the 
 whole family. And against this order there was of 
 course no appeal. In cases of dispute a pauper could 
 select his own tribunal — that is, the magistrate with 
 the best character for charity, which often meant timidity 
 or desire of popularity — and appear before him as an 
 injured man dragging his oppressor to justice. It is 
 needless to say that the magistrate could not have the 
 same means of ascertaining a man's earnings as the parish 
 officers, and was easily imposed upon by false representa- 
 tions. The paupers would drag the overseer to a favourite 
 magistrate, passing by the house of another not supposed 
 to be lenient, " would beat him as usual," and return in 
 
 ^ This was called fighting the parson, and must have been an 
 effective mode of warfare.
 
 80 THE POOR LAW. [chap. 
 
 triumph with music and favours. Of one magistrate it 
 was said that it would pay the parish to give him £100 
 a year not to act. 
 
 Several pages of the Eeport are taken up with an 
 account of an extraordinary state of things at the 
 Worship Street Police Court, where the overseers and 
 the magistrate had fallen out. The latter insisted upon 
 relief being given in every case, and declared that it was 
 quite impossible to investigate the cases of forty or fifty 
 paupers every day. The overseer retaliated by allow- 
 ing himself to be summoned for fifty persons at once, 
 and insisting upon each case being heard on its merits. 
 After hearing the first few, the overseer, "seeing the 
 magistrate getting angry," ofi"ered to take them into the 
 house for the night, and departed, escorted by two 
 beadles, and followed by his train of paupers, all of 
 whom except ten or twelve slunk away before they 
 reached the house, though they had sworn to the magis- 
 trate they were starving. By far the greater part were 
 known bad characters. And this in London ! 
 
 It is right to add that the Eeport (dealing in this 
 respect much more gently with magistrates than over- 
 seers, for whom also excuses might be pleaded), expressly 
 declares that there is no question as to their good inten- 
 tions, and that their mistakes are due to misapprehension 
 of the proper objects of the Poor Law, and to their un- 
 fitness, by reason of their social position and opportuni- 
 ties of investigating the cases, for the jurisdiction imposed 
 upon them. 
 
 IL Outdoor Eelief. — Six methods of giving out 
 relief were discovered by the commission.
 
 IV.] POOR LAW REFORM. 81 
 
 (a) Eelief in kind, consisting chiefly of payment of 
 rent and of tickets for clothing and goods, most often 
 at the shops of vestrymen and overseers. 
 
 (b) Relief ^vithout Labour. — Tliis was a pajTiient either 
 of two or three shillings a week without conditions, or 
 else a rather larger sum given upon condition tliat the 
 labourers should be confined in a certain place, e.g. the 
 Pound or gravel pit, or should attend a roll-call several 
 times a day. The object appears partly to have labourers 
 An thin call, if wanted; partly to make things disagreeable 
 to them. The books of Hampton Poyle, a tiny village 
 near Oxford, contain the following : — " Paid for men and 
 boys standing in the Pound six days, £Q : 7s. 
 
 " W. Wheeler" standing in the Pound six days, 8s. 
 
 (c) Allowance. — ^This is the amount paid to make up 
 the pauper's income to the "scale" apj)roved by the 
 justices. Sometimes the earnings were inquired into", 
 more often pajinent was allowed for each child, under 
 the title of "head money." Very frequently the rate of 
 wages was fixed at vestry meetings, with allowances to 
 make it up. Labourers used to get married and go from 
 the church to the overseer, and request to have a house 
 found for them. A man might earn 21s. a fortnight and 
 then apply to have the aA^erage made up for the month. 
 Another man with six children could earn upon an 
 average 9s. per week, but had only earned 5s. from his 
 master and 2s. for Avork from the parish. He received 
 as a matter of course 7s. 6d. across the pay table. 
 "Bread money" was regarded as a right, and the Avages 
 supposed to be earned Avere calculated at the loAA'est rate 
 paid in the district, so that a man might earn by special 
 work £1 a Aveek, and yet receive the extra as per scale. 
 
 G
 
 82 THE POOR LAW. [cnAP. 
 
 Sometimes large earnings Avere made in the summei-, 
 and the whole parish came on to the rates in the Avinter. 
 So thoroughly understood was it that the birth of a child 
 entitled to the parish allowance, that the happy father 
 would give notice to the overseer that the birth of a ncAV 
 little pauper might be ex}5ected in due time. If the case 
 came before the magistrate, the regular enquiry was, " At 
 what number does the allowance begin in your parish V 
 
 (d) The Roundsman. — This system, Avhich, from an 
 antiquarian point of view, might be interesting as being 
 a mixed survival of primitive communism and mediaeval 
 serfdom, consisted in the parish paying the farmers to 
 employ the labourers. The parish sold the commodity 
 of labour to the farmer, and made up the difference 
 between his wages and the income supposed to be his 
 due out of the rates. In one place there was a weekly 
 sale, at which an eyewitness saw ten men knocked dovm 
 to one farmer for 5s. It was called the ticket system, 
 because the pauper received a ticket from the overseer 
 as a warrant for the farmer to employ him at the cost 
 of the parish. The " roundsman " often spent the day 
 in going from house to house for employment, the 
 farmers certifying that he had called at their houses, in 
 order to justify the overseer in paying him. 
 
 (e) Parish Employment — This (which was the only 
 legal form of out-rehef^) was not frequently adopted, 
 though it was the only reasonable form that out-relief 
 could take. It meant the employment of labourers on 
 the roads or in the workliouse, and it was obviously 
 easier to give relief gratuitously than to exact labour foi 
 
 1 There was a decision of Lord Tenterden that an overseer must 
 provide work, if possible, before giving relief.
 
 IV.] POOR LAW REFOEM. 83 
 
 it. Moreover, the necessity of associating the paupers 
 in large gangs worked very disastrous results. Most of 
 the day was spent in idleness, and an attempt to put a 
 superintendent over the work was promptly met by a 
 successful threat to drown him. The paupers claimed 
 a right (before the Justices) to work less hours for the 
 parish than for private employers, and in many places 
 received higher pay than they could earn as wages. If 
 a man showed signs of doing his task work, the obvious 
 remark by his companions was, " You must have your 
 money whether you work or not." 
 
 (/) The Labour Rate. — This was an agreement that 
 each ratepayer should employ at a fixed rate so many 
 " settled " labourers, or else pay the amount of their 
 wages to the overseer. In one case the names of the 
 occupiers were put in a bag and drawn out by each 
 labourer, who had then to work for that master for the 
 week at 10s., and for another the next; the farmer, of 
 course, being under strong inducement to discharge his 
 regular workmen, in order to find work for the labourers 
 thus quartered upon him. In one parish the rector was 
 required to employ 62|- men at 10s. per week, besides 
 his poor rate of £420, an amount which was about 
 double the value of his benefice. 
 
 We shall, however, endeavour presently to group to- 
 gether the various abuses to which the system of out- 
 reHef gave rise ; but before doing so, we must mention 
 one matter by which the evils of Poor Law were then, 
 as they always have been, greatly aggravated. 
 
 III. Settlement. — Although the Poor Law admini- 
 strators paid little attention to law or principles, there
 
 84 THE POOR LAW. [chap. 
 
 was one fixed rule that was never transgressed. They 
 never gave permanent relief to labourers Avho had no 
 settlement in the parish, nor to their own settled people 
 if they were residing elsewhere. The reason of course 
 was, that each parish, though willing to pay rates in aid 
 of wages for its own supposed benefit, was not very 
 likely to be willing to pay the wages of persons em- 
 ployed elsewhere. Every labourer was therefore bound 
 to his own parish, not as in the preceding century by 
 the law, i.e. the operation of the Act of Charles II., for 
 that, as we have seen, had been repealed ; but by the 
 fixed practice of Poor Law administration, which gave 
 him large " allowances " and other payments, only upon 
 condition that his settlement gave him a claim upon the 
 parish for relief. There was thus great need that the 
 law of settlement should be as simple and intelligible 
 as possible ; instead of which the ingenuity of the law 
 itself never accomplished a more perfect network of 
 intricacies and difficulties. The explanation, so charac- 
 teristic of English legislation, is this : We have seen 
 that the Act of Charles II. allowed overseers to remove 
 any new-comer within 40 days of his first appearance in 
 the parish. We have seen, also, that to mitigate the 
 rigour of this enactment, an Act of William and Mary 
 allowed derivative settlements, such as apprenticeships, 
 hiring for a year, renting a tenement, and so on. Then 
 came the Act of George III. , which did away with the 
 rigour of the Act of Charles by making persons irremov- 
 able until they became actually chargeable. Logically, 
 the secondary modes of settlement should also have been 
 abolished at that time also, but they were retained, 
 causing infinite trouble and legal difficulties. For as
 
 IV.] POOR LAW REFORM. 85 
 
 each new settlement, when acquired, destroyed the old 
 one, every effort was made by parish officers to prevent 
 one from being obtained, or to estabhsh one elsewhere. 
 Here is an illustration which seems hardly credible. A 
 man leaves parish A at the age of 15, goes to London, 
 lives there many years, has a family, becomes destitute 
 there, having acquired no settlement, owing to his work 
 being upon jobs. He is passed back to parish A, 
 which discovers that he was hired as a groom for one 
 year before going to London, and lived with his master 
 six weeks at a seaside place in Wales, when, if it could 
 be shown that he slept at least 40 nights in the hotel, 
 he would become chargeable to that parish B, — neither 
 A nor B having had anything Avhatever to do with him 
 for 30 or 40 years. 
 
 We shall now endeavour to sum up the actual effects 
 of Poor Law administration upon the welfare of the 
 people, and, merely owing to the necessity of imposing 
 some limit, shall confine ourselves to a dozen heads. 
 
 (1.) Tlie hurden upon rateable property. — The typical, 
 though, it must also be admitted, the extreme case 
 quoted by the Eeport is that of Cholesbury, in Bucking- 
 hamshire, where the rates, which had been £10 : lis. in 
 1801, were proceeding in 1832 at the amount of £367, 
 when they ceased, owing to the impossibility of collecting 
 more. The poor rate had swallowed up the whole 
 value of the land, which was going out of cultivation. 
 The paupers meanwhile were supported by rates in aid 
 and voluntary benevolence ; and it is obvious that how- 
 ever small might be the actual confiscation of property 
 in that village, it must, by the nature of the case, spread, 
 since every acre that ceased to support the inhabitants
 
 86 THE POOR LAW. [chap 
 
 threw fresh burdens upon those that were left to do so. 
 But when we remember that the amount raised in poor 
 rates Avas over £6,000,000, we can imagine that the 
 margin between possession and confiscation was growing 
 perilously small. Farms were in all districts without 
 tenants, simply because it was found impossible to pay 
 rates that were perhaps £1 per acre. And the general 
 opinion as to the approach of absolute ruin was thus 
 graphically expressed: "The eighteen -penny children 
 will eat up this parish in ten years more, unless some 
 relief be afforded us." 
 
 (2.) The burden upon the poorer ratepayers. — Their case 
 was hard indeed. In many instances they earned less 
 and worked harder than the paupers whom they were 
 supporting in idleness and comparative luxury. It 
 sometimes happened that the overseer called for rates 
 upon men who had at that moment nothing to eat in 
 the house. As one witness said, "Poor is the diet of 
 the pauper ; poorer is the diet of the small ratepayer ; 
 poorest is the diet of the independent labourer." 
 
 (3.) The burden upon independent labourers. — Perhaps 
 no more really shocldng result of the system was than 
 that industrious men who were trying to maintain them- 
 selves could not obtain employment. In attempting to 
 I abolish the law of nature, which punishes improvidence 
 and idleness, the Poor Law succeeded in abolishing that 
 other law which rewards virtue and thrift. Eepeated 
 cases occur in which men of excellent character were 
 superseded by paupers who, as they must be maintained 
 somehow, it was thought good should be set to work. 
 If an industrious man Avas known to have laid by money 
 he would be left without work till his savings were spent.
 
 IV.] POOR LAW REFORM. 87 
 
 Sometimes sucli men were discharged till they were 
 reduced to the desired state. Men who deferred marriage 
 had not the same chance of obtaining employment as 
 youths with families. Not many years before this date 
 to be a "parish bird" was' accounted disgraceful; not to 
 be so was now thought foolish. Here is a specimen of 
 indignant rustic eloquence, — -"The paupers blame me for 
 what I do. They say to me, 'What are you working 
 fori' I say, 'For myself.' They say, 'You are only 
 doing it to save the parish, and if you didn't do it you 
 would get the same as another man has, and would get 
 the money for smoldng your pipe and doing nothing.' 
 'Tis a hard thing for a man like me." 
 
 (4.) The burden upon non-employers. — ^We have already 
 noticed that the poor rate being levied upon house pro- 
 perty and tithes was pro tanto a rate paid by other than 
 employers in aid of wages. The same thing obtained 
 in manufactories, Avhere employers sometimes received 
 annual payments from the parish for keeping their 
 paupers at work. To take an instance. At Nottingham 
 the masters reduced the rate of wages for stocking 
 making, giving their men a certificate to the effect that 
 they were only earning (say) 6s. a week. The men then 
 applied to the parish, who allowed them 4s, or 5s. 
 more.^ 
 
 (5.) The demoralization of the officials. — "The rental" 
 (it has been said — Edinburgh Review, No. 149) "of a 
 pauperized parish was like the revenue of the Sultan of 
 
 ^ The Labour Rate was very popular with the fanners, because 
 it threw the burden upou shopkeepers and other non-eniplo3'ers. 
 The hardship upon small farmers, doing their own work, was in- 
 tolerable.
 
 88 TIIK POOR LAW. [chap. 
 
 Turkey — a prey of Avliich every administrator hoped to 
 get a share. The owner of cottage property found in 
 the parish a hberal and solvent tenant, and the petty 
 shopkeeper and pubhcan attended the vestry to vote 
 allowances to his customers and debtors." The pay- 
 ment of rent was so universal (to prevent homes being 
 broken up and families thrown into the workhouse) that a 
 brisk speculation sprang up in cottage property of a low 
 type. This was aggravated by the custom of not rating 
 the smaller tenements, a practice that became fruitful of 
 abuse and jobbery. But the reader must imagine all 
 this, or find it in the Report for himself. 
 
 (6.) Chicanery and litigation. — This was a direct con- 
 sequence of the law of settlement. Cottages were pulled 
 down, and the inhabitants bribed to sleep in adjoining 
 parishes. Fraudulent hirings were made for 364 days, so 
 as to break settlement by annual hiring. Apprentices 
 were bound out in other parishes so as to shift the settle- 
 ment. Men were bribed to marry women of the worst 
 character for the same purpose, and the overseers were 
 accustomed to negotiate marriages where a child was 
 expected, the father of wdiich (as the woman would say) 
 does not belong to you. Landlords pulled do^vn some- 
 times every cottage on their estate so as to compel sur- 
 rounding parishes to pay for the work done on their 
 property. In one case a proprietor of a parish hired a 
 farm in the parish of Ely, and sent his own people to 
 work on it in j^early batches, and then turned them off 
 with a settlement gained in that parish. And many 
 cases of similar abuses are reported. Fraud and perjury 
 abounded. 
 
 (7.) Disorganization of industry. — This was also due to
 
 IV.] POOR LAW REFORM. 89 
 
 settlement. Any chance event — say the establishment or 
 closing of a manufacture — changed the proportionbetween 
 the settled labourers and the number required for work 
 in that locality. And Irish labourers had opportunities 
 of obtaining work over Englishmen, because the latter 
 did not dare to leave their places of settlement, which 
 " appeared to them like leaving their freeholds or heir- 
 looms." Instances are recorded where steady men 
 without families declined tempting situations that would 
 have doubled their income, for fear of losing their settle- 
 ment. 
 
 (8.) Deterioration of labour. — The loss of farmers, by 
 Avhom so much must be trusted to the care of their 
 workmen (as contrasted Avith manufactories, where there 
 is more superintendence), was set doAvn as enormous. 
 This points to the truth that the agricultural labourer 
 ought to be, and perhaps, in spite of appearance, is, the 
 most skilled labourer there is. The conditions of his 
 work are such as that, if they drag the man down, 
 the work itself elevates the workman. Very much must 
 be left to his care, his experience, and his trustworthi- 
 ness. But not only had he become unskilful and dis- 
 honest, but positively hostile to his employer, and 
 desirous of doing him injury. Nor, considering that the 
 parish was his real mainstay, is this to be wondered at. 
 
 (9.) Deterioration of morals. — This, of which the 
 Report gives long and melancholy instances, must be 
 taken for granted. No words of ours could do justice 
 to it. To borrow the aid of alliteration, drink and 
 dissipation, indolence and insolence, deception and 
 dependence, had become the familiar characteristics of 
 the men from whose ranks had come the soldiery who
 
 90 THE POOR LAW. [chap. 
 
 had astonished all Europe. In fact all the healthy laws, 
 customs, and motives that bind society together were in 
 this instance broken and cast aside. "There was never 
 a better illustration of the truth that in morals as well 
 as in political economy the laws of nature are wiser than 
 those of man, and that the virtues of the mass of the 
 people are as much at the mercy of the Legislature as 
 their wealth — equally capable of injury from rash 
 interference, and of recovery when that interference 
 has ceased." 
 
 (10.) The destruction of family ties. — That part of the 
 Act of Elizabeth which directed the maintenance of the 
 impotent by relatives was very seldom enforced, with 
 the consequence that "persons had no scruple in asking 
 to be paid for the performance of those domestic duties 
 which the most brutal savages are in general willing to 
 render to their own kindred." Payments for looking 
 after sick or aged parents Avere not at all uncommon. And 
 it may be added that inasmuch as the law still allows 
 impotent folk to be kept out of the house by the parish, 
 traces of this feeling are still to be found. So certain is 
 the operation of law in morals as in nature ! 
 
 (11.) Improvident marriages. — Allusion has been already 
 made to this evil, of which instances have been known, 
 where the married couple left the church for the work- 
 house. But it reappears also as part of the consequences 
 of the law of bastardy, which is the last and most shock- 
 ing abuse u.pon our melancholy list. 
 
 (12.) The earlier legislation in the time (eighteenth 
 year) of Elizabeth upon the subject of bastardy had 
 wisely contented itself Avitli prescribing that in order to 
 prevent illegitimate children from becoming chargeable
 
 IV.] POOR LAW REFORM. 91 
 
 to the parish (which is all that Poor Laws have to deal 
 ■udth), and so "defrauding of the relief of the aged and 
 impotent true poor of the same parish," the justices 
 should compel the parents to support their child. An 
 A-ct of James I, however, ordered the mother of an 
 illegitimate child to be punished with imprisonment and 
 hard labour. This f aihng, — as all attempts to treat vice 
 as punishable crime must in the long run fail, — the Act 
 of George III, previously mentioned, tried to punish the 
 father by compelling the Justices to commit to prison, 
 until he should have indemnified the parish from all 
 charges, any man against whom a woman should swear an 
 ex parte information that he was the father of her (as 
 yet) unborn child. The actual operation of the- law at 
 the time w^e are speaking had come, under the stress of 
 popular sentimentahsm, to be as follows : — The Justices 
 made an order that both parents should pay to the parish 
 a weekly sum to maintain the child. The sum assessed 
 on the woman was scarcely ever, if ever, exacted ; the 
 sum received from the man was paid over by the over- 
 seers to the woman, and if he w^ere in default the parish 
 made up the amount. To the woman, therefore, the child 
 was little or no burden ; to the man, upon whom she 
 elected to swear it, being very often bribed by the real 
 father, or even encouraged by the parish officers to 
 choose a man able to pay, it often meant ruin so com- 
 plete that he had to elect between fleeing the locality 
 or marrying a woman who had in many cases either 
 sworn falsely against him, or else for her own purposes 
 tempted him to vice. 
 
