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 OUR UNEMPLOYED: 
 
 AN ATTEMPT TO POINT OUT SOME OP THE 
 
 BEST MEANS OF PROVIDING 
 OCCUPATION FOR DISTRESSED LABOURERS ; 
 
 WITH SUGGESTIONS ON A 
 
 NATIONAL SYSTEM OF LABOUR REGISTRATION; 
 
 AND OTHER MATTERS AFFECTING THE 
 
 WELL-BEING OF THE POOR. 
 
 ALSAGER HAY HILL, LL.B., 
 
 OF THE INNER TEMPLE, BARRISTER- AT-LAW : 
 AND An EX-ALMONER OF THE SOCIETY FOR THE RELIEF OF DISTRESS IN EASTERN LONDON. 
 
 "LABOEARE EST ORARE." 
 
 LONDON; 
 W. RIDGWAY, 169, PICCADILLY; 
 
 AND AT THE 
 OFFICE OF THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE PROMOTION OF SOCIAL SCIENCE, 
 
 1, ADAM STREET, ADELPHI, W.C. 
 
 Price One Shilling,
 
 LONDON : 
 PRINTED BY W. Vi. HEAD, VICTOKIA PRESS, 83i, FABRINGDON 8TKEET, B.C:
 
 PREFATORY NOTE BY THE AUTHOR. 
 
 » 
 
 It may perhaps be well to state that the present paper in its origi- 
 nal form, now much amplified, is one of a large number sent in, in 
 answer to an offer of a prize, by Mr. W. R, Lloyd, of Birmingham, 
 for the best Essay on a "Feasible Plan for the Temporary Em- 
 ployment of Operatives and Workmen in Casual Distress," and that 
 with another Essay, by Mr. John Scott, it was fortunate enough 
 to be ''highly commended" by the Council of the Association for 
 Promoting Social Science in making their award. 
 
 It appears, however, to the present author, after a careful perusal 
 of Mr. Arthur R. Arnold's Essay on the same subject, and to which 
 very properly Mr. Lloyd's prize was awarded, that the experience of 
 that gentleman and the excellent suggestions which that experience 
 has supplied him with in his paper, have more immediate relation 
 to the necessities of Lancashire in 1863-64 than those of London 
 and other large cities at the present time, and in their execution 
 might not altogether cover the extensive ground occupied by this 
 important question. 
 
 The present author's experience has been more distinctly metro- 
 politan, and the suggestions which he offers are consequently 
 mainly based on that experience. Therefore, whilst admitting in 
 every way the merit and clearness of Mr. Arnold's propositions as 
 far as they go, the author still ventures to hope, if Mr. Arnold will 
 permit him so to express himself, that the views propounded in this 
 paper may serve to some extent as a supplementary chapter to the 
 larger treatment of the subject which Mr. Arnold has already placed 
 before the public. With this view the author is emboldened to 
 offer his own scheme, and the general remarks which accompany 
 it, and as a slender contribution towards the study of a great pro. 
 blem, which is daily becoming more difficult of solution, they may 
 perhaps be acceptable to some. 
 
 A few appendices on subjects cognate to that of the Essay 
 itself are added as representative of the author's views, and for
 
 what they may be worth to thinkers and writers in the same 
 direction. 
 
 Two or three valuable letters in the Daily Press from other pens 
 have also been reprinted, with those of the author, in the appendices. 
 
 Written, necessarily, at a distance from all sources of statistical 
 and other materials of information, the present Essay is, as the 
 author too well knows, somewhat deficient in array of facts to 
 support his own views, but it is, even with these imperfections, he 
 hopes not altogether theoretical, and if the scheme it suggests be 
 not considered feasible in its entirety, it may perhaps supply some 
 sound materials towards a final settlement of the difficulties it 
 discusses. 
 
 New University Club, St. James' Street, S.W. 
 iZth November^ 1868. 
 
 <f3m 
 
 s 
 
 UWC.
 
 OUR unemployed: 
 
 AN ATTEMPT TO POINT OUT 
 
 SOME OF THE BEST MEANS OF PROVIDING EMPLOYMENT 
 FOR OPERATIVES AND WORKMEN IN CASUAL DISTRESS ; 
 
 SUGGESTIONS FOR A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF LABOUR REGI- 
 STRATION : AND A FEW APPENDICES ON COGNATE 
 SUBJECTS. 
 
 The difficulty of providing occupation for the unemployed poor, 
 especially in our great cities, forces itself more urgently upon our 
 attention year by year. Each winter brings with it the tale of un- 
 mitigated, if not increased distress among certain sections of the 
 working classes. This distress, moreover, after all reasonable allow- 
 ance has been made for the improvidence and incompetence which 
 reduce too many of our workmen to want and misery, is undoubtedly 
 in a great measure attributable to an overstocked labour market, for 
 which, hitherto, no satisfactory relief has been devised. Schemes of 
 various kinds have from time to time been put forward by zealous 
 and benevolent persons to meet the difficulty, but one and all have 
 failed to accomplish the object sought. Some of these schemes, in 
 the present state of society, have been, on the very face of them, 
 impracticable; others, again, have been of such vast dimensions and 
 so expensive in their operation, that they have been unable to secure 
 the support, either public or private, which would be necessary for a 
 fair experiment. On one side we Rave been told that wholesale 
 emigration is the sole panacea for the evils complained of ; on the 
 other side we hear colonies already complaining of the useless 
 populations transferred to their shores. From one quarter we learn 
 on high authority that the slow processes of education, working 
 down to the roots of society, are, by the extinction of vice, to eradi- 
 cate pauperism ; from another quarter, and on seemingly equal 
 authority, we learn that up to the present time this boasted education 
 has only rendered our domestic servants idle and incapable, and will 
 tend more and more to make a// wage-earners dissatisfied. Some, 
 again, turn to the reclamation of our waste lands (though hitherto 
 but few of such places have definitely been pointed to as suitable for
 
 the experiment) as the best provision for our unemployed poor, 
 whilst others inform us, with the deepest concern, that agricultural 
 profits are already so small that a bare maintenance, and often 
 scarcely that, is all that is to be expected by the best labourers on 
 the soil. In this diversity, and as will be seen, too frequent con- 
 tradiction of opinion on the premises, it is indeed difficult to see our 
 way to even a partial solution of the problem propounded. It will, 
 however, I think, be found on close examination of the true point at 
 issue, that much of the conflicting, if not erroneous, treatment recom- 
 mended in this matter has arisen, in a great measure, from a misap- 
 prehension of the disease to be cured. Now, however, in considering 
 some aspects of this misapprehension, it is not necessary to enter 
 very minutely into the difficult question whether at the present time 
 England is over-populated or not. It is sufficient for my purpose, 
 in the present paper, to admit the fact of a large and probably 
 increasing body of periodically unemployed poor existing in the 
 country. But to provide a remedy for this apparently unnatural con- 
 dition of things, it is most essential to analyse with great nicety the 
 constituent elements of this unemployed class ; and it is in forget- 
 fulness of this necessity that most of the misapprehension I allude 
 to has arisen. It is a very common error even for public men to write 
 and speak of the unemployed poor as if composed of one great 
 uniform mass, with common inclinations and common capacities, 
 and only awaiting some common field of labour to be at once con- 
 verted from an inert and obstructive host of donothings into a 
 methodical army of industrious citizens. Presuming on this fallacy, 
 many have not hesitated to point to the public works undertaken by 
 Lancashire operatives, belonging as they did to the best section of 
 our artisan life, and engaged as they were on work carried out during 
 temporary distress, with every prospect of an early resumption of 
 their old employment, as conclusive proof that a similar experiment 
 might be made with similar success in Eastern London and other 
 places where the crisis is now most urgent. I should contend, 
 however, in answer to this view, and even after a careful study of 
 Mr. Arnold's recent able paper on the subject,* that the conditions of 
 the new experiment would be essentially different, and in the main 
 unfavourable to a satisfactory result. The heterogeneous mass which 
 forms the bulk of London pauperism, and also of that stratum of the 
 labouring class which lies immediately above pauperism, and with 
 which we are more immediately concerned, is in its elements very 
 different from that large but compact body on which the Lancashire 
 experiment was made. Moreover, the probability of a return to 
 their usual occupations when better times came round again, as I 
 hinted before, takes the Lancashire labourers, in a great degree, out 
 of that category of the unemployed with which I have now chiefly 
 to do. The unemployed with whom we are concerned must be 
 