 The consequences of this interference with nature's 
 law, that the shame and burden of illegitimacy shall de-
 
 92 THE POOR LAW. [chap. 
 
 volve mainly upon the woman, are too shocking to bo 
 detailed in these pages : suffice it to say, that it was 
 another example of the ruin which human folly, trying 
 to be wise above what is written in nature's book, can 
 bring upon the class or sex it seeks to benefit. Profli- 
 gacy became a lucrative occupation, inasmuch as what 
 the mother of two or three illegitimate children received 
 from the fathers enabled her to live more comfortably 
 than most decent families, more especially in the very 
 common cases where the children were utterly neglected ; 
 nay, she was " considered a good object of marriage on 
 account of these weekly payments," the proceeds of the 
 sale of virtue becoming in this way a marriage portion ! 
 But enough of this : let the evidence of one witness out 
 of many serve to illustrate the whole. "The daughters 
 of some farmers, and even landowners, have bastard 
 children, who keep their daughters and children with 
 them, and regularly keep back their poor rate to meet 
 the parish allowance for their daughters' bastards. We 
 have no doubt the same grievance exists in many other 
 parishes. " 
 
 IV. Indoor Eelief. — The condition of the workhouses 
 is not very fully gone into in the Eeport itself, though 
 the appendix containing the evidence of the witnesses 
 examined enables us to see clearly how entirely the 
 opinion of the Commissioners was justified, " that indoor 
 relief, as given within the walls of the poorhouse, is also 
 subject to great mal-administration. " A published account 
 of one workhouse, by JMj. Chadwick, had excited great 
 attention, and the Commissioners state that in their 
 opinion, in respect of the absence of classification, dis-
 
 IV.] POOR LAW REFORM. 93 
 
 cipline, and employment, and of the extravagance of the 
 allowances, it was only a specimen of ordinary work 
 houses in similar towns. We shall, however, at this 
 point leave the Report, and quote from the account of 
 an eyewitness as contained in the Quarterly Review article 
 (No. 106), to which previous reference has been made. 
 The humour and dramatic power with which it is written, 
 albeit such qualities appear mournfully out of place in 
 such a scene, make it well worthy of perusal. 
 
 "To give oiu" readers a full and correct notion of the 
 poorhouses in East Kent would be almost as difficult as 
 to sketch him a picture of the variegated surface of the 
 globe. . . Some are lofty, some low, but all (i.e. those built 
 imder Gilbert's Act) are massive and costly. . . One 
 might be called an elegant retreat, splendidly contrasted 
 with the mean little ratepaying hovels at its feet, which, 
 like a group of wheelbarrows round the Lord Mayor's 
 coach are lost in the splendour of the gilded spectacle. . . 
 Others again are composed of old farmhouses, more or 
 less out of repair. Some are supported by props ; many 
 are really unsafe . . . and are so dilapidated, so bent 
 by the prevailing wind, that it seems a problem whether 
 the worn-out, aged inmate will survive his wretched 
 hovel, or it him." 
 
 " In some of the largest of these habitations an 
 attempt has been made to classify and arrange the in- 
 mates, and, generally speaking, every apartment is ex- 
 ceedingly clean. In one large room are found sitting in 
 silence a group of motionless, worn-out men, with age 
 grown double, with nothing to do, with nothing to cheer 
 them, with nothing in this world to hope for, gnarled 
 jito all sorts of attitudes, so that they look more like
 
 94 THE POOR LAW. [chap. 
 
 pieces of ship timber than men. In another room are 
 seen huddled together a number of old exhausted women, 
 clean, tidy, but speechless and deserted. Whenever we 
 asked whether they were often visited we invariably re- 
 ceived the same reply, ' Oh no ! people seldom takes any 
 notice of 'em after they once gets here.' 
 
 " Going through the sick wards, as we passed one poor 
 man he said he knew he was dying, and, raising his 
 head from his pillow, begged hard that 'little George' 
 might be sent for ; but the master, accustomed to such 
 scenes, would have considered the request inadmissible, 
 had not the Assistant Commissioner ventured rather 
 strongly to enforce it. 
 
 " On descending the staircase the next scene was a 
 room full of sturdy labourers out of work ; these were 
 generally sitting round a stove, with their faces scorched 
 and half roasted; as we passed them they never rose 
 from their seats, and had generally an overfed, a 
 mutinous, and an insubordinate appearance. A room 
 full of girls of from five to sixteen, and another of boys 
 of the same ages, completed the arrangements," and it is 
 added that separation was only nominally enforced. So 
 much for the larger houses. 
 
 "In the smaller ones classification has been found 
 impossible ; all that is effected is to put the males of all 
 ages into one room, and all the females into another. 
 In these cases the old are teased by the children, who 
 are growled at when they talk, and scolded when they 
 play, until they become cowed into silence. The able- 
 bodied men are the noisy orators of the room ; the 
 children listen to their oaths, and, what is often much 
 worse, to the substance of their conversation ; while
 
 IV.] POOR LAW REFORM. 95 
 
 a poor idiot or two, hideously twisted, stands grin- 
 ning at the scene, or, in spite of remonstrances, inces- 
 santly chattering to himself. In the women's hall, 
 which is generally separated only by a passage from the 
 men's, females of all characters and of all shapes live 
 with infants, children, and young girls of all ages." . . . 
 " A large attic used as a dormitory for married couples," 
 completes the description. 
 
 "In the small tottering hovels we found generally 
 seven or eight old people at the point of death, an able- 
 bodied labourer or two, with a boy or a young girl, who 
 was generally said to be ' only a love child.' Sometimes 
 we discovered but two or three inmates in these diminu- 
 tive poor huts ; there was, however, always a being 
 termed the governor ; and in one case we found only two 
 paupers, one being his Excellency, and the other his guest. 
 
 " ' And so Lis man Friday kept his house neat and tidy, 
 For you know 'twas his duty to do so ; 
 Like brother and brother, who live one with another, 
 So lived Friday and Robinson Crusoe.'" 
 
 If the question be naturally asked, why people con- 
 sented to inhabit these places, the answer is, that they 
 were bribed into them by the promise of abundance of 
 food. "Everywhere the Kentish pauper has three, four, 
 or five ' meat days ' per week; his bread is many degrees 
 better than that given to our soldiers ; he has vegetables 
 at discretion ; and in the larger houses the boast is, ' We 
 gives 'em as much victuals as ever they can eat.' " 
 
 " In Kent, stall-fed charity, in order to bait the work- 
 house trap, arranged, printed, and published a bribe, 
 which we consider as one of the most astonishing docu- 
 ments in the pig-sty history of our Poor Laws."
 
 96 THE POOR LAW. [chap. 
 
 This document is the contract for providing workhouse 
 fare, from Avhich Ave gather that the contractors were to 
 furnish, inter alia, " warm, wholesome, sweet, clean, com- 
 fortable beds ; servants to cook and serve the victuals, 
 and attend on the poor; good, sweet, wholesome fat 
 meat, good sound small beer, best flour, good Gloucester 
 cheese, good and clean butter." Pork and salt meat 
 were forbidden. Bacon and fish Avere alloAved as a 
 variety. The fires were to be good, and kept up in 
 certain rooms at all hours, so that the paupers might 
 boil their tea-kettles. Lastly, the contractors Avere " to 
 PROVIDE WIGS for such as Avear them or require them." 
 
 This, Ave think, is enough, and more than justifies the 
 moral Avith Avhich the Assistant Commissioner concluded 
 his address, to the labouring classes of the county of 
 Kent: "the hanger on ought not to be raised higher 
 than him on whom he hangs." 
 
 The above description aaqII serve to show the nature 
 of the abuses Avith Avhich the Poor LaAv Commissioners 
 had to deal, and will therefore explain the remedies Avhicli 
 they suggested. As these were practically embodied in 
 the Poor LaAv Amendment Act, Avhich is the system 
 now in force, we need only mention the principal re- 
 forms AA'hich they recommended. Some of these, it 
 may be added, had already been tried with success. 
 
 (1.) All relief to able-bodied persons, except in well- 
 regulated workhouses, to be declared illegal. This is 
 the celebrated "workhouse test." 
 
 (2.) The appointment of a Central Board to control 
 the administration, to frame and enforce regulations as 
 to giving relief, and to make those regulations uniform. 
 
 (3.) The formation of Unions of parishes, according
 
 IV.] POOR LAW REFORJil. 97 
 
 to the discretion of the Central Board, to provide and 
 build a common workhouse for the district ; each parish, 
 however, to pay for its own poor, and to pay for the 
 establishment charges (i.e. the house and officers), accord- j 
 ing to the average cost of its own paupers. ] (This looks '^l 
 as though the Commissioners expected the entire cessa^^ 
 tion, in time, of out-relief.) 
 
 (4.) Certain regulations as to uniformity of accounts, 
 appointment and removal of officers, furnishing of sup- 
 phes by contract, — all intended to put down serious 
 abuses. 
 
 (5.) Alterations in the law of apprenticing, to be 
 made by the Central Board, as their future experience 
 may determine. 
 
 (6.) The same as to vagrants, with the view of 
 making their relief to be such as only the destitute will 
 accept. They are hopeless as to the benefit of express 
 enactments. 
 
 (7.) All settlements to be abolished, except by parent- 
 age, till children are sixteen ; by marriage in the case of 
 women ; and by birth, i.e. the place where any person 
 shall have been first known to have existed, in all other 
 cases. J (This recommendation was not altogether carried 
 out in the Act, which retained settlement by residence 
 for one year, provided the person paid the poor rates, 
 and, in deference to common law, settlement by pro- 
 perty if the owner lived within ten miles. ) ^ 
 
 (8.) All punishment of parents of illegitimate children 
 to be abolished, as being worse than useless, and the 
 whole matter to be taken out of the province of Poor 
 Law by the enactment that the child shall follow until 
 sixteen the settlement of the only known parent, i.e. the 
 
 u
 
 98 THE POOR LAW. [chap. 
 
 mother, who is also to be made irremovable, unless she 
 asks for relief. If she does apply, the relief for the 
 child is to be considered as relief to the mother, as in 
 the case of widows. J (The Act, however, while throwing 
 upon the mother the burden of providing for her child till 
 the age of sixteen, or upon her husband, if she marries, 
 prescribed that if the child became chargeable, the over- 
 seers might apply to the Justices, who, if they were 
 satisfied by sufl&cient corroborative evidence, might 
 make an order upon the father to pay a certain weekly 
 sum,^ no part of which should be applicable to the sup- 
 port of the mother. With this, which only extends the 
 general Poor Law principle of responsibility of relations 
 to the case of illegitimacy, bastardy ceases to be a 
 special part of Poor Law administration, and further 
 mention of the subject may be spared.) 
 
 The Bill founded upon these recommendations was 
 read a second time in the House of Commons on the 9th 
 of May 1834, by a majority of 299 votes to 20. It was, 
 however, modified during its progress by clauses meant 
 to restrict the power of the Central Board, and its dui'a- 
 tion limited to five years. It was introduced into the 
 House of Lords by Lord Brougham, and supported by 
 the Didie of Wellington, and carried on the second 
 reading against a minority of 13 votes. 
 
 In 1838 the Act was extended to Ireland, where, as 
 there had been no Poor Law at all, the whole system 
 had to be created from the beginning. The Irish 
 Poor Law was substantially the same as the English, 
 
 ^ No part of the new Poor Law was more fiercely attacked than 
 this, and strong efforts were made either to modify it, or so to 
 administer this cLause as to punish the man, or provide a civil 
 remedy for the woman.
 
 IV.] POOR LAW REFORM. 99 
 
 with this important modification, that out-relief was 
 altogether prohiljited, a fact which would seem to show, 
 if proof were needed, that out-relief is not a necessary 
 part of Poor Law administration. A somewhat melan- 
 choly commentary upon the system of out -relief is 
 afforded by the fact that in 1859 there were five 
 paupers in Scotland ^ (of all countries in the world !) for 
 one in Ireland, and twelve in the Highlands to one in 
 Ulster and Connaught. (Sir John M'Neill in the Four- 
 teenth Annual Report, Scotland.) 
 
 The new Poor Law was introduced in Scotland in 
 1845, but no attempt can be made to deal with the sub- 
 ject of Scotch Poor Law in this volume.-^ It would, 
 however, be impossible to pass over the name of Dr. 
 Chalmers in any treatise concerning the Poor Law, 
 which he opposed so strenuously, and for a while so 
 successfully. The circumstances are briefly these : — 
 
 The old Scottish Poor Law was based upon a statute of 
 1579, and bore a close resemblance to the earlier legisla- 
 tion of Queen Elizabeth, by which the church-officers in 
 each parish were to provide for the destitute by means 
 of semi-voluntary assessments. In England, as we have 
 seen, owing to divisions in the Church and to the 
 supremacy of the State, the further step was taken of 
 creating legal means of relief separate from ecclesiastical 
 authorities ; but in Scotland, where these conditions did 
 not prevail, the law remained as it was. The Kirk- 
 Sessions, that is, the ministers and elders, had the 
 ordinary management of the parochial poor, and the con- 
 
 ^ Tlie best authority on Scotch Poor Law is Scaid to be The 
 Scottish Poor Laws, by Scotus, Edinburgh, 1870, a book I have not 
 seen.
 
 100 THE POOR LAW, [chap. iv. 
 
 trol over the weekly collections and other subscriptions. 
 This was the state of things which Dr. Chalmers, having 
 a strong aversion to Poor Law, and especially to the 
 form which it had assumed in England before 1834, 
 revived in his parish at Glasgow; the Church taking 
 charge of the poor, upon a system of minute investiga- 
 tion and moral aid, much resembling the Elberfeld ex- 
 periment, of which it may claim to be the forerunner. 
 The system was as successful in the one town as in the 
 other, but depended upon the influence of one man ; and 
 it is said that in the rest of Scotland the relief of the 
 poor was very inadequate and partial. Accordingly, the 
 Act of 1845 formed a central Board of Supervision, 
 composed of the chief magistrates of certain large towns, 
 together with members nominated by the Crown ; and 
 under their management most of the parishes have 
 accepted the principle of compulsory assessment, and 
 have elected Parochial Boards to take charge of poor 
 relief. Poorhouses have been established upon the 
 English model ; and the diet, at any rate in respect of 
 luxuries, made inferior to that of the self-sustaining 
 labourer. 
 
 It is but right to add that that part of Dr. Chalmers' 
 arguments against Poor Laws which was founded upon 
 the attractiveness of great and elaborate systems upon the 
 poor, so as to draw them to ask for out-relief, has been 
 abundantly justified by experience. The pauperizing 
 effects of the new Poor Law were found to be consider- 
 able, contrary to what happened in England, outdoor 
 relief being the rule in proportion of twelve to one. 
 (See a paper read before the British Association in 1871 
 by Mr. Peterkin, Superintendent of the Poor.)
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 POOR LAW ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 We are now to give the reader some idea of the actual 
 working of the Poor Law at this present moment, 
 noting as we proceed the principal alterations that have 
 been made since the new Poor Law came into exist- 
 ence. The main outlines of the system are perhaps not 
 very difficult of comprehension, but the details, especially 
 the legal questions, are very elaborate and perplexing, 
 and there are perhaps few subjects upon which legal 
 opinion has been more often taken. The mass of litera- 
 ture in the shape of reports, discussions, speeches, and 
 law books, is enormous ; and it is perhaps not the least 
 serious charge that can be brought against the Poor Law 
 that it has absorbed, it may be in artificial chamiels, so 
 large a share of human industry, ingenuity, and ability. 
 And if the outward appearance of the system be simple 
 and its working smooth, it is only by reason of careful 
 attention to an immense variety of unnoticed details, 
 and also of deference to certain principles or arrange- 
 ments which have established themselves after prolonged 
 inquiry and discussion by some of the ablest men in 
 England. And yet, as it ^\ ill be our duty in the follow- 
 ing pages to point out, nothing like finalitj^ can be said
 
 102 THE POOR LAW. [chap. 
 
 to have been arrived at, while the cost of pauperism and 
 number of paupers remain what they are. 
 
 We shall break up this chapter into five parts, 
 namely the Central Authority, the Local Authorities, Out- 
 Eelief, Indoor Eelief, and the present state of the Law of 
 Settlement, with which is connected the areas over which 
 contributions are raised by local rating. It must, how- 
 ever, be borne in mind that the subjects of central and 
 local government, together with the method of providing 
 for the national expenditure, belong to other books in 
 this series, and are only treated here so far as some 
 acquaintance with them is necessary to the clearer 
 understanding of Poor Law administration. 
 
 Part I — The Central Authority. 
 
 The existing Poor Law Central Authority, now called 
 the Local Government Board, has grown by three 
 successive changes out of the original Poor Law Com- 
 mission formed in 1834. The first change, which might be 
 almost called a crisis, took place at the end of the five 
 years for which the Commission was originally established. 
 The strong and general reaction which ensued upon the 
 heroic reform legislation of the previous years culminated 
 in so fierce an attack upon the Poor Law Amendment 
 that it remained doubtful for some years whether this 
 part of the reforming measures would not have to be, 
 in part at least, sacrificed as a land of expiatory victim 
 for the rest. The Commissioners had in a few years 
 almost transformed the face of the country, and no 
 rational person could doubt the good they had accomp- 
 lished. But they had been brought into conflict with
 
 v.] POOR LAW ADMINISTRATION. 103 
 
 the selfishness, timidity,^ aud obstructiveness of local 
 authorities, not only of those whom they had super- 
 seded, but of those whom they had created, and who 
 in certain places, e.g. Bolton, Nottingham, and Maccles- 
 field,- had been elected expressly to defeat the new law. 
 Then, again, they had to contend with the easily aroused 
 popular dislike of centralized administration, reinforced 
 by the still more easily roused popular sentiment against 
 severity of treatment. Expressions such as these, 
 "Bashaws of Somerset House," "unconstitutional," 
 "tyrannical," "dictatorsliip," "star-chamber," "concen- 
 trated icicles," were heard at every electioneering meet- 
 ing, and it became evident that the Commissioners would 
 have to fight hard for their existence. 
 
 This they did in the Eeport of 1839, to which 
 previous reference has been made, and which, dictated 
 and inspired as it was by something like temper and the 
 spirit of resistance to blind injustice, is one of the very 
 ablest and most decisive State papers ever written. The 
 description they give of the duties and operations of the 
 Board may serve for the present day. They distinguish 
 between the business they originate and that which 
 arises out of the applications for advice by the local 
 authorities. The first consists of the introduction and 
 maintenance of the machinery of the Poor Law, such as 
 the constitution of unions, election of guardians, defining 
 the duties of officers, restrictions upon out-relief, survey 
 and valuation of rateable property. The second con- 
 
 ^ A report from Devonshire states that the people were taught 
 to believe tliat the bread given in relief was poisoned, in order to 
 kill the paupers off, and was in consequence rejected with horror. 
 