 * "Plan for the Temporary Employment of Operatives and Workmen in 
 Casual Distress, by R. Arthur Arnold, Late Government Inspector of Public 
 "Works (Manufacturing Districts) Act 1863, etc." London, i, Adam Street, 
 Adelphi, W.C.
 
 considered, at least for the purposes of this paper, and as far as 
 ordinary foresight can anticipate, in a chronic difficulty — though 
 not in actual chronic destitution ; the remedy, therefore, which 
 is suggested must be of a fairly permanent nature also. In addi- 
 tion to this fact it must not be forgotten that in the case of 
 Lancashire a large charitable fund was provided in addition to the 
 rates levied for public works, to meet the exceptional distress of 
 the time ; but in wider calculations for the relief and advancement 
 of the unemployed poor generally, we must assume no such adven- 
 titious machinery in aid. That from time to time great exceptional 
 distress will require exceptional remedies, taking the form of charity, 
 such as have of late years been under the very imperfect organisa- 
 tion of our Poor Laws, provided in Eastern London, I should not 
 attempt to deny, but in an endeavour to devise some thorough 
 scheme for meeting the chronic or frequently recurring necessities 
 of our unemployed poor, I must now leave out of consideration all 
 machinery of a purely charitable order, and confine myself as closely 
 as possible to the true politico-economical, and, as far as may be, 
 commercial bearings of the question. On these grounds, then, I can 
 admit little or no analogy between the real difficulties and their 
 remedies as presented by Lancashire in 1863, and Eastern London 
 in 1868. To return, however, to the matter from which I have thus 
 temporarily, but not without occasion, digressed, viz., a survey of 
 the unemployed class for which present necessities call upon us to 
 provide. I have described this class as a thoroughly heterogeneous 
 one, and, indeed, no existing process of social chemistry would be 
 fine enough to resolve it into all its elementary atoms. It may be 
 worth while, however, to point out a few results of the roughest 
 analysis to which this mass may be submitted, and in no way will 
 the difficulties of the problem which I have set myself to discuss be 
 more forcibly apparent. In the first place, a very large proportion 
 of the *' unemployed poor " must, under present circumstances, 
 become at various seasons temporarily distressed from the very con- 
 ditions of their life. In this first class must be ranged the whole 
 army of dock labourers and others whose employment at the best 
 of times is but casual and uncertain, and, dependent as they literally 
 are on wind and weather for their bread, their incomes must 
 always be of a slender and fluctuating nature, so that even the 
 average earnings of the year would be difficult to ascertain with 
 any degree of nicety. The wages of such men seldom rising 
 above three-and-sixpence a day, it is obvious that in the cultiva- 
 tion of thrift and an economical expenditure lies their sole security 
 against frequent want and ultimate pauperism ; and even with the 
 best management, and under the most favourable circumstances the 
 generally large families of these men are but too liable to come 
 to our poor rates for support in time of pressure. Moreover, work 
 such as they have been accustomed to cannot be created for them, 
 so as to afford a constant wage throughout the year, whilst the 
 varying necessities of the docks do not permit of the labourers 
 taking up any other employment with certainty for the space of
 
 8 
 
 many days together. Here then lies the difficulty, and, assuming 
 that the profits of wharfingers and others who employ these men 
 are not excessive, and that employers could not reasonably afford 
 a proper yearly maintenance to the same or even to a somewhat 
 smaller number of men, as I have said before, the remedy in this 
 case, if an}"-, must rest with themselves. When, however, the re- 
 sources of the men are obviously not sufficient to meet reverses, the 
 Poor Law, wisely administered, is the only assistance in aid that I 
 feel here justified in advocating. That some exemplary members 
 of this class do succeed in supporting themselves and their famihes 
 in respectability and even comfort is undeniable, but the struggle 
 is a hard one, and triumph not even to be expected of the mass. 
 No scheme that we could devise from the outside could meet the 
 whole requirements of this position ; though perhaps a careful 
 system of Registration, of which I shall have more to say hereafter, 
 might afford some alleviation of the more pressing evils of casual 
 labour. The mere existence of casual labour amongst us must and 
 always will create the difficulties which I have here intimated, and 
 therefore it will not be to this branch of workmen, though forming 
 part of the unemployed class, that attention must be more particu- 
 larly directed now. 
 
 There is again another, and that a large body of the unemployed, 
 for whom it would be equally difficult to establish any permanent 
 and efficient system of relief beyond the Poor Laws. The class I 
 now allude to is that which draws its scanty wages from the rapidly 
 dying trades which still survive in Eastern London and elsewhere ; 
 amongst which may be prominently cited that of hand-loom weaving, 
 which still engages the labour of many hundreds, if not thousands, 
 in Spitalfields and Bethnal Green. In this once flourishing trade 
 the earnings are now most pitifully small — a man toiling from early 
 morning until late at night making at the most from twelve to fourteen 
 shillings a week ; many earning considerably less. To reduce the 
 number engaged in this trade by oftering attractions in other depart- 
 ments of labour, would of course be a mighty service, but to 
 systematically employ this great body of men now eking out a 
 scanty livelihood at the loom, at hberal wages in other callings, 
 would be, in my opinion, a hopeless and impossible ambition. 
 Any measures which would tend to deter the next generation frona 
 following in the unhappy path of their fathers, would, however, be 
 most commendable, and no missionary effort could be better 
 directed than to such an end ; but that is not the object I 
 have now in view, and it was only to shew in its true colours 
 another difficult constituent of the unemployed class that I have 
 a,lluded to it at all. But before I pass on to my own sugges- 
 tions as to some of the best means of employment now to be 
 adopted, there is yet another class of the unemployed which 
 requires the fullest recognition at the hands of all who attempt a 
 practical, and not merely a theoretical, solution of our difficulty. This 
 class, which is a very large one, I can only designate by the name of 
 "the incompetent "class, and consists of the great mass of the weakly
 