 - Edinburgh Rev ieiv, No. 149 (attributed to J\Ir Nassau Senior)
 
 104 THE rOOR LAW. [cnAP. 
 
 sists in dealing with all the difficult, especially legal, 
 questions which the novelty of the law was sure to raise. 
 And they point out that centralization was inevitable in 
 all branches of national administration, and was particu- 
 larly needed in a department where so many gross evils, 
 that had grown up for want of it, had been but just 
 partially extirpated, and would be sure to break forth if 
 once the strong hand of the Commission was removed. 
 They further pointed out that a Central Board took the 
 responsibility and bore the blame of proceedings which, 
 however right and just, the local authorities could not be 
 expected to carry out if left to face the force of public 
 opinion by themselves; and also that they relieved 
 Parliament of the burden and unpopularity of issuing 
 detailed regulations in order to promulgate and carry 
 into effect the laws which Parliament had enacted. The 
 defence so far succeeded that the Commission was re- 
 newed annually for three successive years, and in 1842 
 was established for five years more. 
 
 At the close of this period in 1847 a change v/as 
 made which was warranted by the circumstances of the 
 times. The special reforming functions of the Com- 
 mission, as a body standing aloof from Parliament and 
 from politics, had now been discharged, and it was 
 thought advisable that a ministerial department should 
 be constituted responsible to Parliament, and able to 
 defend itself where it was attacked. Accordingly several 
 of the chief officers of State were named Commissioners 
 for administering the Poor Law, together with a person 
 or persons specially nominated by the Crown, the 
 responsible minister being called the President of the 
 Poor Law Board. Twenty j-ears afterwards it began to
 
 v.] POOR LAW ADMINISTRATION. 105 
 
 be felt that Poor Law administration had come to be a 
 comparatively simple matter, and that under any circum- 
 stances it hardly required a separate department for 
 itself. Added to this there was the growing necessity 
 of making some provision, in rural places especially, for 
 a revival of local government, in connection with such 
 matters as the public health and primary education. In 
 1871, therefore, the name of the department was altered 
 into the Local Government Board, which was placed 
 more entirely under one responsible head by the other 
 Cabinet Ministers ceasing to be ex officio members of it, 
 and in that capacity to countersign the documents which 
 it issued. But whether as regards the central or the 
 local authorities, it is only as far as concerns the adminis- 
 tration of the Poor Law that they belong to the subject 
 of this book. 
 
 Now, it is to the Central Board, by whatever name it 
 has been kno^vn, that every iota of the organization wc 
 are about to describe is directly due. From first to last 
 the Poor Law has been exactly what the Poor Law Board 
 has made it, and there has been no relaxation of the 
 absolute control which the Board has exercised over 
 every detail of administration. It wall be of interest, 
 therefore, to point out the means by which this control 
 has been exercised and maintained. 
 
 To begin with, there is the power to issue orders and 
 rules in order to carry out the intentions of the Legis- 
 lature, in respect of which the largest latitude was allowed 
 by the Poor Law Amendment Act. No Union could be 
 formed, nor workhouse built, nor mode of giving relief 
 adopted, except by authority of the Commissioners. 
 Setting aside the letters of instruction, which are rather
 
 106 THE POOR LAW. [chap. 
 
 of the nature of explanations and suggestions, the actual 
 orders now in force — themselves in many cases only con- 
 solidations of numerous earlier regulations which they 
 have superseded— occupy many hundred pages of printed 
 matter, and extend over the whole field of administra- 
 tion down to the smallest details that can be imagined. 
 / A very effective instrument of control is to be found in 
 the almost innumerable forms or schedules according to 
 which not only are all returns to be made, but all the busi- 
 ness of relief to be transacted. It is not possible, indeed, 
 to move a single step without using them. Those relating 
 to the smallest matters that have come under my notice 
 are instructions how to make tea and rice puddings. 
 
 The most important orders are those of 1844, for- 
 bidding relief to the able-bodied, called the General Pro- 
 hibitory Order; the Consolidated Order of 1847, laying 
 down strict regulations for (amongst other things) the 
 meetings of guardians, the management of workhouses, 
 and the duties of officers ; another in 1867, regulating the 
 mode of keeping accounts ; and another as to vagrancy in 
 1871. What, then, we naturally ask is the machinery by 
 which obedience to these orders is peremptorily enforced ? 
 First there are the Inspectors, who in 1847 took the 
 place of Assistant Commissioners. These gentlemen have 
 been called the eyes and ears of the Board, and the reports 
 which they present to their department, some of which 
 are published in the annual Blue Book, are often of a 
 value far beyond the immediate occasion which calls 
 them forth. They are not only interesting expositions 
 of Poor Law policy and practice, but frequently throw 
 much light upon curious phases of English social hfe and 
 even of our national characteristics. And whatever else
 
 v.] POOR LAW ADMINISTRATION. 107 
 
 may be said of the Poor Law, it is at least true that it 
 has to deal with human beings, and that too in such a 
 way as to open up some of the most delicate and in- 
 teresting questions that human nature, with all its 
 follies, foibles, and eccentricities, can give rise to. We 
 suspect that Poor Law administrators see as much 
 as most people of the various aspects of life, especially 
 of those that are either humorous or pathetic, or both 
 together. 
 
 The specific duties of the inspector are to attend the 
 meetings of Boards of Guardians, where he may take 
 part in the proceedings without the power of voting; 
 to inspect workhouses and every place where relief is 
 administered; to investigate complaints, should any be 
 made ; to give advice in doubtfid cases, and to bring the 
 results of his experience and knowledge before the local 
 administrators; to point out mistakes, and also the 
 tendencies or results of a given policy ; to hint at praise 
 or censure in at any rate extreme cases. To enable all 
 this to be done the country is divided into eleven dis- 
 tricts for purposes of inspection, whereof the South- 
 Eastern contains the largest number of Unions (98), and 
 the Metropolis the smallest (30). It is clear from this 
 that inspection is not intended to be of a very close and 
 scrutinizing character, which indeed is not required by 
 the nature of the office or the conditions of the case. 
 
 The second instrument of control possessed by the 
 Central Board is the power of audit. The auditor 
 examines the accounts of every authority and official, all 
 of which are drawn up according to forms provided for 
 the purpose, and it is his duty to refuse to pass any item 
 where he suspects the least transgression of the law.
 
 108 THE rOOR LAW. [chap. 
 
 To make this clear by an instance : It is a condition of 
 giving out-relief that children, if tliere be any of a 
 school age, should attend school ; and we may observe 
 that until quite lately educational requirements were 
 stricter in the case of paupers than in that of the 
 ordinary public. Before, then, the auditor will allow the 
 relief that has been given to A, he will require to be 
 sho'svn from certificate of attendance that A's children 
 have duly attended school, and if none be forthcoming 
 he will surcharge the Guardians with the amount. There 
 is then an appeal to the Central Board, where the decision 
 of the auditor is generally upheld, but the surcharge 
 remitted by the exercise of the " equitable jurisdiction " 
 vested in the Board. In one year, out of 346 appeals, 
 the power of remission was exercised in 264 cases and 
 refused in 18. But in every case the surcharge operates 
 as a very effective warning not to transgress again, and 
 brings before the notice of the Central Board any irregu- 
 larities that may be committed.^ 
 
 The number of audit districts is 33, not including the 
 Metropolis, and they extend over one or more counties 
 according to size. Within his own district tlie auditor 
 has jurisdiction over the accounts of every authority 
 empowered to raise money by local rating. 
 
 The third and not least effective weapon of control is 
 the power which the Central Board has to discharge all 
 
 ^ It may be mentioned that it is also the auditor's duty to 
 ascertain whether there is any undue waste of articles of food or 
 drink, and that calculations liave been made to enable him to 
 know for how much waste he should allow. As a curiosity of legal 
 interpretation we may add that it has been solemnly decided that 
 he need not put his pen through tlie disallowed item, but merely 
 write that word against it. — tSee Glen's Poor Law Orders, p. 592.)
 
 v.] POOR LAW ADMINISTRATION. 109 
 
 officials employed by the local authorities, who in turn 
 may not discharge their servants without the permission 
 of the Board. The natural and intended effect of this is 
 to make the officers virtually independent of the Local 
 Boards so long as they do their duty, and to prevent 
 pressure being put upon them to evade the directions of 
 the department. The inspector is expected to interfere 
 with any unfair treatment of a zealous officer, or un- 
 worthy partiahty for an incompetent one ; and no officer 
 can be dismissed even for gross misconduct without, if 
 he asks for it, an investigation conducted by an inspector 
 according to the forms of a trial at law. 
 
 It is impossible not to see that the system just de- 
 scribed constitutes a form of centralized administration 
 as strong as could well be imagined. It is true that it 
 may be defended, as the Report of 1839 did defend it, 
 by a reference to other departments, such as the Army, 
 the Treasury, and Primary Education. But the parallel 
 does not hold altogether good. For in other cases the 
 departments have to deal either with men who are their 
 own servants, or more commonly with men, e.g. soldiers 
 and teachers, whose business it is to discharge, under 
 general regulations, certain professional duties of which 
 they alone have a special and technical knowledge, and 
 for which they receive payment from the State. But 
 the local authorities or Guardians are unpaid, and are 
 elected by their constituencies to exercise functions which 
 are supposed to require deliberation, and involve responsi- 
 bihty. Hence it is clear that one of two things must 
 happen : Either the local administration of the Poor 
 Law will cease to have any interest or attraction for the 
 men who are most competent to preside over it, or else
 
 110 THE POOR LAW. [cnAP. 
 
 the men elected to serve upon it will find out for them- 
 selves some opi^ortunity of exercising a discretion of their 
 own. What has been the actual course of events we are 
 now to see. 
 
 Part II. — The Local Authorities. 
 
 One of the first duties of the Poor Law Commissioners 
 under the Act of 1834 was to divide the country into 
 districts, for the purposes of local administration. The 
 obvious plan was adopted of making the larger towns, 
 with their suburbs, into separate districts, and also deal- 
 ing the same way with old country parishes, e.g. Wolstan- 
 ton, Avherever they extended over a large area and 
 contained a sufficient population. In the case of rural 
 places, parishes to the number of upon an average from 
 twenty to thirty were grouped round the nearest market 
 town, whence came the name Union, as applied to all 
 the districts alike. This, which ought to have been a 
 comparatively easy task, was much impeded, not only by 
 local jealousies and disagreements, but by one of those 
 causes which no country but England would tolerate, and 
 which seem to savour of that incurable pedantry that 
 some of our critics are wont to charge us with. Previous 
 to the passing of the Act of 1834 we have noticed that 
 voluntary Unions had been formed, called, from the author 
 of the Act, Gilbert Incorporations, and consisting of just 
 such parishes as, without any regard to convenience of 
 locality, had chosen to unite together. And as, in spite 
 of reiterated demands from the Central Board, Parliament 
 refused to give it leave to dissolve these incorporations 
 except with their own consent, it became frequently very
 
 V] POOR LAW ADMINISTRATION. Ill 
 
 difficult to arrange the Unions on a convenient system. ^ 
 But these difficulties have long been overcome, and all 
 England is now divided into 647 Unions, fresh ones 
 being formed every now and then, as new centres of 
 population are created; sometimes, on the other hand, two 
 adjacent Unions are thrown together. Thirty of these are 
 in the Metropolis, each of the large old parishes forming 
 one. The eastern counties, more especially Lincolnshire, 
 would seem to contain Unions with the largest number 
 of parishes, rising in several cases to considerably over 
 fifty. And Lincoln itself would head the list with 99 
 parishes, but for one of those survivals that are so pictur- 
 esque in English history, by which the City of London, 
 probably the smallest Union in actual extent, is credited 
 with no less than 112 separate parishes. 
 
 Each of the parishes in the Union, or of the wards in 
 large towns, elects one representative or more, according 
 to population, to the Union Board, of which magistrates 
 are ex officio members, though they rarely attend. But 
 our business lies with the Guardian only regarded as an 
 administrator of relief, and we must follow him at once 
 into the Board-room at the workhouse, outside of which 
 he is a mere private person, and has no separate or pei-sonal 
 duties whatsoever. Thus the duty of collecting rates and 
 of giving relief in cases of extreme urgency are fragments 
 of his old power still retained by the overseer, being 
 viewed in the latter case by the Guardians with a jealousy 
 
 ^ Most of the old incorporations have been dissolved, but some 
 remain, with evil effects that are felt to this day. Thns the largest 
 and wealthiest new suburb of Oxford is separated from the rest of 
 the city and joined to a rural Union for no other reason than that 
 the city is an incorporation, and seems for some inscrutable reason 
 nuwilliii':' to surrender the name.
 
 112 THE POOR LAW. [ciiAr. 
 
 SO marked that it is very rarely exercised. But within 
 the walls of the Board room all the poor relief of the 
 district passes at any rate through the Guardians' hands, 
 and every effort is made by the Central Board to impress 
 them with the sense of the reality of the powers they 
 exercise, and of their responsibility for the proper per- 
 formance of delicate and important duties. In order to 
 gain some idea of the spirit which is supposed to animate 
 the local authorities, and Avhich may be thought of more 
 importance than the details of administration, let us 
 gather the following description of their duties from a 
 report of 1846, together with that of 1839. ^ 
 
 "When the Board of Guardians is once in operation 
 its powers are very extensive ; it dispenses all relief, 
 appoints all paid officers, and administers all other Poor 
 Law business in the Union, subject only to the general 
 superintendence of the Commissioners and to the regula- 
 tions issued by them." "The Board of Guardians forms 
 an important and highly respectable representative body, 
 being elected by the most numerous constituency known 
 to the law." "We have ever sought to exercise our 
 powers in such a manner as to avoid all unnecessary 
 interference with Boards of Guardians, and have carefully 
 abstained from doing anything which might extinguish 
 the spirit of local independence. " " For such local abuses 
 as may occur the Boards of Guardians are in general 
 primarily responsible. They have the chief part of the 
 local power, and must therefore bear the chief part of the 
 local responsibility." "The Commissioners (1846) state 
 their conviction, derived from experience, of the generally 
 
 ^ The report of 1846 is practically a reproduction at greater length 
 of that of 1839, and is given by JSTicholls, vol. ii. p. 402, etc. etc.
 
 y.l POOR LAW ADMINISTRATION. 113 
 
 discreet, trustworthy, attentive, and considerate manner 
 in which the Boards of Guardians discharge their func- 
 tions, and of their readiness to devote to the transaction 
 of the business as much of their time as can be reason- 
 ably expected of the unpaid members of a body so 
 constituted." 
 
 The above describes fairly enough the intentions of 
 the Legislature and of the department that carries them 
 into effect ; but facts are stronger than intentions, and 
 it remains to be seen how far, as a matter of fact, — espe- 
 cially now that the administration of relief has long got 
 over the first difficulties and experiments, — the purely 
 Poor Law duties of Guardians ^ deserve such epithets as 
 "important" and "responsible." Let it be remembered 
 that the task of superintending officers in the discharge 
 of duties regulated down to the most minute particulars 
 by superior authority, important as it is, does not involve 
 the KIND of importance that is usually associated with 
 elected bodies. Men are chosen to deliberate and dis- 
 cuss, and deliberation implies discretion, which, again, con- 
 fers responsibility. Suppose, then, a Guardian elected 
 after a hot contest by a large number of votes, going 
 every week or fortnight a journey of perhaps several 
 miles to the place of meeting at the expense of much 
 valuable time, what subjects will he find when he gets 
 there that will exercise his faculty of discretion ? We 
 will try and make the answer clear. 
 
 He will, in the first instance, be struck with the fact 
 
 ^ It must be remembered that we are speaking of Guardians only 
 as administrators of Poor Law. The duties that have been of late 
 imposed upon them in connection \vith public health, education, 
 and (if they choose) the management of the roads, constitute a 
 very important addition indeed to their original functions. 
 
 I
 
 114 THE rOOR LAW. [chap. 
 
 that the power possessed by every representative assembly 
 of regulating its own proceedings within the limits of 
 custom or common law is not possessed by the Guardians, 
 but is regulated by sixteen articles Avhich define the 
 duties of the Board as to its way of transacting business. 
 These include the times of meeting, appointment of 
 presiding officers, time for adjournment in case of non- 
 attendance, mode of voting, and order in which the busi- 
 ness is to be taken. There is nothing in any of these 
 that calls for further notice, except that the position of 
 the clerk, being, as he is, irremovable by the Local Board, 
 and answerable to the Board above for the correctness of 
 an immense number of details, legal questions included, 
 gives him a supremacj^ much greater than is usually held 
 by similar officers. Then next he will discover that a 
 good deal of the Poor Law business proper is administered 
 by committees whose duties, again, are often of a formal 
 character. Thus a man may be Guardian for many years 
 without seeing the interior of the house, and a member 
 of the Visiting Committee without doing more than pay 
 an occasional formal visit. There is a Finance Committee, 
 but so intricate and difficult are the accounts that the 
 clerk is here practically supreme. (Of course this very 
 general description must be taken as subject to many 
 variations, and in large towns there is no doubt more to 
 be done by action of the Guardians themselves. ) Passing 
 over such minor matters as examining and accepting 
 tenders for goods (as regulated by eight articles in the 
 Order of 1847), we now come to the only responsible 
 part of a Guardian's duties. "They shall hear and con- 
 sider any applications for relief wliich may be then made, 
 and determine thereon."
 
 v.] POOR LAW ADMINISTRATIOK 115 
 
 It is understood that the Guardians must admit every 
 applicant to a personal hearing, the application having 
 been first made to the relieving officer, about whom 
 hereafter.^ But it is very doubtful whether the Board 
 (or the Eelicf Committee, should one be appointed) 
 would be justified in refusing indoor relief to any appli- 
 cant who insisted upon admission. An instructional letter 
 of 1842 lays it down that the power of discharging from 
 the workhouse should only be exercised in cases where 
 the pauper could be proceeded against criminally for 
 neglecting to maintain his family; and the reason assigned 
 " that persons not really destitute will not be Avilling to 
 remain in the house " covers the case of those who are 
 wilhng to enter it. Practically, therefore, this set of 
 cases settle themselves. Then, supposing out -relief to 
 be decided upon, the amount and duration of this, even 
 in the most irregularly managed Boards, is generally 
 roughly settled by some standard, and does not call for 
 much serious discussion. There remains, therefore, one 
 solitary question of the very deepest practical importance 
 both to the working of the Poor Law and the welfare of 
 the labouring classes generally, namely, whether the relief 
 given shall be indoor or outdoor. Here the Guardians 
 have, within certain limits, a very absolute discretion 
 indeed, and it is the deciding between difi'erent opinions 
 and policies in respect of the kind of relief to be offered 
 that makes the duties of Guardians interesting to them- 
 selves and to their constituents. What that discretion is, 
 
 ^ It has been held that any person not having the means of 
 providing food for his children, and delaying to apply for relief 
 so long that death ensued, is guilty of manslaughter. — (Glen, Poor 
 Law Orders, p. 69.)
 
 116 THE POOR LAW. [chap. 
 
 and how they have used it, we will now consider under 
 the head of out -relief : it is of the very essence of our 
 subject. 
 
 Paet III. — Out-Eelief. 
 