 poor, as well as of the rough, idle, and uneducated fellows whom the 
 accretion of great cities, the inefificieney of our Poor Laws, and the 
 want of a thorough system of industrial training have bred up in our 
 midst. In the present condition of some parts of London, where the 
 population of a single street often exceeds that of a large village 
 in the country, and where the very elements of Christianity and 
 civilization seem to be entirely lost sight of, the reclamation of these 
 beings baffles as yet the most far-sighted of our statesmen and 
 philanthropists. As has just been hinted, the rude and wholesale 
 machinery of the Poor Law is quite insufficient to sift and classify 
 the great mass of humanity continually passing under its operation. 
 Half-results, like all half-results, of little or no value, are all that we 
 have as yet obtained from the system, and the " casual pauper " 
 seems to be as difficult and intractable a creature as modern civili- 
 zation is acquainted with. That a thorough and uniform admini- 
 stration of a good Poor Law, unincumbered by the numerous and 
 contradictory charities* which now clog its working, lies at the root 
 of all sound schemes for the gradual regeneration, if not extinction, 
 of the " casual " class, cannot, I think, be doubted, and any agita- 
 tion which will bring about better administration and more thorough 
 results should have our warmest adherence. Meanwhile, I must 
 recognize the fact that this vast body of incompetent men, from 
 whom are generated the clamorous malcontents who follow the leader- 
 ship of such men as Mr. Finlen and his brethren, must be provided 
 for in some way, and no longer be permitted to grow into such social 
 festers as certain later manifestations in Eastern Londonf might lead 
 us to apprehend as on the increase in our midst. Nevertheless, the 
 attempt to suddenly provide employment for these " incompetent," 
 would, as the very name I have adopted for them implies, be worse 
 than hopeless. The task, if it is accomplished at all, will indeed be 
 a slow and a difficult one. The recognition of this class as serai- 
 criminal, and their enforced labour under a strict but considerate 
 official supervision alone, to my mind, afford any prospect of 
 successful results. I say sejni-crimmal, as the class just treated of 
 is not synonymous with that of vagrants, also a formidable enough 
 body in their way, for which, however, the law has already made 
 stricter and, if carried out, siifficient provision already. Now, 
 whether these " incompetents " in their own country would fare 
 better in the colonies is a question difficult to answer without a 
 larger colonial experience than I am at present possessed of; but 
 I should be much afraid that the " ne'er-do-wells " of Whitechapel 
 would, in all probabihty, be the " ne'er-do-wells " of Victoria or any 
 other distant Eutopia also. And certain of our colonial authorities 
 
 * On the operation of some of these charities in the past, and their probable 
 recurrence this year, if I rightly interpi-et the signs of the season, manifested by the 
 old appeals from diverse sources of philanthropic zeal, already making them- 
 selves heard in the papers, see Appendix A. Letter from East End Incum- 
 bent, and Author's Letter to Standard, February ii, 1868. 
 
 t See Report of Proceedings of the Unemployed Poor League, weekly papers, 
 passim, as illustrative of my meaning.
 
 lO 
 
 appear already to have arrived at this unsatisfactory conclusion.* 
 That a widespread system of education of the rising generation, and 
 the improvement of our poorer dwellings will gradually conduce to the 
 diminution if not extinction of this unfortunate class, I, in my own 
 judgment, have little doubt. Meanwhile the members of it must, 
 I am afraid, be considered as the morbid, if necessary, phenomena 
 of a rapidly-grown and uneven civilization, and be treated accord- 
 ingly. Again, therefore, I repeat, that no system of simple employ- 
 ment that we could submit for consideration would, or could, meet 
 the necessities of this third large class, which I have thought it 
 necessary to allude to in reducing the really industrious unemployed 
 to their proper limits. Nevertheless, and to return to the main 
 object of this paper, admitting a large number of the unemployed 
 poor to fall within the three classes I have now roughly described, 
 viz., casual labourers — (i) proper, made so by the very nature of 
 their occupations, and whose comparative comfort rests in their own 
 hands ; (2) the representatives of decaying and underpaid trades ; 
 and (3) the incompetents, upon whose skirts hang the vagrants, or 
 " incorrigibles," as I fear they might more correctly be described, 
 there still remains a large residuum of honest, thrifty, and industrious 
 men, who, from the variation of trade, inevitable losses, and other 
 causes, too obvious to be enumerated here, are sufficiently often out 
 of employment for long periods of time, and consequently destitute 
 (for the mere suspension of employment without pressing want 
 creates, as it seems to me, no claim for outside assistance), to render 
 some well-considered scheme of classification and employment most 
 desirable and necessary. And here I would lay great and emphatic 
 stress on the principle of classification. Without some method of 
 classification, as I had occasion to point out in my passing allusions 
 to Poor Law inefficiency, nothing can be accomplished.t How this 
 classification can be best brought about, will, therefore, at once 
 demand our attention, and as an adjunct to classification of men, 
 classification of labour will necessarily follow. The knowledge of 
 the work to be obtained, and the place where it is obtainable is 
 obviously as essential as a knowledge of the men to carry it out when 
 it is found, and the capacities of those who are willing to undertake it. 
 I shall, therefore, dismiss for the present all consideration of the 
 more obvious, though indirect, and general means by which employ- 
 ment is obtained, as, for instance, improved education, increased 
 intelligence in the search for work, and superior skill in the perform- 
 ance of it, and simply confine myself to some practical suggestions 
 
 * I leave, however, the consideration of this question in its details to more 
 enthusiastic advocates of emigration than myself, and I doubt not but that many 
 of this incompetent class, if taken in time and transplanted under proper super- 
 vision, might at least grow up as inoffensive members of society elsewhere. See 
 also "Emigration" Appendix B. It may, however, be well to note, on the 
 other hand, that the success of Miss Rye's experiment with female emigrants, for 
 some time disputed, is now an acknowledged fact. See Canadian papers, passim. 
 May she continue her labour with increasing good results ! 
 
 t For a few suggestions on the classification of paupers, see Author's " Letter to 
 7»«<if," January 9, 1S60. Appendix C.
 
 31 
 
 for bringing about the classification required. I shall then submit 
 my proposals as to the best works or duties to be undertaken by 
 the now unemployed poor in the limited sense in which I have 
 accepted that term, concluding with a few general suggestions in the 
 direction of reform which the present aspects of this most important 
 subject have afforded. 
 
 For purposes of classification, then, and to afford facilities for 
 the unemployed obtaining occupation with the least possible 
 inconvenience and delay, a system of Registration seems to me 
 the most practical method to adopt in the interests both of masters 
 and men. However, to make this registration in the fullest measure 
 useful and conducive to the ends sought, it must be general, and as 
 far as possible co-extensive with the wants and operations of the 
 whole labour market throughout the kingdom. No doubt, in the 
 first instance, the formation of labour registers in London and other 
 of our great industrial centres would afford a sufiftcient field for 
 enterprise and experiment, but to make it a really complete, and, 
 so to speak, exhaustive institution, its hmits must be those of the 
 entire nation. Of the strength and time lost under existing circum- 
 stances in a profitless search for employment, all who are in any 
 way acquainted with the habits and lives of our working classes are 
 too painfully conscious. A walk of many miles day after day, with 
 no earnings at the end of it, forms the too common lot of the 
 unemployed workman, I have myself known sober and industrious 
 men weariedly repeat this process for weeks together. As far as 
 I know, the only machinery, if such it can be called, which now 
 exists for supplying information to the unemployed on the require- 
 ment of their several branches of labour, is that of the public-houses 
 of call, made use of by the various trades as the best, though a very 
 rough and often dangerous method of inquiry. Of course, the 
 penny press has also done much to facilitate the search for employ- 
 ment, and a daily reference to the advertisements (also generally 
 at public-houses), is a usual, but, in the end, very extravagant 
 means adopted by most working men for ascertaining their oppor- 
 tunities of Avork. Again, I am aware that, from the difficulties and 
 inconveniences resultant on the more general range of advertise- 
 ments of the London papers, the local journals, of which there is 
 now a numerous tribe in the metropolis and elsewhere, are beginning 
 to furnish in their register of local wants much assistance to the 
 unemployed ; but there is still wanting, in my opinion, a thorough 
 and permanent system of registration, both national and local, by 
 a reference to which the requirements of the market might be 
 more immediately guaged, and the tedious search for labour 
 materially abridged.* In forming such a system of registration as 
 appears to me necessary, I would suggest that the existing machinery 
 
 * As a minor but most useful auxiliary in providing employment for the poor, 
 the establishment of good reading-rooms may here be mentioned, and has 
 already received the attention of the Working Men's Club and Institute Union 
 (150, Strand), which I believe is daily extending its sphere of usefulness in this 
 direction.
 