 The reader will remember that (to quote once more 
 tJie Report of 1839) "the fundamental principle with 
 respect to legal relief is that the condition of the pauper 
 ought to be, on the whole, less eligible than that of the 
 independent labourer;" and he will agree with the same 
 report in the assertion " that all distribution of relief in 
 money or in goods, to be spent or consumed by the 
 pauper in his own house, is inconsistent with the principle 
 in question." Accordingly the first object of the Poor 
 Law Commissioners was to put a stop to out -relief. 
 Beginning in their first year with two districts, namely, 
 Cookham Union and Sandridge Parish (First Report, 
 page 28), they proceeded gradually in the face of much 
 opposition,^ till in the year 1844 a final order (repro- 
 ducing one of 1839), called the Outdoor Prohibitory 
 Relief Order, was issued, in which it was laid down that 
 "every able-bodied person . . . requiring relief . . . 
 shall be relieved only in the workhouse of the Union," 
 etc. In the face of which order we are confronted with 
 the fact that in the beginning of this year (1881) the 
 number of adidt able-bodied outdoor paupers was returned 
 for the 1st of January at 84,812, while indoor paupers 
 
 ^ The opposition was chiefly in respect of allowances to large 
 families, to retain which every effort was made. Also the indoor 
 test system was severely tried by stagnation of trade at Nottingham, 
 Andover, and other places. Nor could it be applied until the 
 Houses were ready.
 
 v.] POOR LAW ADMINISTEATION. 117 
 
 were only 26,357, i.e. of the same class. And again, of the 
 268,923 outdoor paupers returned as adult not able-bodied, 
 by far the larger number were persons whom only the 
 approach of age (after sixty paupers are treated as not 
 able-bodied) had rendered destitute after a life of ability 
 to do work. What is the explanation of this apparent 
 anomaly 1 
 
 It is this. The Report of 1839 states that the Com- 
 missioners "permit out-relief to the able-bodied in all 
 those cases of distress which are of most frequent occurrence, 
 such as sickness, accident, bodily or mental infirmity in them- 
 selves and in their families.'^ This exception is carried 
 forward into the General Prohibitory Order, and is in- 
 creased by the addition of such cases as burial, widow- 
 hood for six months after the death of the husband, and 
 for so long as there is any child dependent on the widow. 
 Now from this two facts are clear. First, inasmuch as per- 
 sons above sixty are not to be considered necessarily able- 
 bodied, and are therefore outside the terms of the order, 
 all aged persons who have made no provision for them- 
 selves during middle life may receive out -relief if the 
 Guardians resolve to grant it. And secondly, all persons 
 under sixty, if disabled by any cause either in their own 
 persons or that of any of their families, are also eligible 
 for the same kind of rehef. Now, it has been stated (see 
 page 15) that the two chief evils to wliich poor relief 
 gives rise are idleness on the part of those who can work 
 and will not, and improvidence on the part of those who 
 can make provision for possible sickness or inevitable 
 old age, but prefer to trust to the bounty of the State. 
 The first class was dealt with finally and summarily in 
 the Prohibitory Order, which forbids relief to any man
 
 118 THE POOR I,AW. [chap. 
 
 capable of earning wages. But the second ^vas by the 
 express exceptions contained in that order left to the 
 discretion of the local authorities, who have not been 
 slow to avail themselves of the opportunity. How far 
 the central authorities realized that this departure from 
 their own admitted principles would lead once more to 
 the establishment of a gigantic system of pauperism, 
 in which the unthrifty and careless were maintained 
 at the cost or to the prejudice of their more provident 
 neighbours, does not very clearly appear. Certain 
 it is that it has been turned by local administration 
 to this end, and that, too, in spite of warnings almost 
 amounting to threats, and expostulations almost descend- 
 ing to entreaties, from the Poor Law authorities them- 
 selves. 
 
 In saying this there is no intention to impute blame 
 in any quarter, which would be in every way unseemly. 
 But our object is to give such an account of the working 
 of the Poor Law as shall convey to the reader some 
 notion of the spirit in which it is administered, and also 
 explain the tendencies that have led to the results actually 
 before us. We shall therefore trace the operation of 
 the law of out-relief somewhat more in detail. 
 
 The functionary through whom the Guardians perform 
 this part of their work is that well-known person, the 
 relieving officer, whose duties are prescribed in fifteen sec- 
 tions of Article 215 of the General Consolidated Order of 
 1847 (Glen, p. 215). The one that concerns us at present 
 is No. 2, which states that he shall receive " all applica- 
 tions for relief made to him within his district, and 
 forthwith examine into the circumstances of every case 
 by visiting the house of the applicant, and by making all
 
 v.] POOR LAW ADMINISTRATION. 119 
 
 necessary inquiries, etc. etc., and report the result of such 
 inquiries in the prescribed form at the next meeting." 
 The "prescribed form" is called the Application and 
 Eeport Book, and contains headings for all information 
 that may be useful to the Guardians, including one that 
 is much neglected, showing " names of relations hable by 
 law to relieve the applicant " (see Eeport by Mr. Sendall, 
 1874, and ]VIi\ Wodehouse, 1872). This book is laid 
 before the chairman for him to record the decision of the 
 Guardians at the "Board Day," whither the applicant is 
 also summoned to attend, and be further questioned as 
 to his destitution. But from the beginning to the end 
 of this procedure one remark holds good : that unlimited 
 discretion leads to unlimited variation in the methods by 
 which it is carried out. Thus, the number of relieving 
 officers in proportion to population and area varies in- 
 definitely. One officer had 400 cases under his charge, 
 the usual number being 200 to 250. Again, the practice 
 of requiring the personal attendance of the applicant at 
 the Board varies considerably, a man being always anxious 
 to put it off upon his wife, and a woman upon some fair- 
 spoken neighbour, while in some cases quite young girls 
 are sent to plead the cause of their destitute relatives. 
 The attendance of the Guardians themselves is of course 
 fluctuating, and the fate of the applicants, — that is to say, 
 whether they shall submit to a species of imprisonment 
 or enjoy a little pension at their own homes, — not unfre- 
 quently depends upon whether this or that Guardian 
 (the chairman especially) chances to be present or absent. 
 In some Unions where there is a Relief Committee, one 
 man (though it is believed that three are necessary to 
 make a quorum in order to grant relief legally) some-
 
 120 THE POOR LAW. [chap. 
 
 times adjudicates upon all the cases, and he, again, may 
 be a strenuous supporter of the workho'ase test one day, 
 and an equally strong advocate for out-relief the next. 
 Then, again, the time allowed for the disposal of each case 
 at all times too short, is by no means the same, varying, 
 according to the experience of one inspector (see Mr.' 
 Longley's Report on Out-Relief in the Metropolis, 1873), 
 from eleven cases in four minutes to three minutes for 
 each case. And there is an absolutely concurrent testi- 
 mony that there neither is nor can be anything like 
 adequate information as to the circumstances of the case 
 upon which the Guardians can base their decision. But 
 the subject of investigation deserves a special word of 
 notice. 
 
 The plain fact is that the workliouse test has killed 
 the spirit of investigation, as, by the confession of its 
 supporters, it was meant to do. The following is quoted 
 from the Report of 1839 : — "The only sure mode of as- 
 certaining whether the total receipts of the labourer" 
 (for this in the case before us we should read " total 
 sources of income") " are really sufficient is to offer in lieu 
 of them an adequate but less eligible maintenance, which 
 will not be accej)ted unless necessity requires it. This 
 can be effected by the offer of the workhouse, and by 
 that only." Having this to fall back on in all doubtful 
 cases, both relieving officers and Guardians are under 
 strong inducement to dispense with long, costly, and dis- 
 agreeable enquiries. The former pays his one preliminary 
 visit (sometimes in large towns carefully prepared for 
 by removal of furniture), and gathers just as much as 
 local gossip can tell him. The latter have no means of 
 knowing the facts of the case except what they can wring
 
 v.] POOR LAW ADMINISTRATION. 121 
 
 in a hurried cross-examination from some unfortunate 
 applicant, — in nothing more unfortunate than this, that 
 he is driven to gain his ends by craft and concealment, ^ — 
 more especially as to whether his friends can keep him, 
 or as to what he receives from charity. But at this 
 point ensues a curious phenomenon. Though Guardians 
 are practically powerless in many cases to ascertain the 
 reality of that destitution which is the only legal title to 
 relief, yet they do know something about the character of 
 the applicant, which, if the plain truth must be told, has 
 nothing to do with it.^ Thus if two men under precisely 
 the same circumstances apply for relief, one of whom has 
 borne a good character and succumbed to misfortune, the 
 other has been just the reverse, it is still not permissible, 
 uj)on any sound principle of Poor Law, to make a differ- 
 ence between them. And if we attend to the matter for 
 a moment we shall see that the attempt to pass a moral 
 judgment upon the two, involving the most serious 
 material consequences, would necessitate, to be fair, a 
 preliminary enquiry into their education, home influences, 
 conduct of children, natural temperament, and the op- 
 portunities each had enjoyed of getting on in life. No 
 doubt the temptation to exercise a moral discrimination 
 is irresistible, and the Guardians try, with probably some 
 success, to achieve a rough and ready justice, of which it 
 may be said that it is morally excellent, but it is not Poor 
 Law. 
 
 These, then, are the practical difficulties under which 
 
 ^ The Poor Law Board stated in answer to a direct question in 
 1870 that, "according to strict law," if there were two widows, 
 each requiring ten shillings per week, one of whom received four 
 shillings from a club, the Guardians must allow her only six shil- 
 lings and the other ten. — (Glen, p. 63.)
 
 122 THE POOR LAW. [chap. 
 
 the Guardians meet to exercise their discretion as to 
 whether indoor or out-relief shall be given. But, and this 
 is commonly the decisive argument, it is cheaper to allow 
 a weekly pittance outside the house than to give main 
 tenance within it — cheaper, that is, in any given case, 
 though not in the long run, for all experience shows that 
 the persistent refusal of out-relief does not increase the 
 inmates of the house. But after all there is something 
 stronger than even this. The Guardians know that every 
 applicant who stands before them has been encouraged 
 by the law to expect some allowance of out-relief whenever 
 age or sickness has rendered him destitute. Is it reason- 
 able to expect that they will, as a rule, take upon them- 
 selves the disagreeable responsibility of refusing the relief 
 which the law allows them to give 1 If the Central Board 
 or the Legislature, who are removed from actual contact 
 with the pleadings of destitution, perhaps in the case of 
 old workmen or even friends, shrink from prohibiting out- 
 relief in such cases, how can the Guardians, with natural 
 benevolence to prompt them and a character for kindness 
 to keep up, abstain from following the easy course that 
 saves them further trouble, and satisfies the conscience 
 (until aroused by argument) and the pocket (until con- 
 vinced by statistics and results) as well. The result is that 
 the discretion enjoyed by Guardians tends steadily, though 
 with very wide variations, in one direction, and that 
 out-relief becomes the rule, indoor relief the exception. 
 The proportion, excluding vagrants and lunatics, may be 
 stated now at about one indoor pauper to 3.2 outdoor; 
 ten years ago the proportion was one indoor to nearly six 
 outdoor. There has therefore been some improvement in 
 deference to the pressure of the Central Board and the
 
 v.] POOR LAW ADMINISTRATION. 123 
 
 moie enlightened opinion of some Poor Law reformers. 
 But enougli remains to show that while the new Poor 
 Law has dealt satisfactorily with the case of those who 
 preferred to seek relief rather than work for wages (at 
 worst a case so abnormal and unnatural that there could 
 be no real difficulty in grappling with it), it has failed to 
 meet the case of those who prefer relying upon relief to 
 making provision against destitution out of their own 
 resources. One half the work has been done, the other 
 haK, — including also the natural call upon relations, 
 friends, and charity to "maintain their own poor" — is 
 yet to be begun. 
 
 We have, however, hitherto only traced the system of 
 out-relief up to the moment when it is first given to the 
 applicant by the Guardians : we have now to carry our 
 description to the mode in which it is distributed and 
 continued. 
 
 That part of relief (by far the most important) which 
 consists in grants of a certain weekly allowance to the 
 sick and infirm is distributed by the reheving officer, who 
 attends periodically at stated times and places (in country 
 places once every week), in accordance with the regula- 
 tion that orders him "duly and punctually to supply 
 the weekly allowances of all paupers belonging to his 
 district." This may be given in money or in kind, and 
 it is thought that the principle of poor relief is best carried 
 out by the latter system. But in practice the giving of 
 money is found so much more convenient, and the argu- 
 ment, that if people are to have relief at all they had 
 better be left to make the best of it for themselves, seems 
 so reasonable that relief in kind has become the excep- 
 tion. The book in which the paupers of each parish are
 
 124 THE POOR LAW. [ohap. 
 
 entered is a very elaborate affair, containing no less than 
 twenty-five different classes to which the recipient may 
 belong. It is examined by the clerk and auditor, and forma 
 the basis upon which the statistics of pauperism are 
 framed. It is also the duty of the relieving officer to keep 
 a strict supervision over the recipients of relief, and report 
 to the Guardians such change in their circumstances as may 
 have occurred, especially when the time expires for which 
 their relief was granted, or for that periodical revision of 
 the list of paupers which is carefully carried out by every 
 properly-conducted Board. 
 
 Besides this there are, however, two other modes 
 of giving out -relief. First it may be given to the 
 able-bodied in some Unions in return for labour, in 
 which case half of it must be in kind, and the work 
 done under the superintendence of a special officer 
 appointed for that purpose : the labour is mostly in the 
 stoneyard. About 120 Unions, including the Metropolis 
 and the larger towns, are allowed to employ this labour 
 test instead of the house test, and are therefore not 
 under the Outdoor Eelief Prohibitory Order, but under 
 the Outdoor Eehef Regulation Order of December 1852. 
 The reason of this policy is contained in a letter of 1852, 
 in which the Board draws attention to "the circum- 
 stances of most of the Unions and parishes in London, 
 and in some other populous places," in consequence of 
 which they " leave the Guardians at liberty to offer relief 
 in the workhouse only," but " do not prohibit out-relief 
 to any class of paupers." The outdoor labour test would 
 seem, then, to be reserved for special cases, as a " safety 
 valve" at a time of great and sudden depression of trade. 
 But it does not seem to be very extensively used, and is
 
 v.] POOR LAW ADMINISTRATION. 125 
 
 growing more and more unpopular with the relieving 
 authorities. 
 
 The other form of out -relief is the medical. The 
 whole of England is divided into districts which may 
 not exceed 15,000 acres in extent, or 15,000 persons in 
 population, and are in practice much smaller. Over 
 each of these the Guardians appoint a medical oflficer re- 
 siding in the district, who must, according to the regula- 
 tions, " attend duly and punctually upon all poor persons 
 requiring medical attendance, and supply the requisite 
 medicines whenever he may be lawfully required by an 
 order of the Guardians, or of a relieving officer, or of an 
 overseer." He is bound to attend under such an order 
 even when he may know that the person is not indigent, 
 but he can report the circumstances at the next meeting. 
 He cannot order articles of food for a sick pauper, but 
 he can recommend them ; and practically Guardians 
 naturally shrink from the responsibility of refusing what 
 he suggests. Persons already paupers are not relieved 
 by special order, but receive a ticket, upon the exhibition 
 of which the medical officer is bound to attend to them. 
 He must give the Guardians such information as they 
 may require, and must make a return of days on which 
 visits were paid or attendance given, together with an 
 account of the patients' condition. Medical relief given 
 to parents alone does not make the children paupers. 
 
 Such are the arrangements whereby out-relief is 
 granted and distributed : How, is the next natural en- 
 quiry, does the system work in actual operation 1 To 
 answer this question we must refer to an enormous mass 
 of literature, known as the reports of the inspectors who 
 have from time to time been appointed to examine the
 
 126 THE POOR LAW. [chap. 
 
 out-relief system for the instruction of the Central 
 Board. ^ 
 
 A careful examination of these reports (or some of 
 them) will show that there is an absolute concurrence as to 
 two main features in the working of outdoor relief. In 
 the first place, considering that the reformed Poor Law 
 was expressly intended to introduce uniformity and 
 system, it has to be confessed that in this respect the 
 failure is very great indeed. The exercise of local dis- 
 cretion has led to an almost infinite variableness of ad- 
 ministration. No two Unions have the same principles 
 or rules for dealing with the same class of cases ; no two 
 officers take the same views as to the nature of their 
 duties or the best way of performing them ; and, what 
 is worse, no two destitute persons under similar circum- 
 stances can be at all sure of being dealt with in the same 
 way. A kind of moral uncertainty is thus cast over the 
 minds of the "poor," which, with its accompanying 
 results of jealousy, disappointment, sense of injustice, 
 and gambling away life upon the chance of out-relief, 
 probably inflicts as much injury upon their mental, as 
 the old system did upon their material, comfort. — (See 
 Mr. Longley's Eeport, p. 30.) 
 
 In the next place, the reports are perfectly unanimous 
 in their testimony as to the prevaiHng ignorance concerning 
 the "cases" upon which the Guardians have to adjudicate. 
 " The main reliance of Guardians must be placed in the 
 regular and unintermitting routine of enquiry pursued by 
 
 ^ The public is little aware of the ability, industry, and minute 
 thoroughness which characterize these and other reports on Poor 
 Law administration. May it not well be that such a system as 
 outdoor relief absorbs more than its share of these qualities ?
 
 v.] POOR LAW ADMINISTRATION. 127 
 
 paid and responsible officers. " "I cannot but think that a 
 much nearer approach to it than is now made is possible." 
 — (Mr. Wodehouse, p. 37.) "I detected considerable 
 irregularity in the strict performance by the relieving 
 officers of these all -important duties. "^ — -(Mr. Henley, 
 Annual Repoii of Poor Law Board for 1871, p. 96.) But 
 perhaps the following story, told by Mr. Sendall (p. 7), 
 will serve to show to what extent out -relief may be 
 abused from lack of information : it is but one out of 
 hundreds upon hundreds that are mentioned in the re- 
 ports, and which are practically known to exist through- 
 out the country : — 
 
 "One of the officers of the Union, engaged 
 
 shortly after his appointment in looking up his cases, 
 came upon a pauper of long standing at work in a well- 
 stocked garden. 
 
 You have got a nice bit of garden here ? ' 
 
 " ' Yes ; it is pretty good.' 
 
 And are those your pigs in the sty there % ' 
 Yes ; they be mine.' 
 
 " ' And there is a horse and cart — is that yours too ? ' 
 Oh, yes ; that is what I goes to market mth. And 
 who be you, sir 1 ' 
 
 " ' Well, I am the new relieving officer ; and I think 
 you had better come up and see the Guardians at 
 next Board day. ' " ^ 
 
 After this we need not be surprised to hear the 
 stories of paupers dying rich. 
 
 We shall next attempt to condense the defects noted 
 
 ^ The possibility of the existence of such cases is part of the 
 price the nation pays for the destruction of municipal self-govern- 
 ment in country places,
 
 128 THE rOOR LAW. [chap. 
 
 by the inspectors as proceeding from the want of uni- 
 formity and of information. We take the following 
 twelve points more for the sake of the round number 
 than for any hope of exhausting the list : — 
 
 (1.) The attendance of Guardians being fluctuating, 
 and the composition of the Board on any one day uncer- 
 tain, makes them what one inspector terms "pliable," 
 especially in the way of yielding to the applicant's per- 
 sistent refusal to enter the house. There is also a 
 marked tendency to compromise cases by small temporary 
 doles, and at times to evade the law in doing so.^ 
 
 (2.) The revision of the lists of paupers by the 
 Guardians is very irregular. In some it is done punc- 
 tually every quarter; in others at chance times; in some 
 once a year, or even once in three years. The conse- 
 quence is that in cases where destitution has ceased 
 pauperism remains. As the visits of the relieving 
 officers are mainly determined by the practice of the 
 Guardians in respect of revising, it follows that the visits 
 are at most uncertain intervals. 
 
 (3.) There is great laxity as to requiring the personal 
 attendance of applicants. It is in many cases dispensed 
 with ; and the Guardians rely on the information of the 
 relieving officer, and the opinion of the Guardian of the 
 parish, if present. The temptation to take the chance 
 of obtaining relief, and so to apply for it, is thereby 
 increased. 
 
 (4.) The system of the " pay table " is severely 
 
 1 In illustration of this, Mr. Longley tells a story (Report, p. 60) 
 of tlie chairman who, when warned by him that some allowance of 
 relief was illegal, observed with great good humour that " he did 
 not care a pin for the inspector nor for the auditor either. "
 
 v.] POOR LAW ADMINISTRATION. 129 
 
 criticised. The relieving officer meets tlie paupers at 
 some fixed place — Sometimes even a public-house, some- 
 times a cottage for which rent is paid — and there dis- 
 tributes the relief as though he were paying Avages. 
 Children or neighbours are sent (and paid) by the 
 pauper to receive it. The districts are so large that this 
 plan cannot be avoided, and some Unions are obliged to 
 pay for conveyances.^ 
 
 (5.) There is a general complaint that the books and 
 returns are not always accurately kept. This is of 
 special importance in respect of classification of paupers. 
 
 (6.) The practice as to relief of deserted wives with 
 children varies very much. No competent authority 
 doubts that refusal of out-relief in these cases is the 
 only course consistent with the clue administration of 
 the Poor Law. But in many cases it is given, except 
 where the Guardians suspect "collusion." The room 
 thus given for fraud is obvious, and complaints of fraud 
 are common. 
 
 (7.) The case of widows with more than one child 
 dependent upon them (they are supposed to be able to 
 maintain one child), as it is one of the most perplexing, 
 so is it sure to lead to difference of treatment, and thence 
 to abuses. " General sympathy for widows has suggested 
 a lax administration of relief " is a heading to one report. 
 — (Mr. Longley, p. 49.) A belief is still prevalent that 
 " to put on the cap " entitles to parish pay. — {Ihid. p. 50.) 
 There is always great difficulty in discovering their earn- 
 ings, and all relief must be in their case relief in aid of 
 
 ' Is it really quite impossible tliat the overseers or some loca] 
 antliority should he trusted with the mere payment of relief, and 
 so all this labour avoided ? 
 
 Iv
 
 130 THE POOR LAW. [cnAP. 
 
 wages, with tlio direct result that tlic wnges of widows 
 fall below that of independent women. In some cases 
 where the relief has been discontinued, owing to the 
 birth of an illegitimate child, the woman has never been 
 obliged to accept the house, but has maintained herself 
 without difficulty. The subject is far too long and diffi- 
 cult for discussion here ; but the reader sufficiently 
 interested in the matter is referred to Mr. Longley's 
 Beport on Poor Law Administration in London (1873), 
 where it is fully gone into. 
 
 (8.) A very painful result of the present system is 
 pointed out in the fact that paupers marry paupers, or 
 have large families after becoming paupers, and live in 
 the extreme of want in consequence. "Households 
 such as these are the forcing-beds of pauperism." — (Mr. 
 Sendall, p. 10.) 
 
 (9.) Relief is still given in aid of wages where aged 
 or infirm people can earn a little, or are expected to do 
 so. This is unavoidable, and perhaps not very injurious, 
 though a contravention of all sound principles. 
 
 (10.) There is a melancholy concurrence of opinion 
 that relations are not called upon to help as they ought 
 to be, and that innumerable cases of pauperism exist 
 where there are relations perfectly able to help, and who 
 would do so (as in some cases they have done) sooner than 
 allow their friends to go into the house. To take one 
 instance out of many, a pauper in receipt of 2s. 6d 
 weekly was found acting as servant in her sister's house 
 hold, whose position was that of a superior artizan. 
 Prosecutions are rare ; but in many cases it is said that 
 the threat is sufficient. But this can only apply in 
 cases where the relation is kno"\vn.
 
 v.] POOR LAW ADMINISTRATIOK 131 
 
 (11.) Undue facilities are said to exist for receiving 
 medical relief, and an injurious notion has got abroad 
 that this kind of relief has not the same pauperizing 
 effects. Very frequently the receipt of medical relief 
 is the beginning of pauperism, and a fear is even ex- 
 pressed lest the system degenerate into one of medical 
 State charity. Connected with this are very grave com- 
 plaints as to " medical extras," by means of which the 
 doctor orders food instead of medicine. The Guardians 
 are then able to give relief in aid of wages, and persons are 
 encouraged to apply for medical relief in the hope that 
 food and stimulants Avill follo^w. It happens, too, that 
 meat ordered for the sick is used for food for the family ; 
 thus " beef ordered for beef-tea to a dying husband was 
 found two hours later in the frying-pan." 
 
 (12.) The outdoor labour test is subject to great 
 abuses. The stoneyard has an attraction for the indo- 
 lent, and some cases are known in which men work at 
 their own employment in the summer, and " for the 
 Guardians," i.e. at the stoneyard, in the winter. 
 
 We trust the reader will pardon these details of de- 
 fective administration which have been laid before him 
 in order that he may know the actual working of the 
 system which is supported by his money, and is main- 
 tainable only so long as public opinion chooses to abide 
 by it. Many improvements have been suggested, with 
 the bare mention of which we must be content. Some 
 place reliance upon improved methods of administration 
 by local authorities. Others would introduce a new 
 classification of recipients of out-relicf, by which persons 
 of bad character (we venture to think an impossible sug- 
 gestion), or those whose wages have previously enabled
 
 132 THE POOR LAW. [chap. 
 
 them to make provision for their wants, should he de- 
 harred from out-rchcf. Others, again, would make the 
 area of out-maintenance and administration much smaller 
 than that for indoor, so as to put pressure upon locali- 
 ties to prefer the latter, and also to subject the applicant 
 or the pauper to much closer supervision and control 
 Others, among whom the author may perhaps be per- 
 mitted to include himself, are absolutely convinced that 
 the whole system of out-relief could be without difficulty 
 abolished in a very few years, just as the old system was 
 abolished some forty years ago by the action of the 
 Central Board in issuing prohibitory orders. The con- 
 ditions of the two cases seem fairly parallel. 
 
 Part IV. — Indoor Eelief. 
 
 The indoor relief, as estabhshed by English Poor Law, 
 is, we may say at once, though not without blots, as we 
 shall see, thoroughly worthy of the good sense and 
 practical humanity of the English people. With the 
 exception of lunatic asylums, infirmaries, and district 
 schools in large (mostly metropolitan) Unions, this 
 kind of relief is given in houses miscalled workhouses, 
 one of which has been built in each Union since the Act 
 of 1834. The name Workhouse was given them from 
 some idea that they would be used for the purpose of 
 setting able-bodied paupers to work, according to the 
 statute of Queen Elizabeth and the requirements of the 
 house test. But that test has proved so efficacious that 
 the number of inmates really able-bodied is comparatively 
 few, and the house has become the permanent home of
 
 v.] POOR LAW ADMINISTRATION. 133 
 
 persons disabled by some misfortuue or other from 
 taking care of themselves. As the number of per- 
 sons for whom the State thus provides a home was 
 at the beginning of this year 189,438 (not including 
 vagrants), and as the number is subject to constant 
 loss and as constant renewal, so that the total pass- 
 ing through the house on the way to the grave is very 
 considerable, it becomes every citizen to have some 
 idea of the kind of institution which the law provides 
 at his cost for the care of these who are " the poor in 
 very deed." 
 
 We will first of all take a glance at the officers. 
 These are the doctor, master and matron, chaplain, 
 schoolmaster, nurse, porter, and such assistants as the 
 size of the house renders necessary : the duties of all 
 these are defined in the most careful manner in the 
 order of 1847.— (Glen, pp. 182-215.) 
 
 With respect to the doctor, chaplain, and school- 
 master (or more generally mistress), no more can be said 
 than that the professional duties which they are accus- 
 tomed or expected to perform in the exercise of their 
 respective callings elsewhere are rigorously exacted on 
 behalf of the inmates of the house, and that any known 
 neglect would be visited by immediate censure, to 
 be followed by dismissal, if persisted in. Thus, to take 
 one instance, it is not thought right to administer Holy 
 Communion except there is a chapel set apart for divine 
 service, but the paupers should be allowed to go to the 
 parish church for that purpose. Permission to attend 
 church or chapel is optional with the Guardians, and 
 there are special provisions for allowing the attendance 
 of ministers of religion in case any inmate desires to be
 
 134 THE POOR LAW. [chap. 
 
 visited by a minister of his own denomination. The 
 conditions upon which this right should be exercised 
 were definitely settled in the case of the Eoman Catholic 
 inmates of Chelsea Workhouse in 1861, under the 
 authority of the Court of Queen's Bench (Glen, p. 125). 
 It need hardly bo added that the inmates are under the 
 protection of the " conscience clause," and that in par- 
 ticular the children of paupers enjoyed that protection 
 long before it was vouchsafed to the children of the 
 independent labourer. 
 
 It is, however, the master and matron vipon whom it 
 depends whether the intentions of the Legislature are 
 carried out towards the unfortunate persons who have 
 accepted maintenance from the State, and neither regu- 
 lations nor such supervision as the Guardians can give 
 will avail much against the consequences of their faults 
 and shortcomings. No one, not even we should think 
 the captain of a man of war, has more absolute control 
 within his own domain, or can make his power more 
 sharply felt. Everything that careful regulations can 
 accomj)lish is done in order to make them discharge the 
 duties of their office properly. They are instructed to 
 see that every pauper upon admission (which must be 
 by order of the Guardians, or provisionally by the re- 
 lieving ofiicer, or in cases of emergency by the master 
 himself) is searched, cleansed,^ clothed, and put in the 
 
 ^ Perhaps the following extracts from the regulations as to bath- 
 ing will give as good an idea as we can have of the excessive care 
 bestowed upon the management of the house : — " (1) Every patient 
 {i.e. lunatic) must be bathed once a week unless exempted by medi- 
 cal order ; (3) The cold water is always to be turned on first ; (4) 
 Temperature must not be less than 88 or more than 98 degi'ces, and 
 must be suspended at once if the thermometer is out of order ; (8^
 
 v.] POOR LAW ADMINISTRATION. 135 
 
 proper Avard. They must enforce order, industry, 
 punctuality, and cleanliness. They must read prayers 
 morning and evening. They must enforce employment 
 upon every inmate according to his or her capacity for 
 work, and allow no one who can work to be idle at any time. 
 They must visit the wards (the master or matron, accord- 
 ing to the sex of the occupants) every morning at eleven 
 to see that they are duly cleansed, and every night in 
 summer at ten and in winter at nine to see that the 
 paupers arc in bed. They are to take care that no 
 pauper, upon the approach of death, is left unattended 
 night or day, and to give notice of his death to the near- 
 est relations who may be known to exist. Lastly, they 
 are to say or cause to be said grace before and after 
 meals. 
 
 The duties of the porter require a special word of 
 mention, because that officer is the outward symbol, so to 
 speak, of that Poor Law constraint which may be defined 
 as voluntary imprisonment. He is to keep the gate and 
 alloAv no one to go in or out without leave of the master, 
 except of course the Poor Law officers. He is further 
 to register the names and business of every person 
 visiting the house, and to see that nothing unlawful is 
 brought into it. The gates are locked at nine and 
 opened in the morning at six. 
 
 We turn next to the government of the workhouse, 
 as it apphes to the inmates themselves, the spirit and 
 intention of which is thus described in the Eeport of 
 1839. "The rules which we have issued are of two 
 classes. L Those which are necessary to the mainte- 
 
 Undeh no pretence whatever is the patient's head to be put 
 under water." — Glen, p. 196.
 
 1S6 THE POOR LAW. [chap. 
 
 nance of good order in any building in Avhich consider- 
 able numbers of persons of both sexes and of different 
 ages reside. 2. Those which arc necessary in order 
 that these estabhshments may not be ahnshouses but 
 workhouses in the proper meaning of the term, and may 
 produce the results which the Legislature intended.'' 
 This second clause points back to an old controversy, 
 which was at that time still unsettled. A strong dis- 
 position was evinced to modify the arrangements of the 
 houses, so as to make them in the case of the aged and 
 infirm into almshouses, against which it was urged with 
 irresistible force that the house would then no longer 
 operate as an inducement to persons to provide support 
 for themselves or their relatives in declining years. 
 Facts, however, once more are stronger than intentions, 
 and partly owing to the efficacy of the test, partly owing 
 to the giving of out-relief to the infirm and aged, the 
 workhouse is, as we have said, practically an infirmary 
 or almshouse for the worst cases of impotence and suffer- 
 ing. But its original conception still adheres to it, namely, 
 to "subject the pauper inmate to such a system of 
 labour, discipline, and restraint, as shall be sufficient to 
 outweigh in his estimation the bodily comforts which he 
 enjoys." This has been accomplished very effectually, 
 more so, it is said, in the case of the women than the 
 men; but unfortunately as a means of prevention it 
 comes too late, for by far the larger number of those 
 who enter the workhouse (unless it be avowedly only for 
 a time) have no choice but to remain there. And the 
 condition does not avail to force persons to provide for 
 themselves in old age, because they have always the 
 chance of out-relief to rely on.
 
 v.] POOR LAW ADMINISTRATION. 137 
 
 The methods by which this condition of steering be- 
 tween a jail and an almshouse, between punishment and 
 charity, is carried out, may be described under the heads 
 of classification, diet, discipline, and punishment, ie. for 
 the unruly. In respect of the first, the house (if properly 
 arranged) is divided into seven parts or wards, for as 
 many classes of inmates, viz. aged and infirm men, able- 
 bodied men, boys above seven and under fifteen, the 
 same three classes of women, and children under seven. 
 Between these there is or ought to be no communication, 
 and the Guardians are further empowered to subdivide 
 them according to their moral character or previous 
 habits. It is clear, however, that this can only apply to 
 large houses. There is a great number of extra regula- 
 tions allowing inmates to be employed for such purposes 
 as nursing in other Avards than their own ; and as the 
 result of a long controversy, aged and infirm couples are 
 not to be separated, age receiving the rather liberal 
 interpretation of above sixty. ^ And as children still 
 at the age of nurture, ie. under seven, have a right 
 to be with their mother, they may be placed in the 
 female wards, and their mothers allowed access to them 
 at all reasonable times. Above that age interviews 
 between parents and children must be granted once a 
 day. 
 
 As to food the simplest way Avill be to copy a dietary, 
 published by the Central Board, the quantities, however, 
 being only specimens and not absolutely binding : they 
 are given for men, the women being allowed in some 
 cases somewhat less. 
 
 ^ Separate apartmeuts are sometimes provided for aged couples. 
 and, it is said, very seldom claimed.
 
 138 
 
 THE POOR LAW. 
 
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 The aged and infirm have, however, special allowances 
 of tea and bread and butter, instead of porridge, for 
 breakfast and supper, with "sugar not exceeding half 
 an ounce to each pint of tea ; " and we may add, as curi- 
 ously characteristic of the cold-blooded equity that pre- 
 sides over workhouse management, that an inmate can 
 call upon the master to weigh the food provided for him 
 in his own presence and in that of two witnesses : he 
 can also complain to the Guardians of anything unsatis- 
 factory in the food, with the certainty of being attentively 
 listened to. The sick dietary is under the control of the 
 medical officer. Lastly, as most people know, Christmas 
 Day (together with public festivals) is the one day that 
 is exempt from dietary regulations, and is made an occa- 
 sion of regaling the inmates with a substantial repast. 
 
 In respect of discipline, the pauper inmate is never 
 allowed to forget that he is under orders. The clothing 
 must be such as the Guardians approve ; but it is ex-
 
 v.] POOR LAW ADMINISTRATION. 139 
 
 pressly forbidden to wear a distinguishing dress as a 
 mark of disgrace. The inmates must perform work 
 suitable to their capacity and without remuneration, but 
 privileges in the way of food are granted to persons em- 
 ployed in the work of the house, e.g. nursing. They rise 
 in the morning, are set to work, leave off work, meet 
 for meals in the common dining-room, and go to bed at 
 set hours, "notified by the ringing of a bell," and the 
 names are called over half an hour after rising. Games 
 of chance and smoking are prohibited, but the Guardians 
 are permitted and even encouraged to supply books and 
 newspapers. And, finally, there is a long code of regu- 
 lations respecting the punishment of the two classes into 
 which evildoers are divided, the disorderly and the 
 refractory. The punishment in the first case consists 
 of cutting off the food according to the discretion of 
 the master, and of solitary confinement by order of the 
 Guardians for not more than twenty-four hours in the 
 second. Wise men will note with satisfaction that the 
 use of the rod is not forbidden in the case of naughty 
 boys, though its use is guarded by several regulations as 
 to the person employing it, and the time that must elapse 
 (two hours) after the commission of the oflfence. The 
 privilege of a flogging enjoyed by children of the upper 
 classes is denied to paupers above the age of fourteen. 
 
 The power of terminating this voluntary imprison- 
 ment requires to be noticed. Any pauper can leave 
 upon giving reasonable notice, and his family must be 
 sent with him, unless there are special reasons to the 
 contrary, such as the child being at a district school or 
 in the infirmary. Persons under punishment or too ill 
 to travel may of course be detained. Orphan children
 
 140 THE POOR LAW. [chap. 
 
 under sixteen may be detained if the Guardians see good 
 ground for it, above sixteen they are for Poor Law pur- 
 poses considered to be of age. There is notliing to pre- 
 vent the mothers of illegitimate children from discharging 
 themselves and returning every few days. It is doubtful 
 whether the Guardians have power to detain a wife whose 
 husband is in the house, but they can certainly do so if 
 the husband exercises his marital authority to forbid her 
 departure. It results, therefore, that the pauper is per- 
 haps the only member of the community to whom the 
 law can afford efficient help in compelling the obedience 
 of wives. 
 
 It is not, however, by the mere recapitulation of rules 
 and arrangements that we can adequately describe the 
 manner in which English Poor Law has endeavoured to 
 carry out the principle of affording to the indigent all 
 the necessaries of life, together with equitable and reason- 
 able treatment, while at the same time stamping its con- 
 sideration for their wants with something from which 
 the natui'al man, still more the natural woman, shrinks 
 with aversion. If the paradox may be pardoned, the 
 spirit of a workhouse may be described as one of cheer- 
 less comfort. Much of this is quite inevitable upon any 
 reasonable principles of Poor Law administration ; much 
 more of it belongs to the workhouse, not because it is an 
 institution of Poor Law, but because it is an asylum for 
 a number of persons afflicted with some of the worst evils 
 to which flesh and spirit are heirs. But much is also due 
 to the fact, which ought never to be lost sight of, that 
 the workhouse has come to be something in one respect 
 very difl'erent from what its founders expected it would 
 be. To this point we are now to invite the reader's care-
 
 v.] POOR LAW ADMINISTRATION. 141 
 
 fill attention, for it may lead us to discern- the weak 
 parts of the present system and also the mode of improv- 
 ing it. Practically, every English voter is responsible for 
 the treatment of some 100,000 of his fellow-countrymen, 
 who in the extremity of their distress have thrown 
 themselves upon the care of the nation ; and Ave can 
 hardly overestimate the effects which their treatment 
 may have upon the classes from which they are mainly 
 drawn, upon the morality of the whole country, and upon 
 the conscience and spirit of the governing classes. Upon 
 such a subject full information is most desirable. 
 