 13 
 
 of the Post Office Savings Bank might, without too wide a departure 
 from its original objects, be most wisely and beneficially employed. 
 I assume that as the business of these institutions increases, separate 
 offices, unconnected, as is, in small towns, now frequently the case, 
 with ordinary shops, will be instituted in each district, and in that 
 case the addition of a Labour Register, such as I propose, to the 
 ordinary branches of the Savings and Insurance Department, would, 
 I believe, be very productive to the managers and beneficial to the 
 State. I would suggest, then, in furtherance of my idea, that at each 
 Post Office Savings Bank, or in some cases, perhaps, at each Central 
 District Office only, a register of situations vacant and also of 
 persons seeking situations should be kept, such register to be posted 
 up daily in the office for the inspection of all persons interested, 
 whether amongst masters or men. I would further suggest that 
 the various district registers, as soon as pubhshed, should be posted 
 or supplied at certain central offices, thereby admitting a larger 
 area of operation and, consequently, wider opportunities of securing 
 work to the unemployed. Perhaps a Weekly Metropolitan Register, 
 in which the wants of the various districts, compiled from the local 
 registers, would appear, might also be published by the authorities 
 at a low price and within the reach of every workman. This, 
 however, is matter of detail which it is not necessary to elaborate 
 here. Meanwhile, I offer my scheme of the Labour Registers, 
 worked, if possible, in conjunction with the Post Office to the con- 
 sideration of Mr. Gladstone (whose excellent creation the institu- 
 tions to which I desire to attach them are), or to any others who 
 may be sufficiently powerful or pubHc-spirited to take this great 
 question in hand.* 
 
 Hitherto my scheme, as now propounded, would only embrace the 
 metropolitan area — a sufficiently extensive field to commence with, 
 but I see no difficulty in stretching its operations over the country 
 at large in the following manner. For the great centres of industry, 
 such as Manchester, Birmingham, and Liverpool, the metropolitan 
 system, on a somewhat reduced scale, would be sufficient and, I 
 think, feasible ; but for the country, and especially the more 
 agricultural districts, a considerable modification would be no doubt 
 necessary. In the latter-mentioned districts I should suggest the 
 keeping of registers at the several post offices ; but in place of the 
 District Central Registers, the publication and subsequent posting up 
 of a County Register in each market-place on market days : by such 
 means the wants of the agricultural classes would be widely known 
 
 * The proven usefulness of the Post Office Savings Banks as instruments of 
 provident education is now acknowledged on all hands, and the extension which 
 I now propose will tend, in my opinion, to render them infinitely more so. 
 
 Whether the business now taken up by the countless Friendly and Benefit 
 Societies, on whose proceedings Mr. Tidd Pratt has so often thrown the light of 
 a searching scrutiny, might not also be grafted on to the insurance department of 
 the office, I only here throw out as a suggestion. Making our Poor-Law medical 
 officers responsible for the necessary certificates of health or disease would be 
 an admirable security to the State, and afford a good supplementary income to 
 an able and underpaid class of our public servants.
 
 13 
 
 and rapidly supplied — and many of the difficulties and wrongs now 
 so earnestly pointed out to us by Canon Girdlestone and others be 
 met and mastered. The weekly publication of this County Register 
 for general circulation, and to meet the wants of persons unable to 
 attend the nearest market towns, would be a further natural and 
 advisable feature of my county system ; and I would suggest that 
 such Weekly Register might be kept on sale at all the post offices 
 throughout the district, by this means bringing it within the reach 
 and under the notice of the humblest cottagers. No doubt the diffi- 
 culties resultant on the present ignorance and general low condition 
 of the country labourer, and to some extent the town workman 
 also, will be urged on me against the adoption of the plan ; but I 
 have reason to beheve that education, imperfect as it is, is now 
 sufficiently diffused to make such a machinery as I propose to 
 construct available, either through himself or the agency of a friend, 
 to almost every workman in the country. The question of expense 
 in the construction and carrying out of this registration scheme will 
 of course be presented to me on the threshold, and no doubt so 
 extensive, and in some ways complex, a new branch of the public 
 service would seem to demand a considerable and continuous 
 outlay for its support. I am, however, disposed to think that, after 
 the canvassing for, and wide diffusion of, the first few numbers were 
 completed, the demand for the printed register would be very 
 large, and as affording an admirable and most extensive vehicle 
 for advertisement to the whole employed wage-classes of the 
 country, would in a short time become thoroughly self-supporting. 
 Under any circumstances the already existing machinery of the 
 Post Office, being immediately available, though doubtless with a 
 necessity for extension, would render the experiment far less ex- 
 pensive to the nation than it otherwise would be, and I have but 
 little doubt that a fair commission on the advertisements issued 
 with the register and the official monopoly afforded to the pub- 
 lishers would be quite sufficient to induce enterprising men in each 
 district to undertake the publication on reasonable if not, indeed, 
 as I strongly believe, gratuitous terms.* The experiment of gra- 
 tuitous pubUcations used exclusively as mediums of advertising has 
 already been widely and successfully made, and I think such a one 
 as I now advocate, made, as it would be, under State sanction, 
 could hardly fail to be a triumph. In some cases a small fee might, 
 as in ordinary newspapers, be asked for the insertion of any special 
 want by masters or men, and would no doubt be readily paid. 
 The existing indifference of masters and the carelessness of men, 
 in the protection of their best interests, only too forcibly exhibited 
 in the recent experiences of the Free Labour Society, established 
 about a year since, to whose entire scheme or principles I do not by 
 this remark in any way pledge myself— are, in my opinion, the 
 
 * Whilst correcting the proofs of this passage, a paper, ^'The British Tribune,'" 
 inserting advertisements representing the wants of master or man gratuitously 
 has been placed in my hand, and is a confirmatory fact which I cannot omit to 
 avail myself of here.
 
 14 
 
 most probable and formidable obstacles in the way of immediate 
 and complete success, but I trust as the advantages of the system 
 become more apparent and felt amongst them, the assistance and 
 support both of masters and men would be more readily and 
 cordially given. 
 
 There is one other feature of my scheme which I have omitted to 
 mention, but which may be introduced here by way of suggestion 
 and without any assured certainty of its practicability — though I 
 have good reason to think it might in many places be made of 
 signal service. I refer to the institution and filing of Certificates 
 of Competence on the part of workman at the local registries, by 
 means of which the ability of the workman might, to a consider- 
 able extent, be ascertained before employment under the register 
 system which I have suggested. Without some such testamur of 
 competence the acceptance of workmen, especially when resident at 
 a distance, through the registry system might prove both difficult and 
 hazardous — but the due signature by an employer of a recognized 
 Certificate of Competence in the respective trade or employment to 
 which the workman belonged might go far to facilitate the migration 
 and ordinary engagement of labourers; it being assumed that proper 
 provision should be made whereby the forgery or transference of such 
 certificates from one person to another, for whom they were not origi- 
 nally intended, would constitute a misdemeanour at law, and so pre- 
 vent what might appear, at first sight, an easy and safe abuse of such 
 a machinery for employing workmen. As things at present exist, 
 the ignorance, and too often, I repeat, the indifference of masters 
 prevent the workman from obtaining a proper assurance of either his 
 service or ability on quitting one place and seeking another. With 
 the plan proposed, a duly accredited certificate, in the main printed 
 for convenience, with the date of its being granted, and the signa- 
 ture of employer, would, in the hands of a good workman, be the 
 best credentials he could offer, and if extended over long periods of 
 time, without break or qualification, furnish evidence of respecta- 
 biUty and character, which, in investigation for suitable relief under 
 the Poor Law, and even in many other circumstances which may arise 
 in a workman's career, would be of the utmost value. The ques- 
 tion of certificates is, as I well know, attended with many and 
 considerable difficulties, which I have not the space to discuss here; 
 but whether or no in its entirety my system of labour registration 
 would be found so practicable as I myself believe it — it is, I think, 
 worthy, at any rate, of a careful consideration by all persons who 
 have the real interests of the working classes at heart, and to such, 
 I commend it, quite conscious of its imperfections, but in the full 
 hope that it has such germs of usefulness within it, as proper cul- 
 tivation and expansion may develop into a desirable institution. 
 The many imperfect attempts which the classes most interested in 
 the matter have already made in providing for their wants and the 
 regulation of the labour market, some of which I have pointed out 
 before, indicate the real necessity of some comprehensive and 
 satisfactory scheme by which the several requirements of master
 