 The immense scale upon which the workhouses were 
 planned and built, and the fact that each union was to 
 have its own separate house, shows — first, that they were 
 expected to contain a largo number of persons driven 
 into them by the want of employment ; secondly, that by 
 their means each union was intended to discharge all the 
 duties it owed to all classes of its own paupers. But as 
 a matter of fact (the large towns excepted) they do not 
 contain in many cases half, in some not a quarter of the 
 inmates for which they were built, so that the waste in 
 keeping up large unfilled establishments, each with an 
 expensive stafl* of officers, is very great indeed ; thus the 
 salaries and rations of officers (including, however, that 
 proportion which is spent in the administration of out- 
 relief) is considerably over a million, while the total 
 maintenance of indoor paupers is only about a million 
 and three-quarters. 
 
 Again, the absence of able-bodied workers in what is 
 called a workhouse gives a totally different character to 
 the estaljlishment. The exceptions are not the industri- 
 ous, not even the merely improvident poor, but those of
 
 142 THE POOR LAW. [chap 
 
 downright bad character, whom temporary pressure, per- 
 haps of disease, has driven witliin its walls ; the typical 
 case is that of mothers of illegitimate children. So that 
 a workhouse does not contain persons who can work, 
 but does contain those very classes whom one Avould 
 least of all select to associate with each other : both 
 sexes, extreme ages, different degrees of imbecility and 
 disease, those who are much to be pitied, and those who 
 are much to be blamed. All these are under the same 
 roof, and under the government of the same officials, who 
 may be as fit to deal Avith one class of inmates as they 
 are unfit to deal "with another. Hence there comes from 
 this aggregation of classes a something that may be de- 
 scribed as the workhouse essence : it is neither school, 
 infirmary, penitentiary, prison, place of shelter, or place 
 of work, but something that comes of all these put 
 together. Nor is it possible by any classification to pre- 
 vent contact and, it may be, moral contagion; in the 
 smaller houses classification is at all times difiicult, and 
 in no case does it hold good at meals, church, and other 
 occasions. And it may well be that the regular and 
 peaceable (afflicted) inmates endure much preventible 
 suffering from the operation of this cause. ^ 
 
 ^ The most clifBcult case is of course that of women coming into 
 the house to be confined, and women of bad character, who can 
 almost come and go as they please. It may illusti'ate at once the 
 difficulties of Poor Law administi'ation and the spirit in which they 
 are met, if we quote in connection with this subject a circular letter 
 of the Poor Law Board (Glen, p. 103). " So long as the inmates of 
 the workhouse conform themselves to the prescribed rules, the law 
 does not recognize any distinction {e.g. as to dress or diet or time 
 of rising) amongst them founded upon their antecedent conduct ; 
 and the Board cannot therefore sanction a particular treatment in 
 respect of a peculiar class of inmates, which is intended to operate
 
 v.] POOR LAW ADMINISTRATION. 143 
 
 But the really great sufierers by present arrangements 
 are the children, and they are also precisely the class of 
 paupers, the obligation to take care of whom, as being 
 guiltless of their own destitution, presses most strongly 
 upon the law and the nation. At present they are dealt 
 with under one of the four following plans : — 
 
 First, The children are in by far the larger number of 
 Unions educated by a teacher under Government insj^ec- 
 tion in the house itself — the number of children of school 
 age being in many cases very small, and the cost there- 
 fore proportionably large. Against this plan there has 
 never been wanting a strong and righteous protest. Thus, 
 in the Eeport of 1839, Mr. Tufnell, in the course of a long 
 argument against the practice, declares, "There is con- 
 siderable danger of moral contamination to the children 
 from their residence in the same house with adult paupers. 
 I am confident that architectural arrangements can never 
 secure perfect classification. Conversation is carried on 
 over walls and through windows." He then gives other 
 really dreadful illustrations, and concludes, " The atmo- 
 sphere of a workhouse that contains adult paupers is 
 tainted with vice; no one who regards the future 
 happiness of the children Avould ever wish them to be 
 educated within its precincts." 
 
 The curious reader will find in the Eeport of 1870-71 
 
 all that can be said on the other side of the question bj' 
 
 Mr. Bowyer and Mr. BroAvne, two of the inspectors. 
 
 But he will not, we think, be easily convinced that the 
 
 as a punishment for offences committed previous to their entrance 
 into the workhouse. But. . . the Guardians cannot be too careful not 
 to employ the mothers of illegitimate children in the kitchen or in 
 domestic work generally, in which the younger and more innocent 
 inmates of the house are engaged. "
 
 144 THE POOR LAW. [rnA?. 
 
 pro[)cr place for a school is a Avorkhouse, nor will ho bo 
 able to discern how it is possible not to gain both in 
 efficiency and economy by separating the schools from 
 the house. The good work which, in spite of disadvan- 
 tages, they accomplish now would surely be increased and 
 not lessened by such a change. 
 
 Secondly, This arrangement is modified in an increas- 
 ing number of cases (at present 160) by sending the 
 children to some neighbouring elementary school. This 
 is a great improvement, and does something to break the 
 unhealthy routine of workhouse life. But it is lor all 
 that a sad sight to see the children returning from school 
 — home. 
 
 Thirdly, The right and sensible plan is adopted of 
 forming district schools (at present 41) for one or more 
 large Unions, or for educating the children in a separate 
 building. This is the rule in the Metropolis, where the 
 district schools are removed into the country, and there 
 are school districts for rural Unions in Surrey and Shrop- 
 shire. Besides which there are some seventy Unions 
 (most of them in the large towns) where the return states 
 that the children are taught in a separate building. 
 
 Fourthly, Since 1870, when the Poor Law Board issued 
 a code of regulations on the subject, Guardians have been 
 allowed to board children out at the homes of labouring 
 people for a sura not to exceed 4s. weekly. As the "under- 
 takings " signed by these foster parents only amounted to 
 535 last year, it seems probable that a plan w^hich cannot 
 be defended on any sound principles of Poor Law, ^ and 
 which might lead to serious consequences as regards 
 
 ' See some remarks by Mr. Fawcett, M,P., in liis book on 
 Pauperism,
 
 v.] POOR LAW ADMINISTRATION. 145 
 
 parental responsibility, will not, owing to the cost and 
 other difficulties attending it, become very general. The 
 evidence in favour of the working of the school system 
 is strong enough to prevent ai^prehension as to its results, 
 and if removed from workhouses the schools would re- 
 semble the institutions in which so many children are 
 educated by charity. And if the kindly feelings of the 
 country were touched by the fact that the school is the 
 only home that pauper children know, it would not be 
 iifficult to give them a holiday elsewhere as a reward for 
 good conduct. It is not, however, to be supposed that 
 improvements are not both needed and also being tried. 
 At Birmingham, for instance, the new schools are divided 
 into "homes" or separate cottages, built to contain thirty 
 children each, and it is proposed to give a thorough 
 industrial training. Meanwhile there is satisfactory evi- 
 dence that even under the present indefensible system 
 of schools in workliouses the children turn out well. In 
 one case, out of seventy girls sent from the school, in ten 
 years only four were known to have turned out badly, 
 and three more to have returned to the house — this re- 
 turning to the house being a direct and much to be 
 deprecated result of the present system. This state of 
 things, the report thinks, may be taken as typical of most 
 workhouse schools, and, " though not one to be contented 
 with, far removed from entire failure" (Mr. Mozley's 
 Report for 1880). 
 
 It is seldom, we venture to think, that the conditions 
 of an important reform are so clearly laid down as are 
 those for one which is now being discussed. This may 
 be called the classification of houses instead of wards in 
 each house. The case stands thus : Setting aside the 
 
 L
 
 146 THE POOR lAW. [chap. 
 
 large towns, avIio can make their own arrangcrneuLs, there 
 are, as Ave have seen, a large number of workhouses 
 scattered about in country districts, and more or less 
 empty. To group these for, as has been proposed, each 
 county, setting one apart for each of the various classes 
 of inmates, and in all probability greatly decreasing the 
 number, would be a matter of no great practical difficulty. 
 It does not fall within our province to discuss the matter ; 
 but if provision of a separate establishment for children 
 could be made without further cost, it seems almost cul- 
 pable to delay moving in the matter. We may remark 
 that, owing to the suppression of some metropoHtan 
 Unions, some steps have been taken in this direction : 
 thus the house at Poplar was set aside for able-bodied 
 paupers of indifferent antecedents. And of course the 
 principle is estabHshed by the provision of county asylums, 
 into which cases of lunacy that cannot be managed in 
 the workhouse are remitted to the amount of some 
 38,000, as against some 16,000 who remain in the house. 
 In connection with the subject of pauper children may 
 be mentioned the present system of apprenticing, Avhich 
 shows the Poor Law at its best. In place of that old and 
 melancholy drudge, the parish apprentice, boys are now 
 sent off fairly well taught and prepared to employers who 
 are glad to have them. Every care is taken by the 
 regulations to secure proper treatment, and it is a duty 
 specially cast upon the Guardians to see to the welfare 
 of those whom they apprentice. A particularly pleasant 
 part of the system is to be found in a circular of the 
 Local Government Board, transmitting to the Guardians 
 copies of the regulations for entering the Royal Navy, 
 " their lordships having been given to understand that
 
 v.] POOR LAW ADMINISTRATION. 147 
 
 there are many boys in the Unions throughout the 
 country who may be eligible and also wish to enter the 
 service." Considering the attractions of the Royal Navy, 
 it is probable that few have been able to avail themselves 
 of the offer ; but the spirit shown in maldng it, and its 
 tendency to bridge over the gulf that divides the pauper 
 from the citizen, by enabling the boy to defend his 
 country instead of being maintained by it, is above praise. 
 There remains yet one other inmate of the workhouse, 
 or rather of the special wards commonly attached to it, 
 concerning Avhom something must be said. The regula- 
 tions as to the treatment of " casual paupers " which is 
 now the recognized title for "tramps" or "vagrants," 
 are contained in a general order not yet ten years old 
 (November 1871), and yet already, in the opinion of most 
 Poor Law administrators, becoming in urgent need of 
 alteration. Vagrants may be admitted into the casual 
 wards by order of the relieving officer, by the master of 
 a workhouse, or the superintendent of the ward; and 
 in the Metropolis admission cannot be refused if the 
 applicant is brought by a constable. The order of ad- 
 mission is available for one night only, and does not 
 take effect earlier than six in the evening in winter, and 
 eight in summer. The vagrant is searched and bathed, 
 his clothes taken from him, and, if necessary, dried or 
 disinfected. He is placed in a separate cell,^ though the 
 Central Board may as to this approve of other arrange- 
 
 ^ Young children are, of course, allowed to remain with their 
 mother, and the writer remembers, as one of the saddest conceiv- 
 able sights, a woman, whom the authorities believed to be quite 
 respectable, and two handsome children crouching by her in a 
 vagrant ward ; it seemed as if she had reached the lowest depth of 
 the misery of life.
 
 148 THE POOR LAW. [cn\p. 
 
 mcnts, and is not entitled to discharge himself before 
 11 AM. the next day, and then only if he has done the 
 task-work, — breaking stones, picking oakum, etc. etc., — 
 which has been assigned to him. In the event of his 
 having become an inmate of the same ward t-svice in one 
 month, he may be detained till 9 A.M. of the third day 
 after admission. He receives 8 oz. of bread, or 6 oz. of 
 bread and one pint of gruel or broth, for supper and 
 breakfast. 
 
 There are not two opinions about the entire inefficacy 
 of the above arrangements, and that for the plain and 
 simple reason that they sin against the fundamental 
 principle of making the relieved person's condition worse 
 than that of the self-supporting labourer. To which 
 may be added the want of that great Poor Law weapon 
 of administration called classification ; for it is impos- 
 sible to distinguish between the honest labourer tramping 
 in search of work (though surely these ought to be few) 
 and the professional vagrant. To the latter the casual 
 ward is simply an arrangement that helps him to live 
 the rest of his life as pleases him best. The number re- 
 lieved on any given day, say, for instance, January 1, 
 1881, when it was 6215, represents only a part (perhaps 
 one sixth) of a much larger hody, who pass like a melan- 
 choly theatrical army over the stage in different detach- 
 ments. The rest of his time the habitual vagrant enjoys 
 life in his own way. He has his pleasures, his liberty, his 
 money, his opportunities of committing crime, and of ex- 
 tracting money from the boimty of a misguided public, 
 whom no expostulation vail prevent from reheving what 
 appears at the moment to be genuine distress. In short, 
 the vagrant is still, as he has ever been, master of the posi-
 
 v.] POOR LAW ADMINISTRATION. 149 
 
 tion — the scandal and standing difficulty of Poor Law 
 administration. At the threat of mere punishment he 
 laughs, as well kno'wing that it would but add force to 
 his entreaty " for a piece of bread to save a poor fellow 
 from having to go to jail." 
 
 The effect of a system wliich is neither remedial nor 
 repressive, but wliich does little more than keep vagrancy 
 alive, upon the character of the vagrants themselves, may 
 be easily imagined. "The effect of this is to educate 
 and confirm the pauper in vagrant habits, to destroy his 
 self-respect, to lessen his physical powers and moral fit- 
 ness for independent labour. Neither hard fare nor im- 
 prisonment have a deterring effect upon him now, and 
 the 'I don't care,' or 'I wish I were dead,' betrays the 
 condition of mind into which he has fallen. . . . His 
 stay in the casual ward has been too short for any good 
 influence to reach him." ^ It is surely a very serious 
 matter that there should be many thousands of persons 
 in such a country as ours of whom such a description 
 should be possible. 
 
 Some of the remedies for this distressing state of 
 things that have been suggested are as follows : — The 
 " Dorset system " of repressing indiscriminate alms- 
 giving by a plan of giving bread-tickets, which has suc- 
 ceeded in that county ; putting vagrancy under the 
 control of the police ; making habitual vagrancy a penal 
 offence, which would imply the establishment of correc- 
 tional workhouses as part of a new classification of 
 houses. It is, however, probable that much more 
 information, such as could be obtained only by a coni- 
 
 ^ Paper read at the Central Conference of Gunrdinns by Mr. 
 Vallance in 1880.
 
 150 THE POOR LAW. [cum'. 
 
 mission of enquiry as to tlicir numbers, habits, and pro- 
 ceedings, Avould be required before the matter is ripe 
 for legislation.' 
 
 Part V, — Settlement. 
 
 Settlement arose, as we have seen, from the idea 
 that every parish was bound to maintain its own poor, 
 and that every person was entitled to be considered as 
 having a settlement in some one parish, to which, if he 
 became destitute, he was chargeable, and could be 
 removed to it. The Eeform of 1834, Avhile taking from 
 the separate parishes the office of administering their 
 own relief, did not take the further and obvious step 
 (liOAV illogical and undecisive is English legislation at its 
 best !) of altering the place of settlement or area of 
 chargeability, which still remained the parish. The same 
 principle of devolving upon localities the task of provid- 
 ing for whatever paupers have become legally chargeable 
 to them still obtains ; but the system has been almost 
 revolutionized by gradual changes in the area of the 
 localities, and in the modes of becoming chargeable to 
 them, which we will now proceed to point out.^ 
 
 ' It must not, however, be supposed that the community is any 
 less responsible for the existence of the vagrant than of the pauper. 
 So long as the homes of the working classes are what the State 
 allows them to be, we are not entitled to be surprised that so many 
 prefer to be homeless. At present the localities where workmen 
 MUST live are most often covered with miserable houses quite un- 
 suited for their purpose. The working people are able and willing 
 to pay a rent that would cover the full value of the land and of 
 proper habitations to be built upon it, but they cannot be expected 
 to pay the cost of destroying the houses which previous neglect has 
 allowed to accumulate. This is the duty of the State. 
 
 2 To show how strong was the old idea that the area of the
 
 v.] POOR LAW ADMINISTRATION. 151 
 
 The thin edge of the wedge was indeed introduced 
 in the Act of 1834 itself, by the formation of a common 
 fund in each Union for the payment of what are called 
 establishment charges — that is, the salaries of officers, 
 bnildiug and maintenance of the workhouse, and so on. 
 To this fund each parish contributed, not according to 
 its rateable value, but according to its expenditure in 
 poor relief. In 1846 some alteration in the law of 
 settlement in the interests of the working people, who 
 were still bound to their own parishes, was found to be 
 necessary, and a very important Act, called the Irremov- 
 able Poor Act, was passed, by which it was provided that 
 persons who had lived five years in one parish should not 
 be removed from it, but become chargeable to it so long 
 as residence was maintained. It will be observed that 
 residence does not confer a settlement in the sense tliat 
 the pauper could claim relief if ho left the parish, and 
 became chargeable elsewhere, in which case he would 
 have to fall back upon his original earlier settlement 
 by birth, or othermse. The same Act also forbade the 
 removal of widows during the first year, of children 
 under sixteen, unless their parents are removed with 
 them, and of cases of sickness when the sickness was not 
 such as to cause permanent destitution. It seems almost 
 impossible to those who are unacquainted with the 
 phenomena of English legislation that Parliament did 
 not perceive, what of course immediately happened, that 
 the burden thrown upon the parishes in which the irre- 
 
 relieving locality should be small, as contrasted with the modern 
 idea that it should be as large as possible, we may mention that 
 large old parishes, especially in the north of lingland, were broken 
 up into townships and hamlets, each with its own overseer, and 
 liability to provide for its own paupers.
 
 152 THE rOOR LAW. [cuat 
 
 movables were residing would become a source of serious 
 hardship. Next year, therefore, an Act was passed to 
 remedy this injustice by throwing the cost of such 
 irremovables upon the Union ; and so the very im- 
 portant modification of substituting union for parochial 
 chargeability came into existence almost by chance. 
 
 Once, however, that the principle was introduced, it 
 spread gradually over other parts of the Poor Law 
 system. In 1848 the relief and burial of destitute way- 
 farers was cast upon the common fund. In 18G1 
 the time of residence by which a pauper might acquire 
 the status of irremovability was diminished from five 
 years to three, and the area was extended from one 
 parish to the whole Union. At the same time, it was 
 enacted that parishes should contribute to the common 
 fund, not, as heretofore, according to their expenditure 
 in poor relief, but according to their rateable value. 
 And finally, in 1865, the substitution of union for 
 parochial chargeability was completed by enacting that 
 the cost of the whole poor relief of the Union should be 
 charged upon the common fund, while at the same 
 time settlement was almost virtually abolished for prac- 
 tical i^urposes by the provision that residence for one 
 year should make a pauper chargeable to the Union 
 Avhere he was residing. 
 
 In 1867, and again in 1870, tlie Metropolis was 
 specially dealt with. London, it must be remembered, 
 though divided for administrative purposes into as many 
 as thirty Unions, is practically one city, so that the 
 division into Unions, some at the extreme of poverty, 
 and others of wealth, operates very unfairly upon the 
 ratepayers, "who are all members of one immense com-
 
 v.] POOR LAW ADMINISTRATION. 153 
 
 munity. Accordingly steps were taken which practi- 
 cally amounted to making London one large Union for 
 certain special purposes. A common fund was created 
 by contributions from the various Unions, upon which 
 was charged the cost of district asylums for the relief of 
 the sick and insane, dispensaries, vaccination, and other 
 matters ; while, by the later Act, indoor relief to the 
 amount of 5d. per day was also charged upon the same 
 fund, thereby holding out two much needed inducements 
 — first, to extend indoor accommodation in the London 
 houses ; second, to practise economy in the giving of 
 out-relief, which was still left to be defrayed by each 
 Union. The financial eff"ect of this reform may be 
 estimated from the fact that up to 1879 Bethnal Green 
 Union had gained £200,946, and the City of London 
 had paid £44.5,720. The annual gain of the first Union 
 is now about £20,000, and the loss of the latter about 
 £60,000. The rest of the Unions gain or lose of course 
 according to their rateable value. 
 