 IS 
 
 and man can be efficiently recognized and supplied, and in default of a 
 more complete solution to the problem my present plan is proposed. 
 That such a plan would be materially aided by the increased intel- 
 ligence of our working classes, and the consequent establishment 
 of Local Institutes, Reading Rooms, and other places where 
 the machinery of my suggested registries could be made more 
 available to all, is of course obvious ; but, in the meanwhile, a 
 system of registration, the outlines of which I have now described, 
 would go far to promote that recognition of common interests and 
 fair co-operation amongst masters and men, without which no ulti- 
 mate and satisfactory adjustment of their present inequahties and 
 ignorances can reasonably be expected.* By the thorough working 
 of such a registration as I propose, more especially if the system of 
 Certificates of Competence, alluded to before, was associated with 
 it, one great result in the direction in which I am in this paper 
 moving, would, at any rate, follow, in an ascertaining and recog- 
 nition, from time to time, and at short intervals also, of the real 
 condition and necessities of the labour market. With such tabu- 
 lated and official evidence as to the relative numbers of the employed 
 and unemployed as this registry would afford (evidence which now 
 lies, as it were, in patches, scattered over the whole mass of the 
 daily press and the various trade organs which, no doubt, in part, 
 already meet the difficulty), many of the great problems which the 
 relative advantages of Emigration and other schemes for assisting 
 the unemployed now suggest, would be materially lightened, 
 whilst a good standard guage for testing the numbers and obstruc- 
 tiveness of the great incompetent class refen-ed to earlier in this 
 paper, would be established amongst us. It is hardly necessary to 
 say that such a guage would be of vital usefulness to all social 
 reformers and economists now working at terrible disadvantage 
 amid the rudis indigestaque moles of modern statistics and returns. 
 As I before observed, to know the real constituent elements of the 
 mass we have to deal with is the first condition of success in acting 
 upon it, and in no way that I can conceive of shall we be better 
 able to separate the body of the really industrious but unemployed 
 poor from the clamorous horde of idle, dissatisfied and incompetent 
 folk who cumber our labour-market and prey on the best sympathies 
 of the benevolent, than by some such method of registration as is 
 here shadowed forth. 
 
 And now having to the best of my present power devised a means 
 for ascertaining the actual condition, necessities, and requirements of 
 the unemployed, I proceed, though with great diffidence, to the con- 
 sideration of a suitable scheme for the subsequent employment of 
 the persons so situated. It is obvious, consistently with the view 
 
 * The proceedings at the last Conference of the Social Science Association, in 
 connection with Mr. Mundella's excellent system of conciliation and arbitration, 
 point to a better state of things, and are only, I believe, the beginning of a long 
 series of triumphs in the same direction. Mr. Mundella's election to Parliament 
 since this note was written is to be looked upon as, in part, a happy fulfilment of 
 my prophecy above.
 
 l6 
 
 that I proposed to myself at the outset, that any such scheme as I 
 may suggest, must be in its nature strictly justifiable on politico- 
 economical grounds, without which condition being fulfilled no 
 social change, however apparently good at the moment, can be of 
 any value, and also, if possible, of a sufliciently permanent character 
 to meet the continuous necessities of the unemployed, and not the 
 mere emergency of the times — this latter condition rendering, as I 
 have before said, our task a far more difiicult one than was afforded 
 by the cotton famine in Lancashire, or any other labour crisis which 
 I can now recall to my recollection.* To proceed, however, with 
 the suggestions that I have to make for the more immediate assist- 
 ance of the unemployed. I have alluded elsewhere to the pro- 
 posals that have been made in some quarters for the reclamation 
 and improvement of waste and uncultivated lands in England as a 
 means of providing for the unemployed. And on this subject, 
 although doubtful myself as to the thorough practicability of the 
 schemes as yet proposed, I think, in the present uncertainty that 
 exists in the pubhc mind, a Royal Commission to inquire into the 
 extent and condition of such lands as could be made available for 
 the experirnent might be reasonably demanded from the new Parlia- 
 ment, and might moreover be attended with most valuable results. 
 The same commission would naturally inquire into the willingness 
 or otherwise of the several proprietors throughout the country to 
 meet such schemes of reclamation in a liberal spirit, and also as to 
 the probable profits from the cultivation of such lands under the 
 most favourable conditions which could be obtained for the ex- 
 periment. Upon the report of such a commission, and taking into 
 consideration the present condition of the unemployed poor 
 throughout the country, an Act might be framed giving to a body 
 of commissioners the necessary power to enrol labourers, and 
 organize operations throughout the country, and providing at the 
 same time for fair and reasonable arrangements with landlords, 
 with such compensation to the owners, or remuneration to con- 
 tractors appointed by the commissioners as circumstances might 
 entitle them to. A scheme of " Home-colonization " has lately 
 been put forward by the Unemployed Poor League, to which body 
 I have called attention elsewhere, and appears to have met with 
 the approval of some aspirant M.P.s, but till the plan has taken a 
 more definite shape than the deliberations at Hoxton have as yet 
 given to us, it would be premature to discuss its practicability. 
 
 * From a consideration of this aspect of the question I am induced again to 
 repeat my opinion, expressed before, that the plan detailed in Mr. Arnold's 
 pamphlet, though possibly sufficient for the wants of Lancashire in 1863, is not 
 comprehensive enough for the wants of the whole country, and especially of our 
 cities, even with the extensions so carefully elaborated in his paper. 
 
 Within the last few days Mr. Moule, whose name in connexion with the 
 Dry-Earth System of Sewerage occurs later on in this paper, has again put 
 forward a scheme for " Boarding Schools " for sons of labouring men. His idea 
 of combining plain instruction with the finer cultivation of lands now given up 
 to general farming makes his plan well worthy of consideration in this connexion. 
 See his letter, with scheme appended, Times, Nov. 21, 1868.
 
 17 
 
 See, however, Daily News, November 12 and 13, and Beehive, 
 November 14, 1868. Hitherto the profits resultant from reclaimed 
 lands and the conditions under which such reclamation can be 
 best carried out, have been but very indistinctly ascertained, and 
 any accurate information on these points would be of the highest 
 possible value. Under the simple plan which I have here proposed, 
 the merits of the scheme, so long talked of as a panacea, would at 
 least be fairly investigated, and impartially represented after such 
 investigation had taken place. As far as I can learn up to the 
 present time, attempts to reclaim large districts, such as Exmoor 
 and other places, formerly abandoned to the roughest pasturage, 
 have not been attended with that success which the more enthu- 
 siastic apostles of reclamation would lead us to anticipate; but it is 
 possible there may be other districts which could be worked with 
 more reasonable hopes of public profit, and to such districts the 
 labours of a Royal Commission would be more immediately directed. 
 The experiences of Dartmoor, portions of which in the neighbour- 
 hood of the prisons are now cultivated by convict labour, and which 
 I have had opportunities of observing myself, are not, I think, to be 
 quoted as fair illustrations of what would probably be accomplished 
 by such a system of registered labour as might result from the 
 recommendations of such a commission as is here suggested. The 
 exceptional conditions under which the Dartmoor Farm is culti- 
 vated and the great expense at which the certainly remarkable 
 results thus exhibited have been attained, take it altogether out of 
 comparison with the experiments which I am for the moment 
 presuming to result from a general reclamation of the waste lands 
 of the country. 
 
 The commission which I suggest would, however, by the creation 
 of a Central Board and the elaboration of appropriate district 
 machinery, suitable to the wants of the several places falling under 
 its operations, be enabled to conduct the experiment with the best 
 possible chances of success, and from the consciousness of this fact 
 I think tiie speedy constitution of such a commission on many 
 grounds most desirable. At the same time it is not to the reclama- 
 tion of waste lands in the country that I myself now look as the 
 most valuable or immediately practicable field for the assistance of 
 our unemployed, but to other and more recently created depart- 
 ments of labour, to which I shall now direct my attention. Any 
 complete or perfect elaboration of the scheme I have here to suggest 
 would, however, be impossible within the limits of this paper. It will 
 be sufficient to sketch the outlines, and indicate as far as I can the 
 manner in which they may hereafter be filled up. I would propose 
 then, that as far as possible all public works carried out under statutory 
 provisions, and, as will in future be the case, under statutory av?!fiiil- 
 sion, should be executed to the fullest practicable measure, under 
 such a system of registered labour as I have in the earlier part of 
 this paper propounded. The class of works to which I now allude 
 will be best represented by such as will naturally, and I trust 
 extensively, arise out of the provisions of the recent ^'- Artizaiis and 
 Labourers Dwellings' Act," 1868, the due execution of which, as I 
 
 c
 
 i8 
 
 shall point out immediately, being in a great measure dependent on 
 
 the public spirit and benevolent energies of the district in which 
 the Act operates.* It will be remembered that under Mr. Torrens' 
 Act just referred to, provision is made for improving or pulling down 
 places occupied by working men and their families, which in the 
 Preamble of the Act are described as " unfit for human habitation." 
 Premises faUing under the description contemplated by the Act can 
 now be represented by four or more householders in the neighbour- 
 hood (Sect. 12), as suitable for treatment in the manner provided 
 by the Statute, and the Local Officers of Health are to report on 
 such premises, and when so required the owners are to improve the 
 dwellings or to demolish the same (Sect. 20). In the event of the 
 Local Officer not certifying according to the representations of the 
 householders, provision is made for an appeal to higher authority, 
 under whose order, if it be deemed expedient, the improvement or 
 demolition will still take placet Where expenses are incurred a 
 charge is to be given on the property in the shape of a mortgage, and 
 an annual sum by way of payment for work enforced. Where, 
 however, a local authority executes the works, money may be 
 borrowed of the Public Loan Commissioners and others, and " a 
 charging order " made on the property. 
 
 The above are the principal provisions of the Act in the direction 
 which I desire to follow it out now, and I have, therefore, not 
 thought it necessary to set out in detail the minuter provisions that 
 may at once be found on reference to the Statute itself. The 
 assertion of the principle of compulsory improvement, and an 
 outline of the manner in which it seems to me it may be best 
 applied, are all that the compass of this paper admit of now. The 
 principle of compulsory improvement or demolition, even against 
 the wishes of the landlord, being admitted, it remains to be seen 
 how the extra labour created by the operation of this principle can 
 be most economically and expeditiously supplied. I am of opinion, 
 then, that for such works as these compulsory clauses institute, 
 it may reasonably be contended that the cheapest efficient labour 
 should be provided ; and I can see no ground for objecting to the 
 use and absorption on these works, of that class of the unemployed 
 with which only, as I have before defined them, this paper is con- 
 cerned. With thoroughly competent workmen employed through- 
 out the undertaking, is is obvious that the market would speedily 
 adjust itself, but in the earlier stages of the experiment I contemplate 
 
 * The despondent tone adopted by Dr. Rumsey and other high authorities at 
 the recent Social Science Congress at Birmingham, as to the operation of this 
 Act, augurs ill for its success ; but under the system of voluntary organization 
 advocated in this paper, and not hinted at at the Congress, its prospects may be 
 better. 
 
 t How little this excellent provision has as yet been sufficient to bring about the 
 desired ends, is painfully demonstrated by certain letters in recent numbers of the 
 Daily Xcivs, emanating from a "District Visitor" in St. Marj'-the-less, Lambeth, 
 and the action of the Islington Vestry, on Dr. Ballard's representation in the 
 latter locality, leads us to fear that a really disinterested organization for can-ying 
 out the " Artizans and Labourers Dwellings' Act " will alone meet the prejudices 
 and difficulties which surround the case. See Daily Xcii-'s, Oct. 3d, also Lancet, 
 l-4th, 1868.
 
 19 
 
 there would no doubt be a large number of somewhat inexperi- 
 enced hands to whom inferior work alone could be entrusted, 
 and for whose labour the wages would naturally be small. The 
 proper distribution and accommodation of the unemployed class 
 would no doubt be matters requiring great judgment and discrimi- 
 nation on the part of the contractors or overseers engaged in the 
 works, but by means of the registration before proposed, these 
 processes would be much facilitated. Moreover, the very nature 
 of the works under Mr. Torrens' Act, involving, as they often 
 would, demolition and removal of materials, would afford for a time 
 at least ample employment to the most unskilled of labourers, 
 and it is on this ground especially that I think the scheme I now 
 propose more feasible in its development than many hitherto 
 submitted to public consideration.* The difficulty of finding 
 employment for that great body of our working population whom I 
 have elsewhere, speaking comparatively, of course, ventured to 
 describe as " incompetents," has hitherto proved the great obstacle 
 in the way of solving the problem, and the supererogatory and un- 
 profitable labour of many of our workhouses has long been matter 
 of comment and scorn with all real reformers. Under such a 
 system as Mr. Torrens' Act inaugurates, the ignominious tasks of 
 carrying stone or gravel from side to side of the workhouse yard, 
 and all similar non-productive occupation of our poor should be 
 for ever abolished. In their place work profitable alike to the men 
 employed and the community which employs them would be at 
 once provided. The inability to find employment would no longer 
 be the idle excuse of an idle mind, or, if persisted in, would at once 
 sink the alleged sufferer into that semi-criminal stratum of the 
 unemployed to which I have called attention before, and for which 
 a proper and wholesome severity of treatment ought to be at once 
 provided by our Poor Law Authorities. 
 
 It will not, I think, be contended by any, even of the most 
 Eutopian temperament, that there is not in London and elsewhere f 
 in our large cities at the present time, ample scope for the imme- 
 diate and, as far as we can foresee, continuous operation of Mr. 
 Torrens' and similar Acts for a long time to come. Every officer 
 of health, and hundreds of volunteer workers in the same direction, 
 are agreed upon this point, if on no other. In the interests of health, 
 morality, and Christianity itself, something must be done, and that 
 something speedily, if we desire to turn back the tide of;}: increasing 
 pauperism which has already so steadily set in, and which all our 
 
 * The rapidity with which even labourers unused to such work may, by good 
 industrial training, be converted into competent workmen, assuming that no moral 
 deficiency exists in the men (for it is witli moral deficiencies rather than technical 
 that our chief difficulty lies ; a fact, I think, not sui^ciently recognised by Mr. 
 Arnold) is admirably illustrated from experience in Mr. Arnold's essay, referred 
 to before. See pages 9 & 14. 
 
 t See Mr. Godwin's remarks on Birmingham, at recent Social Science Con- 
 gress, in support of this ; also provincial papers, passim. 
 
 X In support of an often-contested but indubitable fact, the increase of 
 pauperism, see Statistics on " Poor Rates and Pauperism," Standard, February, 
 1868. 
 