 The whole question is, however, at this moment once 
 more re-opened. A Committee of the House of Commons 
 in 1879 exjDressed a preference for the Irish system, where 
 there is no power of removal, and reported that settle- 
 ment should be disregarded except for persons landing 
 in a destitute condition at seaport towns. They recog- 
 nized that settlement operates as a test of j)auperism, and 
 also prevents burdens being thrown upon large tovnis, 
 where persons would become chargeable who had no 
 interest or permanent residence in the district. Against 
 this they set the argument tliat settlement is wrong in 
 principle, inasmuch as it impedes the circulation of 
 labour ; that hardships from unfair removals still take
 
 154 TITE POOR LAW. [chap. 
 
 place ; that litigation would be avoided. And they 
 conclude, in words that must sound ominous to those who 
 know what legislation thought and said and did not a 
 hundred years ago, "that the question should be regarded, 
 not merely in the supposed interest of the ratepayer, 
 but with sympathy and care for the convenience and 
 material advantage of the ' poor ' " — (See Report of Local 
 Government Board for 1880, p. 43.) 
 
 But before a final step is taken it will have to be 
 seriously considered that the case of Ireland is nothing 
 to the purpose, for in that country, if there is no settle- 
 ment, so also is there no out-relief. Since indoor relief 
 is virtually guaranteed by the State to all who, accept- 
 ing the test, choose to avail themselves of it, it is of no 
 great importance, except for convenience of administra- 
 tion, where the indoor pauper is relieved, or over what 
 area he becomes chargeable. His settlement might very 
 properly be "national," and the area of chargeability 
 either a national common fund (as in the Metropolis), 
 or the county and large towns. But if the consequences 
 aj)prehended by the Committee came to pass, namely, 
 that there was an midue influx of paupers into certain 
 places, and if, following the precedents of recent legis- 
 lation, the area of chargeability for out-relief was also 
 increased because of the injustice done to these places, 
 there is good reason for apprehending a large increase in 
 outdoor pauperism and much laxness of administration 
 in a sphere where laxness is already sufficiently con- 
 spicuous. Relieving authorities will vote money freely 
 when it is not raised from their own localities, and the 
 supervision, knowledge, and investigation so essential to 
 any reasonable administration of out-relief would become
 
 v.] POOR LAW ADMINISTRATION. 155 
 
 impossible. This is but one of the many dangers, in some 
 respects, if we bear in mind our changed social, econo- 
 mical, and political condition, the growing dangers, to 
 which the existence of the Poor Law exposes the 
 nation. In view of which it is earnestly to be hoped that 
 " citizens " will study these very serious questions in all 
 their bearings, historical, moral, and industrial, for them- 
 selves. It is to help them in this duty that this hand- 
 book has been planned and written, the object being to 
 lay before the reader such facts as seemed most needed 
 to inform his mind and guide his judgment.
 
 156 
 
 THE rOOR LAW. 
 
 foil A p. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 POOR LAW STATISTICS. 
 
 No history of Poor Law would be complete that did not 
 give some statistical account of the progress of adminis- 
 tration under the new Act. Out of the enormous mass 
 of figures and calculations at our disposal, there are, 
 however, but comparatively few that are of interest to 
 the " citizen," Avho is concerned only with broad and 
 general results. We will begin with a comparative 
 statement of the cost and extent of pauperism for every 
 tenth year since 1 834. Unfortunately the last census year 
 is not yet available for our purpose, and the population 
 is therefore estimated. It must be remembered that the 
 number of paupers is the mean number between those 
 returned as receiving relief on the 1st of January and 
 1 st of July in each year, and does not therefore represent 
 the total number of recipients in each year. 
 
 - 
 
 
 
 Per 
 
 
 Per 
 
 Year. 
 
 Population. 
 
 Expenditure. 
 
 head of 
 Pop. 
 
 Paupers. 
 
 cent of 
 Pop.i 
 
 
 
 
 s. d. 
 
 
 
 1834 
 
 14,372,000 
 
 £6,317,255 
 
 8 94 
 
 
 
 1841 
 
 15,911,757 
 
 4,760,929 
 
 5 llf 
 
 1,299,048(?) 
 
 7 -SCO 
 
 1851 
 
 17,927,609 
 
 4,962,704 
 
 5 64 
 
 941,315 
 
 5-3 
 
 1861 
 
 20,066,224 
 
 5,778,943 
 
 5 9 
 
 883,921 
 
 4-4 
 
 1871 
 
 22,712,266 
 
 7,886,724 
 
 6 n^ 
 
 1,037,360 
 
 4-6 
 
 1880 
 
 25,323,000 
 
 8,015,010 
 
 6 4 
 
 808,030 
 
 3-2 
 
 1 This is calculated upon a ratlier smaller population, inasmuch as a few 
 places, e.g. the Scilly Isles, make no return of paupers.
 
 VI.] 
 
 POOR LAW STATISTICS. 
 
 157 
 
 The results of this Table, so far as they disclose both 
 an absolute and relative decrease in the number of 
 paupers, may be pronounced moderately satisfactory, 
 although the total number of paupers is still alarmingly 
 great. Nor is the satisfaction (such as it is) sensibly 
 abated by the increased expenditure, "when we remember 
 the far larger increase in the value of rateable property, 
 and also that the total amount now covers large sums 
 expended in improved methods of administration, e.g. 
 the care of lunatics, and the cost of buildings of all sorts. 
 The lo"west rate ever reached was 2.9 in 1878, which was 
 all the more remarkable, inasmuch as it was a reduction 
 from 4.7 in 1870, when laxness of administration had led 
 to very bad results. 
 
 The next Table contains the mean number of indoor, 
 outdoor, and also able-bodied paupers for each year, and 
 the actual number of lunatics and vagrants on the 1st of 
 January for the same years. The enumeration of lunatics 
 in asylums (classed as outdoor) only began in 1859, and 
 partly accounts for the increase after that year. 
 
 Tear. 
 
 Indoor. 
 
 Outdoor. 
 
 Able-bodied. 
 
 Lunatics. 
 
 Vagrants. 
 
 1841 
 1851 
 1861 
 1871 
 1880 
 
 192,106 
 114,367 
 125,866 
 156,430 
 180,817 
 
 1,109,642 
 826,948 
 758,055 
 880,930 
 627,213 
 
 163,124 
 
 145,776 
 172,460 
 115,785 
 
 14,'3'46 
 32,887 
 48,334 
 61,295 
 
 3390 
 1941 
 3735 
 5914 
 
 The first three columns display some gradual improve- 
 ment, while, what is perhaps a more hopeful sign, the 
 decrease upon the last decade shows how entirely the 
 growth of pauperism, as shown in 1871, was due to mere
 
 158 THE POOR LAW. t«HAr. 
 
 culpable carelessness of administration, and how easy it 
 is to abate the disease by proper remedies, such as dis- 
 cussion, conferences, and painstaking zeal, can suggest. 
 The increased number of indoor paupers only prac- 
 tically means that a larger number of impotent folk 
 have obtained a better mode of living than they could 
 have had if they had remained outside the house, upon 
 the supposition, that is, that they had failed from neglect 
 or incapacity to provide for themselves. The same may 
 be said more emphatically of the insane, though the 
 Table points to a growth of insanity amongst us, and also 
 to a growing inclination on the part of persons, who 
 ought to know better, to put off the care of their insane 
 relatives upon the State. And it is a serious question 
 how far subventions by the State lead to laxness of 
 administration. The increase of vagrants has been 
 alluded to before, and demands immediate attention. 
 
 A question of great interest arises as to the local dis- 
 tribution of pauperism ; but, unfortunately, the want of 
 calculations based upon the census of 1881 prevents us 
 from giving any but very general results. The next 
 Table gives the amount of indoor and outdoor pauperism, 
 together with the ratio of cost for 1880, in each of the 
 eleven Poor Law districts, on January 1, 1881, The 
 population is that of 1871, and it will be understood 
 that the superiority of the urban and less pauperized 
 districts will be further enhanced by the shifting of 
 population into those districts.
 
 VI.] 
 
 POOR LAW STATISTICS. 
 
 159 
 
 Division. 
 
 Welsh . . 
 S. -Wo.stern 
 Nortlicrn . 
 N.-]\lidlaii<l 
 S. -I\lidlaiid 
 Eastern . 
 York . . 
 AV. -Midland 
 S. -Eastern 
 N. -Western 
 Metropolis 
 
 Population. 
 
 Indoor 
 Paujiers. 
 
 1,420,21.3 
 1,879,925 
 1,365,041 
 1,406,911 
 1,443,716 
 1,218,726 
 2,444,592 
 2,721,931 
 2,164,219 
 3,388,399 
 3,252,629 
 
 6,760 
 12,567 
 
 7,782 
 8,319 
 11,739 
 9,861 
 13,806 
 22,311 
 20,944 
 28,327 
 52,810 
 
 
 
 Percentage 
 
 Outdoor. 
 
 Total. 
 
 of cost of 
 Outdoor. 
 
 61,060 
 
 67,820 
 
 84-9 
 
 75,394 
 
 87,961 
 
 78-0 
 
 34,166 
 
 41,948 
 
 70-7 
 
 37,045 
 
 45,364 
 
 700 
 
 49,312 
 
 61,051 
 
 09-5 
 
 42,674 
 
 52,535 
 
 69-4 
 
 60,395 
 
 74,261 
 
 68-3 
 
 79,855 
 
 102,166 
 
 62-5 
 
 59,193 
 
 80,137 
 
 56-7 
 
 64,090 
 
 92,417 
 
 50-6 
 
 50,871 
 
 103,681 
 
 27-9 
 
 The general result of this Table is to show that, sub 
 ject to modification from local peculiarities, e.g. of trade 
 or character, the tendency is for those Unions Avho spend 
 most in out-relief to be the most heavily burdened by 
 pauperism. But the essential imperfection of the present 
 sj'stem is most clearly revealed if we compare the results 
 which obtain in different Unions, and find, as Ave shall 
 do, that the proportion of paupers to population ranges 
 from about 14 to about 75 per 1000 {i.e. more than five 
 times as much), and also that the outdoor pauperism is 
 in one case 4 jicr 1000, and in others (at any rate in one 
 other) 71 per 1000. The Union thus honourably dis- 
 tinguished is, as all Poor Law authorities are aware, that 
 of Atcham in Shropshire (including now Shrewsbury), 
 where a long course of careful attention to the proper 
 princij)les of Poor Law administration has brought 
 pauperism down to what it might, by equal care, be 
 brought nearly all over England, — population 45,565 ; 
 indoor paupers, 42G ; outdoor, 196 ; total, 622. To this 
 we may add that there are several instances in which, l)y
 
 160 
 
 THE rOOR LAW. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 the exercise of a little trouble, outdoor pauperism has 
 been reduced 50 per cent^ in a few years without 
 causing any known or appreciable hardship. And the 
 returns disclose the most striking variations in Unions 
 that lie perhaps side by side, or are not distinguishable 
 from each other in respect of population, wealth, or 
 industrial occupation. And when we remember how 
 deeply such variations penetrate into the lives and cha- 
 racters of the working classes, and into the taxation and 
 prosperity of the district, the matter assumes a very 
 serious aspect. 
 
 The following additional items may be interesting. 
 
 The expenditure for the year 1880 was divided 
 thus : — 
 
 In Mainte- 
 nance. 
 
 Out-Relief. 
 
 Lunatic 
 
 Asylums, 
 
 etc. 
 
 Workhouse 
 
 and other 
 
 loans. 
 
 Salaries, Other 
 etc. Expenses. 
 
 £ 
 1,757,749 
 
 £ 
 2,710,778 
 
 £ 
 994,204 
 
 £ 
 319,426 
 
 £ £ I 
 
 1,053,218 1,181,511 1 
 
 i 
 
 The officers were as follows : — clerks, 624 ; medical 
 officers, 4030; masters, 651; relieving officers, 1,387. 
 Of these apparently between 100 and 200 are dismissed 
 or obliged to resign every year. 
 
 The following is a complete list of all the institutions 
 in which indoor paupers may now be maintained. Some 
 of them are, hoAvever, to be found only in the metropolis. 
 Workhouse, infirmary, lunatic asylum, fever hospital, 
 smallpox hospital, convalescent home, separate (Union) 
 school, district school, certified school, institution for 
 
 > In some Ea.st London Unions the decrease has been far greater.
 
 VI.] POOR LAW STATISTICS. 161 
 
 deaf and dumb or blind, training-ship. The number of 
 children in average attendance at the workhouse (includ- 
 ing separate) schools was 27,939 ; at the district schools, 
 7070; in the trsdnmg-shiT^ Exmouth, 214 ; — total, 35,223. 
 
 Conferences of Guardians are now held anniially in 
 many districts, and are strongly encouraged by the 
 Central Board. To them may be attributed some part 
 of the undoubted improvement that has taken place in 
 the last ten years in the administration of relief. 
 
 In bringing the epitome of the history and operations 
 of English Poor Law to a conclusion, it may be proper 
 to indicate more precisely the questions which the course 
 of our inquiry has suggested, as requiring the particular 
 and immediate attention of public opinion with a view to 
 future reforms. They are these — 
 
 L Can anything be done to reduce pauperism by 
 correcting the gross disparity between outdoor and indoor 
 relief ; it being remembered that the former (a) consti- 
 tutes a burden upon real property to the extent of be- 
 tween £3,000,000 and £4,000,000 per annum ; (b) acts as 
 a protective duty in favour of the labourer as against the 
 farmer, and in favour of the farmer (or landlord) as 
 against the ratepayer ; (c) inflicts, as all protection must 
 do, serious injury upon the labouring class, who are, in 
 the case of the agricultural labourer, kept in a state of 
 tutelage and dependence, and who are the first to sufier 
 from any interference with the natural relations of labour 
 and capital 1 
 
 II. Can anything be done to classify and arrange 
 workhouses, so as to make them more fit for diflferent 
 classes of inmates, and also save expense 1 
 
 M
 
 162 THE POOR LAW. [chap. 
 
 III. Can anything bo done to repress vagrancy and 
 self-inflicted pauperism by resorting to correctional dis- 
 cipline 1 
 
 IV. Can nothing be done to remove children from 
 pauperizing associations, even though this might lead to 
 withdrawing them from the control of unworthy parents ? 
 
 V. Can anything be done to stimulate local interest 
 and secure supervision by an improved system of muni- 
 cipal government ? 
 
 VI. Can anything be done to place the relations 
 between Poor Law and Charity upon a sounder and 
 more reasonable footing 1 
 
 In discussing these serious and interesting questions, 
 the great truth, which has come out, if possible, clearer 
 than any other, must steadily be remembered, that State 
 relief of the indigent is a necessary part of civilized social 
 life, and that they mistake the conditions of the problem 
 who regard it as a temporary episode, or as something 
 peculiar to ourselves. Pauperism may be almost in- 
 definitely modified, and the modes of giving relief are 
 capable of much improvement, but the thing itself must 
 in some shape or other ever remain : the poor we shall 
 have always with us. Perhaps the most striking con- 
 firmation of the necessity of Poor Law is to be found in 
 the words of one of the greatest of modern thinkers, 
 whose opinion is all the more valuable because the sub- 
 ject seems at first sight far removed from the range of 
 topics with which he usually occupied himself, and with 
 which his name is commonly identified: — "Men are 
 likewise overcome by liberality ; chiefly those who have 
 not wherewithal to buy the necessaries of life. But
 
 vr.] THE POOR LAW. 163 
 
 helping every one in need is far beyond the means and 
 convenience of any private person. For a private man's 
 wealth is no match for such a demand. Also a single 
 man's opportunities are too narrow for him to contract 
 friendship with all. "WTierefore, providing for the poor 
 is a duty that falls on the whole community, and haa 
 regard only to the common interest." — Spinoza.^ 
 
 * Life and Philosophy, by Frederick Pollock, page 273.
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 THE POOR LAW IN 1890. 
 
 Since the first edition of this book ten years have elapsed, 
 and it woiild seem natural to inquire what changes have 
 been made and what fresh results established. A compara- 
 tively easy task, for there is next to nothing to record. It is 
 true, indeed, that the results of the Reform of 1885 are 
 beginning slowly to be felt in the altered ways of regarding 
 the Poor Law, in some minor alterations, and in some pre- 
 posterous proposals. But on the whole we find the same 
 difficulties, faults, remedies, and statistics ; Acts of Parlia- 
 ment deal with the old subjects, which conferences year after 
 year discuss with comparatively little fi"esh information or 
 new ideas. It is well worth realizing that, for the moment, 
 the Poor Law is of all great English institutions the most 
 thoroughly stereotyped, and yet that there are not wanting 
 signs of a spirit, naturally resulting from the democratic 
 movement, which may greatly modify — perhaps for good — 
 Poor Law administration, or may equally well, if not care- 
 fully watched, end in great disaster. 
 
 Let us begin our comparison with some of the more im- 
 portant statistical returns : — 
 
 
 
 1880. 
 
 1 
 Eeport for 1889. 
 
 Expenditure .... 
 
 £8,015,010 
 
 £8,440,821 
 
 Per head of population 
 
 
 6s. 3|d. 
 
 5s. ll|d. 
 
 Paupers — Indoor 
 
 
 180,817 
 
 192,105 
 
 Outdoor 
 
 
 627,213 
 
 603,512 
 
 Total . 
 
 
 808,030 
 
 795,617 
 
 Able-bodied 
 
 
 11.'., 785 
 
 98,817 
 
 Lunatics 
 
 
 63,470 
 
 75,581 
 
 Vagrants . 
 
 
 5,914 
 
 7,058 
 
 Per cent of population (in 1000) . 
 
 31-8 
 
 27-8
 
 166 THE POOR LAW. 
 
 The different districts and counties still retain much the 
 same positions. Wales is still the worst in respect of the 
 proportion of out-relief ; the South Western in respect of the 
 total number, reaching the terrible amount of 41 "9 per 1000. 
 Dorset heads the list with 48"4 per 1000; Lancashire closes 
 it with 19"3 per 1000 ; but the real place of honour is still 
 held by Shropshire with 21 '5, or not one-half of Dorset, both 
 alike being agricultural counties. This alone would be 
 enough to prove (though proof has for long been needless) 
 that all the causes which affect the growth or decrease of 
 pauperism, e.g. bad times, high prices, are as nothing com- 
 pared with the effects of good or bad administration. As 
 surely as different localities depend for their death-rate upon 
 their sanitary administration, so surely does their pau^ierism 
 depend upon the way in which the Guardians discharge their 
 duties. Man cannot destroy pauperism any more than he 
 can destroy death ; he can if he pleases reduce both to their 
 lowest possible terms. 
 
 We shall now sum up the scanty alterations in the Poor 
 Law under the head of the six questions with which we 
 closed the last chapter. 
 