 C 2
 
 20 
 
 local machinery has hitherto failed to control or check. It remains, 
 therefore, admitting the evil, to apply at once the remedies pro- 
 vided by the Act. And here at once we are furnished with a fulcrum 
 which hitherto the mere action of the official mind, as working 
 through Local Officers of Health and others has failed to establish. 
 The representation of the four householders is naturally the fulcrum 
 I refer to. Under Mr. Torrens' Act, the manifestation of public 
 opinion even in detached bodies, and under the easiest conditions 
 of union, will be sufficient, if organised, to bring about the reform 
 desired. Moreover, the public opinion from which this Act will 
 acquire its motive force, is that of thej* class most intimately and 
 immediately interested in the statute's full and proper operation. 
 How, therefore, to organize and economize this Public Opinion to 
 the best interest of the State is the question which now most presses 
 on us for solution, and though well aware of the difficulties which 
 will necessarily arise in the destitute and populous districts where 
 the Act should have freest course, I do not see that such difficulties 
 are in any way insuperable. Even in the most neglected quarters 
 of the metropolis a small educated section represented by the clergy 
 of all denominations and others interested in the condition of the 
 poor, will always be found to exist, and from them the nucleus of 
 the reforming bodies, such as I desire to see estabhshed, must be 
 at first composed. Hitherto, such persons have had no stronger 
 forces at their command than good wishes and too often unrealised 
 hopes. Now they have a quasi-official power to point out the 
 disease and demand its cure. That the clergy and their co-operators 
 would be better employed in such organization than on the multi- 
 form machinery of petty clerical charities in shape of Penny Banks, 
 etc., which now too often occupy their attention, is, to my mind, 
 obvious enough. But it will be a difficult task to teach them the 
 lesson. We are told that " Cleanliness is next to Godliness," but 
 in the regeneration of a poor district I am disposed to think that 
 a clean house must precede a godly household. In the coming 
 winter let our zealous and devoted East-end workers look to this 
 matter, t 
 
 To make, however, such a power as I have indicated as ex- 
 tensively useful as possible, I would suggest in every parish or 
 union, as convenience suggests, the formation of Local Improve- 
 ment Committees, with the avowed object of carrying out in 
 their entirety the compulsory provisions of any statute which 
 Parliament may create for the iDenefit of those who have as yet 
 neither the time nor energy to put them in force for themselves. By 
 these committees all possible inquiry and suggestion in the direction 
 
 * See again, per contra, Dr. Rumsey's address before referred to. 
 
 t Finding temporary accommodation for the poor, dislodged under the provi- 
 sions of Mr. Torrens' Act, or the constant demolitions necessitated by railways, 
 etc., is a difficulty often suggested and hard to meet. An old sailor suggests to 
 me that certain sailing ships in the Naval Reserve might be more profitably used 
 for lodging the dispossessed poor, under proper industrial arrangements, than, as 
 now, laying useless, if not rotting, at their moorings. Let our authorities consider 
 this, and tow some of these vessels into the Thames at once.
 
 21 
 
 of the required reform should be aroused and solicited, and if once 
 the home interest of the informant as a labourer or workman 
 was added to his common interest as a citizen and a Christian (now 
 a difficult enough interest to develope in these classes, as all good 
 men know) there would, I think, for a long time to come, be no 
 lack of useful labours on which such committees should exer- 
 cise themselves, and no lack of men to carry out the works 
 which they might promote. I would suggest further that the 
 area of operation for such committees should as far as pos- 
 sible be made coterminous with that of the Local Poor Law 
 District. With respect to the constitution of these committees, 
 there are various persons acting in the districts I now refer to, 
 who would, I rejoice to think, willingly serve on them, and amongst 
 such I may mention generally the Almoners of the Society for the 
 Relief of Distress, the Deaconesses' Scripture Readers, and possibly 
 the Relieving Officers, as ex-officio members, with others whose oppor- 
 tunities of observation and interest in the works to be enforced 
 would prove of infinite value in the deliberations and action of such 
 bodies. 
 
 The more immediate action of such committees would be, of 
 course, to quicken the interest and urge on the representation of 
 the householders, into whose hands the new power primarily falls, 
 whilst added to this would naturally, under the plan as here set forth, 
 be a regular attention to the registration of labour and the due 
 application of it with advantage to the works in hand. In extension 
 of this idea I hope the time is not far distant when there will be 
 in every district, also having an area co extensive with the Poor Law 
 Districts, regularly constituted Charities' Committees, created on 
 somewhat similar bases, and containing all the representatives of 
 benevolent action throughout the district, such committees meet- 
 ing regularly and acting as far as possible in co-operation and 
 harmony with the Poor Law authorities. By some such means 
 alone will the present reckless waste of alms, and consequent 
 demoralizing and degradation of our poor in distressed districts be 
 stayed, and the really deserving of our industrious poor properly 
 relieved. This matter, however, does not fall directly within the 
 limits of my subject now, and I must be content with the hint 
 here thrown out of a much-needed piece of local machinery. It 
 may be objected to me that the duties of such Boards would be 
 too heavy to be long sustained by such volunteer officers as my 
 scheme would create ; but it is not to be forgotten that the Public 
 Officers of Health will be primarily responsible as heretofore for 
 the proper performance of the Act (see Sect. 12), and the con- 
 tinuous tacit supervision and control, Avhich such a committee 
 would exercise on the proper discharge of these officers' duties, 
 would be one of the most useful, if less laborious, functions of 
 these Boards. I contemplate considerations of ultimate economy 
 would also, in my view of the case, go far to support the estab- 
 lishment and maintenance of these Local Improvement Committees. 
 Improved dwellings and increased accommodation for the working 
 poor, such as this Act provides, imply reduced poor-rates, fewer
 
 22 
 
 gaols, and a diminishing police. On these aspects of the sub- 
 ject it is unnecessary to enlarge. They are sufficiently obvious 
 to all. That such committees would have no strictly and 
 recognized official character I am well aware, but the same 
 may be said of all the voluntary associations which have 
 hitherto directed their attention to other of our social ills, and 
 in their time alleviated or removed them. Our military volun- 
 teer system is, on a large scale, an illustration of what may be 
 accomplished by unpaid workers, and in a minor degree the 
 countless charities which surround us on every side (especially at 
 their commencement, when the real action of committees is allowed 
 its freer scope), support the reasonable expectations of success for 
 the system I advocate. In proposing, however, these Local Im- 
 provement Committees, I should suggest that with reference to the 
 employment of labour, their action should be at least metropolitan 
 if not general, though a natural priority of claim for employment 
 might possibly be urged in behalf of those whose names might be 
 on the Local Register, assuming such to exist, but the admission of 
 any claim for work, would of course be conditional on the industrial 
 competence of the applicant. I may add that all works executed 
 under the provisions of Mr. Torrens' or similar Acts, would, I assume, 
 be entrusted to the ordinary contractors and builders whom the 
 local authorities might select, the undertaking of contracts by non- 
 official bodies (such as the Local Improvement Committees I 
 suggest) would of course be impossible. No interference therefore 
 with the ordinary labour-market would be brought about by the 
 adoption of my suggestions. The additional works brought into 
 execution and the consequent additional demand for labourers 
 created by such works would, however, obviously meet in many 
 ways the wants of the unemployed, and with that aspect of the 
 question, we are alone concerned. That a partial adaptation of the 
 Local Registries in the supply of the necessary labourers, would be 
 all that could be fairly anticipated is plain enough, for it is obvious 
 that the want of employment might often arise in districts where 
 works under compulsory clauses might not be required, and for this 
 want the remedy of work afforded by such public undertakings, 
 would of course be applied from any other quarter in which it then 
 happened to be procurable. For such interchange and adjustment 
 of labour, the registration system would again become available, 
 whilst the variety of employments which such public works, as the 
 Act now in consideration creates, would clearly necessitate the 
 tabulation which a registry supplies. 
 