 I. The Proportion between Outdoor and Indoor Relief. — 
 Here, as the figures just given plainly show, there has been 
 ■ slight though real progress. The report says : " Another 
 noticeable and very satisfactory feature in connection with 
 the decrease in pauperism is, that whilst the ratio of outdoor 
 paupers to population was less in 1889 than in any of the 
 forty preceding years, the number of indoor paupers, as com- 
 pared with population, was also smaller in 1889 than in any 
 year since 1879." The ratio of indoor paupers has fallen 
 from 7-7 per 1000 in 1849 to 6*7 in 1889 ; but outdoor 
 paupers during the same period have fallen from 55 to 21 "l. 
 Against this must be set the increase in the number of 
 pauper lunatics, concerning whom, it may be noticed, a 
 humane Act was passed in 1886 providing for their reception 
 in hospitals, institutions, and licensed houses with a view to 
 their education and training. But no part of Poor Law 
 expenditure is less to be grudged than this, and the increase 
 in numbers, we may hope, merely indicates that resort is more 
 freely had to the superior care and treatment which the State 
 can give to these unhappy ones.
 
 APPENDIX. 167 
 
 It must, however, be confessed that the inspectors' reports 
 show little improvement and much fault in the actual ad- 
 ministration of the Poor Law by the Guardians ; and the 
 number of unions which have attained to anything like 
 satisfactory results is still very few. Moreover, the cry for 
 out-relief with all the old fallacious reasons has increased 
 rather than abated with the enfranchisement of the country 
 labourer. But we are convinced that his common sense will 
 soon reject the appeal to his good nature which it suits his 
 political leaders to address to him, when he discovers that 
 pauperism made easy is one of the most dangerous enemies 
 the cause of labour has to contend against. 
 
 II. Tlie Classification of Houses. — Under this head nothing, 
 so far as we know, has been attempted. It will obviously 
 require some change in the area of administration, and in the 
 constitution of the local authorities, to which attention will 
 be called presently. 
 
 III. Vagrancy. — In 1882 was passed the Casual Poor Act 
 with the intention of stopping the increase of vagrancy. The 
 main point was that the casual could not discharge himself 
 from the Ward till nine o'clock on the second day, instead of 
 eleven the first day, nor before he had performed the pre- 
 scribed work. If he presented himself twice at the same 
 ward within one month he could be detained until the fourth 
 day. But nothing seems of any avail. In Loudon the total 
 admissions fell at once under the new Act from 294'960 to 
 125-906, but it now stands at 241-958. The mean number 
 of vagrants relieved in England and Wales was in 1882 
 6-114; it fell in 1883 to 4-790, but rose in 1889 to 6-504. 
 The relaxation of rules as regards detention and laxity in 
 the enforcement of proper work is set down as accounting 
 for the increase. The difficulty of discrimination between 
 the honest wayfarer and the professional tramp remains as it 
 was and always has been, and the warfare of some 600 years 
 between the vagrant and society continues still to be waged 
 to the advantage of the former. The casual ward, while it 
 affords a certain sort of relief under tremendous penalties to 
 the honest man, is to the tramp only a last resource at times 
 when he can do no better for himself — which, thanks to 
 private charity, he generally can. It is, after all, only
 
 168 THE POOR LAW. 
 
 another form of the everlasting outdoor relief question, and 
 the vagrant gets the better of society only because human 
 nature, so far at any rate, cannot resist the plea of sentiment 
 when presented, not in the person of some one locally known 
 to be undeserving, but in the guise of an interesting stranger 
 with an affecting story, — which may possibly be true. It is 
 just possible that things might be improved if the casual was 
 taken out of Poor Law and put under a special department 
 of the police, but that would press terribly hard upon the 
 better class of wanderers, unless, indeed, means could be found 
 of relegating them to charity organization. The wards estab- 
 lished by religious agencies, together with the meals, meetings, 
 and addresses, are almost certainly productive of much harm. 
 
 IV. Children and pauperizing Associations. — In connection 
 with this all-important matter I put tlie qiiestion in 1880, 
 " Can nothing be done to remove children from pauperizing 
 associations, even though this might lead to withdrawing 
 them from the control of unworthy parents'?" and in 1890 I 
 have the great satisfaction of recording that this step has 
 been at last taken. The Act of 1889 provides that when 
 any child is — having been deserted — maintained by the 
 Guardians, the Guardians may resolve to assume parental 
 control over boys till the age of sixteen, and over girls till 
 eighteen, till which time the powers and rights of parents 
 vest in the Guardians. Imprisonment for offences against 
 children is counted for desertion. The " resolve " of the 
 Guardians may be rescinded voluntarily if they think fit, or 
 by a court of law at the instance of the parents, if they can 
 make out a case. The parent's liability to contribute to the 
 maintenance of his children remains as it was, even though 
 the Guardians exercise parental control. This, of course, as 
 a matter of principle, is as it should be, but it may be doubted 
 whether in actual experience it will have much effect, except 
 indeed as a deterrent. 
 
 Thus is removed from Poor Law administration a most 
 serious reproach. Previously Guardians were compelled on 
 demand to give up to the so-called care of most unworthy 
 parents children whom they had maintained and educated 
 in decency and morality. A more distressing spectacle than 
 that of young children reclaimed all at once by some villain
 
 APPENDIX. 169 
 
 who had deserted them, and wandering away by his side into 
 misery and vice, can hardly be imagined, and that it should 
 have been suffered to continue till 1889 attests the wonderful 
 slowness of English legislation in working out logical results 
 in practice. Cruelty and desertion were hardly so injurious 
 to children as reclamation when they were old enough to be 
 useful for vicious purposes. The "right divine to govern 
 wrong " has lingered with parents long after it has been taken 
 away from other classes of persons in authority, who have 
 had to be taught that after all a man may not do exactly 
 what he likes even with his own. 
 
 Thus begins a new and in every way satisfactory chapter 
 in the history of Poor Law ; and we have little doubt that it 
 is owing to measures of this kind, supplemented by others 
 outside the Poor Law, and greatly helped by the growth of 
 voluntary rescue work of young children, that the great im- 
 provement in the statistics of crime has taken place — an 
 improvement for which mere education gets far more than 
 its due credit. There remains, however, much yet to be 
 done, and we may just mention the matter of insurance of 
 3'oung children, which has some relation to Poor Law objects, 
 though, of course, not within its scope. It is provoking to 
 think that thrift should take this unlovely form, and that 
 the persistent efforts of interested speculation should draw 
 from the pockets of working people immense sums which the 
 best-directed philanthropy fails to reach. As a testimony, 
 liowever, to the superiority of voluntary and individual effort 
 over State interference it is not without its value ; still the 
 State must interfere at times on behalf of the weak, and if 
 ever there was a case, this is one in which the State might 
 say, " If, instead of providing for the life of your children, 
 you prefer to provide for their death, we will take care that 
 you shall do it through us and under strict supervision." It 
 is a bad business full of evil omen for the future. 
 
 So far for an attempt to improve the Poor Law in respect 
 of the care of children by scientific method ; now let us turn 
 to an attempt in which sentiment and not principle is the 
 ruling spirit. In the first edition, p. 144, a very guarded 
 opinion was expressed about the system of boarding out 
 children in the homes of (so-called) foster-parents, and the
 
 170 THE POOR LAW. 
 
 prediction was hazarded that it " will not, owing to the cost 
 and other difficulties attending it, become very general" 
 This very harmless prophecy aroused a current of indignation 
 which flashed into light so far away as the colony of Victoria, 
 which had just adopted in toto the boarding-out system.^ 
 This is not the place to continue the controversy thence en- 
 suing, and contained in the Reports of the Colonial Depart- 
 ment ; but, so far as our own country is concerned, I am 
 delighted to be able to say that the prophecy as to increase 
 has come true, and sincerely grieved at being obliged to add 
 that the evils predicted have come true also. 
 
 The number of boarded-out children is returned as only 
 3,996 as opposed to 53,815 receiving indoor relief, 29,694 
 being returned as the average attendance at school, yet even 
 in this limited area abuses have already taken firm root. Tlie 
 evidence for this is contained in the interesting and candid 
 report of Miss Mason, the lady appointed by the Local Govern- 
 ment Board as Inspector of boarded-out children, whose testi- 
 mony is all the more convinoing because she remains of the 
 same opinion as to the " excellence of the boarding-out system, 
 if accompanied by supervision which is both thorough and 
 adequate," — the said supervision, be it remembered, being of 
 maternal duties in the daily details of home life, scattered 
 
 ^ It may be well to reproduce from the Report of tlie Department 
 for Neglected Children in Victoria a few sentences from the letter to 
 which the Secretary's letter defending the boarding-out system was an 
 answer. It seems to me to sum up the essence of the objections that 
 may be urged against it. I wrote as follows : "The Eeport for 18S4 
 says that ' a majority of the children are probably much better cared 
 for under the boarding-out system than children of the same class by 
 their own parents.' If it were in my power I should like to commend 
 this simple sentence to the consideration of every working-class tax- 
 payer iu Victoria, and I should like to help him to the due apprecia- 
 tion of its meaning by the following illustration. Let us suppose a 
 row of twenty houses occupied by working people of the same class. 
 At one end of the scale is a very respectable childless couple, whose 
 circumstances are mxich above the average, though they live by the 
 same employment as the others. At the other end is a worthless 
 couple with a large family of children, who for one cause or another 
 become paupers. The effect of the boarding-out system practically is 
 that the remaining eighteen families pay their well-to-do neighbour 
 for bringing uyt the children of their badly-disposed neighbour at a 
 greater cost than they can atford for their own."
 
 APPENDIX. 171 
 
 about in covmtry districts. Here are a few of the results of 
 the supervision admirably "thorough and adequate" which 
 Miss Mason has exercised. 
 
 " Boarding out has become go popular a hobby, and there 
 is so much disposition to overlook unsatisfactory facts, that a 
 strong warning is necessary for the protection of children 
 (p. 157, Local Government Board Report for 1889). 
 
 " I have found some of the best and worst homes together 
 at the same time under the same Committee. This shows 
 that what is satisfactory is due to the kindness of particular 
 foster-parents, not to the selection and supervision of the 
 homes by the Committees." In plain words, the happiness 
 of children for whom the community has made itself respon- 
 sible depends upon mere chance. 
 
 " The labouring class do not trust boarding out as a 
 system. They regard it on the whole as a means of gain to 
 the foster-parents. I find jealousy in abundance, not of the 
 children, but of the foster-parents who have been lucky 
 enough to obtain the payments. 
 
 "One of the best foster-mothers said to me, 'I would 
 rather see my own child in her grave than boarded out.' 
 
 "Untruths about the children's sleeping arrangements 
 have often been told me by foster-parents who have some- 
 times deceived the Committees in this matter," and in one 
 case " I saw the woman signal to the boarded-out boy to be 
 silent." 
 
 Perhaps the most unsatisfactory feature of the whole is 
 the fact that persons recommend foster-parents out of charity 
 to them and as a means of living. One gentleman recom- 
 mended a disabled coachman and his wife, who received 32s. 
 a week (besides extras) for eight children. A clergyman 
 recommended an old schoolmistress. The " great lady of the 
 place" had insisted upon sending children to an unsatis- 
 factory home as a means of providing for her dependants. 
 
 Thus then the boarding- out system has revealed and 
 called into exercise some of the worst faults to which human 
 nature — from great ladies to poor widows — is liable. Decep- 
 tion, jealousy, greed, neglect of duty by irresponsible Com- 
 mittees, selfish good-nature, that secret unkinduess which is 
 so much more dangerous than open cruelty, in short, all the
 
 172 THE POOR LAW. 
 
 evils which have attended the history of Poor Law relief are 
 discovered by one Inspector flourishing in the case of some 
 4000 children, or rather of the percentage of them that were 
 inspected. The report almost carries one back to the days 
 of 1834. It is no answer to say, even if it were true, that a 
 considerable number of children get better treatment than 
 they would do at district schools, or for the matter of that, 
 in the ordinary homes of working people. It is the excep- 
 tions, the very numerous exceptions, of those who are sacri- 
 ficed in the lottery for the good of the others tliat constitute 
 the charge against the State that permits it. Every such 
 ill-treated child has, so to speak, good cause of action against 
 its true foster-parent, the State itself, which has delegated 
 its duties to irresponsible persons, and in trying to put 
 destitute children in a better position than the children of 
 parents who support them, has only ended in the inevitable 
 result thus described in the words of the Report (p. 160) : 
 " I do not say that the children were ill-treated or neglected 
 in all such cases. I only wish to draw attention to the 
 dangers arising from the fact that, according to my experi- 
 ence, the benefit of the children themselves is not always 
 the primary object of boarding them out, and that the great 
 majority of the foster-parents take them for the sake of 
 profit." 
 
 V. Improved Local Government. — It is at this point that the 
 direct results of the late Reform Act are beginning to be 
 felt, and great changes seen to be imminent. County councils 
 are already established, and the restoration of village 
 government, that great act of wisdom and justice, is almost 
 assured. Again a lurking suspicion is beginning to betray 
 itself as to value of government by artificial unhistoric 
 districts — that is as independent separately elected author- 
 ities. It is at least certain that government by districts has 
 never flourished anywhere out of England, and in England 
 only as a reaction from the old Poor Law, and in default of 
 government by counties and communes. And it may well 
 be that Unions are destined to go the way of Hundreds, and 
 be retained only for subsidiary purposes of administration. 
 
 Why should not each county be responsible for its own 
 Poor Relief 1 It might be necessary to except certain large
 
 APPENDIX. 173 
 
 towns, whicli, e.g. Cambridge, tliough not counties them- 
 selves, are too important and too distinct from rural Uniona 
 to be associated with them for Poor Law administration. 
 What would be gained first of all would be uniformity of 
 treatment. In Oxfordshire, for instance, there is (I have 
 not the exact figures) a disparity between precisely similar 
 Unions in the number of paupers of nearly 100 per cent. 
 Now this cannot be right, and upon the face of it must be 
 most unfair to the working people or to the ratepayer, or 
 more probably to both. Therefore there should be county 
 control to correct mere differences of administration. 
 
 Next, are there to be district councils elected by popular 
 vote, with the power of granting or withholding outdoor 
 relief 1 It is as certain as anything can be that this question 
 would dominate and vitiate all local polities ; and even those 
 who, like myself, have the greatest confidence in the common 
 sense of working people, might well distrust the effects of a 
 popular cry, "Vote for so-and-so and outdoor relief." Of 
 course ultimately this, like every other question, must be 
 decided by popular vote, but if it took its place simply 
 among a number of other questions of general county and 
 political interest, the evils likely to result from direct voting 
 upon the subject of poor relief would be much diminished. 
 It would follow from this that the Unions would continue 
 to exist only as subdivisions of the county, and would 
 be administered by committees of the county council 
 chosen from the district, but with powers delegated by the 
 county to which they would be responsible. That the active 
 administrators of Poor Law should be as far removed as 
 possible from actual contact with the voting classes, pro- 
 vided the principle of local government is steadily adhered 
 to, may be set down as almost an axiom of poor law 
 management, and the interposition of the county seems in 
 every way exactly fitted to fulfil this condition. 
 
 VI. Poor Law and Charity Organization. — Upon this 
 subject it is only possible to say that upon the whole there 
 is some progress towards the still remote ideal when Poor 
 Law shall deal with destitution as such, and charity shall 
 take in hand the improvement of the condition of the work- 
 ing poor together with such relief, either supplementing or
 
 174 THE POOR LAW. 
 
 superseding tlie Poor Law, as may Ijy arrangement be allotted 
 to it. We may, however, just allude to a notable instance 
 of confusion between the two systems which is attracting 
 attention, and may perhaps lead to useful reforms. By their 
 gratuitous outdoor relief the London hospitals are doing 
 Poor Law wox'k out of charitable resources, and by voluntary 
 agencies. Applicants for medical aid virtually plead destitu- 
 tion, are taken at their own word, and relieved without 
 further inquiry, the hospitals, in fact, reproducing for good or 
 evil the methods of the monasteries before Poor Law came 
 into existence. As might have been for certain predicted, 
 the departure from right principle leads to most unsatisfactory 
 results, recalling once more in a mitigated form the vices of 
 the old Poor Law. On the one hand medical aid is asked 
 for where it is not wanted, or where the applicant could 
 himself provide it ; on the other it is given in a superficial 
 and hasty fashion, without gratitude on the one part or 
 personal interest on the other. The subject is full of difficul- 
 ties, trivial, however, in comparison with those which Parlia- 
 ment faced and overcame in 1834. It is to be hoped that 
 the present inquiry will lead to similar good results, but we 
 fear the temper of the public mind is not what it was in 
 those golden days of scientific reform. 
 
 Upon the whole, however, we may look forward to the future 
 of Poor Law with reasonable confidence that correct principles 
 will prevail. The working people are sure to discover, as 
 other classes have done before them, that unrestricted relief is, 
 if possible, more hurtful to the interests of labour than to those 
 of capital, employers, or the community itself No doubt there 
 is much natural dissatisfaction both with the large number 
 of paupers together vsdth the tardy decrease in that number, 
 and also with the condition to which paupers are ipso facto 
 reduced ; this last temper was shown very clearly in the 
 unwise enactment that medical relief should not temporarily 
 disfranchise the person who received it. This dissatisfaction 
 is itself good, and though it may lead to many illusory 
 suggestions, yet in the long run men will discover that there 
 is no royal road, such as National Insurance or the like, to 
 the extinction of pauperism, but that it must be done, if done 
 at all, by making work and thrift preferable to the pauper's
 
 APPENDIX. 175 
 
 life, by gradual improvement in the material conditions and 
 spiritual determinations of the lowest strata of the working 
 classes, and especially by the growth of voluntary combina- 
 tions for purposes of mutual help and support. We are not 
 without hope that, as the relations between labour and capital 
 become better adjusted, and the former is set more free to 
 attend to its own internal interests, the Trades Unions will 
 find themselves more and more able to act as substitutes for 
 that other Union which has played so significant, so sad, and 
 withal so necessary a part in the history of English industry. 
 Then, and not till then, will the legitimate triumph of labour 
 be achieved, and its long warfare at last accomplished. 
 
 A disturbing influence may perhaps be found in the 
 growth of socialism, of whose future it is difl&cult to make a 
 forecast. In connection with this it may, however, be well 
 to clear the mind of one of the most foolish fallacies ever 
 set agoing, viz. that the Poor Law is itself socialistic, and 
 therefore that we need only to advance a little further in that 
 direction. Poor Law is, in fact, the exact antithesis to 
 Bocialism, or, more correctly, it acts as a safety valve expressly 
 designed to allow the forces of competition to work at full 
 pressure without danger of explosion. Socialism claims for 
 each man, qua human, a full share in the common good ; Poor 
 Law affords to man, qua destitute, a maintenance under 
 conditions lowering to his humanity and below the average 
 of his fellows : there is no abstract reason why socialism may 
 not be right if it adheres to its own methods, but socialism 
 working by Poor Law agencies or motives is a contradiction 
 in terms. Still, it must be admitted that the democracy are 
 not unlikely to be assailed at the instance of ignorant or 
 unscrupulous agitators with the temptation to remedy or 
 palliate the inequalities of life by means of indiscriminate 
 relief. Against this must be set the fact that the knowledge 
 of what Poor Law abuses have been and have wrought in the 
 past is a sti'ong specific against the recurrence of the same 
 abuses in the future. Economical relapses are after all rare 
 in the history of mankind. 
 
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