 That the wages of labour in some of its departments might be 
 reduced by the operation of such committees, I am not prepared to 
 deny, as a temporary possibility, but it must be remembered we are 
 now only concerned with the industrious unemployed, offering no 
 premium to incompetence, but simply replacing in the market such 
 labourers as the circumstances of the age and country have tem- 
 porarily thrown out of it, and to such men any fair remuneration for 
 their labour, even if not up to the highest level of their former
 
 ^3 
 
 earnings, would be acceptable, as the only available escape from 
 pauperism. Such a plan as I have proposed, in my ojjinion, in no 
 way interferes with the proper action of true political-economical 
 laws, and upon that ground, quite as much as upon what seems to 
 me its more purely economical advantages, I have here ventured to 
 recommend it. 
 
 That the works created under these Acts would in course of 
 years come to an end, is clear, but the period of their operation 
 would, as it now appears to me, be quite sufficient to allow of many 
 of the evils resultant on the growing masses of the unemployed, 
 being palpably diminished, and also to admit of the leavening 
 processes of education* sufficiently extending themselves to remove 
 by their influence all pressing necessity for such or similar measures 
 in the future. The advantages resultant from the mere industrial 
 training afforded by these undertakings I have spoken of, with Mr. 
 Arnold's experience, as my authority, elsewhere, and I need, there- 
 fore, only refer to them here. The arousing of local attention to 
 the present necessities of the case, and the removal of that apathy 
 which has so long characterized the class in whose interest im- 
 provements are most needed are the two primary conditions of 
 success in the experiment proposed, and for this purpose the 
 voluntary organization of Local Committees and the prospects of 
 employment and independence to the poor concerned, form the 
 most reasonable and natural securities. These securities, there- 
 fore, I have, by the plan propounded above, attempted to establish. 
 As, however, it may reasonably be contended that the fullest 
 operation of the " Labourers and Artizans Dwellings' Bill," and 
 other similar Acts, will only afford employment, at the best, to a 
 certain class of the distressed poor, such as bricklayers and similar 
 orders of workmen, it remains for me to consider in what way the 
 residuum of the industrious but unoccupied class with whom we 
 have to do can be best provided for. That the natural and steady 
 development of private enterprise should under ordinary circum- 
 stances be sufficient to meet all the necessities of the labour-market 
 I readily admit, and in the cultivation of such a spirit amongst our 
 great landowners and capitalists lies the chief remedy for the 
 evils we complain of. At the same time, all schemes for public 
 improvement and local or municipal reform cannot be too care- 
 fully studied and propounded at the present time by all persons 
 who, without themselves possessing the necessary means for their 
 accomplishment, have, nevertheless, the leisure to devise, and 
 perhaps also the opportunity of promoting them. And with this 
 belief I here venture to add a few more general suggestions for 
 effectually, as I think, promoting the employment of workmen in 
 casual distress. They are but scanty suggestions, but if they do 
 nothing else they may at least open out to the consideration of 
 reformers fields of labour which more careful study may extend. I 
 
 * For suggestions for a system of popular education in crowded and exceptional 
 districts, see Appendix D. — "Compulsory Education," and "Plan of 'Street 
 Schools' for East London." Letters of " E. W. H." and Author in Z>aify Nttt's,
 
 24 
 
 remarked at the outset, that the very existence of the casual-labourer 
 class is a great social difficulty in itself, and with the constant 
 liability to be called away at any moment to his most usual form of 
 employment, the supply of any extra-casual labour to the intermittent 
 workman, if I may for the moment make use of such a term, is 
 rendered greatly more embarrassing. I hope, however, the time 
 may arrive when, by emigration* and other social safety-valves, 
 the population and labour in this country may be sufficiently well 
 balanced to bring about the great reduction, if not entire, extinc- 
 tion of the purely " casual " class, leaving, then, the idle no excuse 
 for his idleness, and the improvident destitute no ground for com- 
 plaint. Meanwhile we must be content to devise the best pallia- 
 tives which present circumstances admit of, and amongst these I 
 now recommend the following which occur to myself as practi- 
 cable and easy of immediate adoption. 
 
 In the first place, then, and in view of the increasing f vagrancy 
 which Poor Law Reports too clearly establish, 1 Avould advise the 
 earliest possible construction, by the unemployed of Uniform 
 Casual Wards throughout the length and breadth of the country — 
 at present, the want of uniformity in these institutions, where they 
 exist at all, has a direct tendency to multiply vagrants and increase 
 imposture. In my opinion, therefore, the construction of such 
 places in all our Poor Law Districts would be a public boon of 
 infinite value, and it is needless to point out the amount of labour, 
 much of it of an unskilled order, which such an undertaking w^ould 
 involve. The collecting and carriage of materials for their work 
 would alone aftbrd occupation to a large section of the now unem- 
 ployed poor, whilst the mere industrial training under properly 
 constituted labour-masters, as before pointed out, would supply to 
 many an education Avhich they would never otherwise obtain. The 
 desirability of such an addition to our Poor Law machinery has 
 already been suggested and recommended by the authorities them- 
 selves, I am therefore here proposing no revolutionaiy scheme, and, 
 furthermore, believe, on economical grounds, that the immediate 
 expenditure, whether through national or local rating, which is 
 involved in the process, would be amply repaid, both to the nation 
 and individuals, before many years had elapsed from its trial. In 
 furtherance of this subsidiary scheme for the employment of our 
 casual poor, I would again urge the necessity and economy of the 
 registration system, elsewhere developed in this paper, as being 
 
 * The necessity for some recognised and reliable source of information on the 
 subject of emigration is daily more and more felt amongst us. What assistance 
 the Government Emigration Office, having its establishment in Park Street, 
 Westminster, may afford, I cannot clearly ascertain, but the present desultory 
 and disconnected appliances for informing emigrants which lie about us on every 
 side, are sorely in need of improvement and amalgamation, and before long I 
 trust the whole subject may be made matter of serious Imperial consideration. 
 For a few suggestions on the subject oi Emigration from Eastern London, see 
 Appendix B. 
 
 t In support of this fact see the daily papers passim, and on the " Spread of 
 Vagrancy in Scotland." Pall Mall Gawttc, March 28, 1868.
 
 essential to its complete success. Its adaptation here is sufficiently 
 intelligible without further explanations on my part. 
 
 Since writing the above paragraphs I have been led to understand 
 that a national memorial to the late Lord Brougham is contem- 
 plated by some wlio have the best means of seeing so good an idea 
 well carried out. If this be so, how could the life and labours of 
 that great man be better commemorated than by the united energies 
 and toil of the unemployed classes of this country? Such an 
 occupation for the distressed poor of our great city would commend 
 itself to all, and be better than all the thousands of pounds now 
 squandered in almsgiving by a zealous but misguided philanthropy. 
 A Central Workmen's Hall and Free Library, open to all, and 
 endowed for ever, would, perhaps, be the best form such a monu- 
 ment could assume — but this is matter for others to determine. 
 Meanwhile, I am contented to have made the general suggestion 
 in this place. 
 
 II. Another and that also a very extensive field of labour might 
 be opened to the unemployed in the direction of our Municipal and 
 National Drainage and Sewerage Works. Hitherto the system of 
 sewerage adopted in most of our large towns and elsewhere has been 
 generally confessed to be wasteful and extravagant in the extreme, 
 and the amount of valuable manure thus lost to the agricultural por- 
 tion of the community is everywhere confessed.* The recent adapta- 
 tion or invention of the so-called " Dry Earth System " by Mr. 
 Moule, and its extensive and most successful application in India 
 and elsewhere, seems to point out alike a remedy for this extrava- 
 gance, and a wide sphere of occupation for the most unskilled 
 members of the unemployed class. 
 
 Assuming, then, the general adoption of Mr. Moule's system in 
 London and elsewhere, the necessary collection of earth, and the 
 constant supply and removal of the same in carrying it out, would 
 obviously at once furnish remunerative occupation to thousands of 
 our Metropolitan and City poor, whilst in addition to the more 
 immediately created staff for the supply and removal of the earth, 
 the machinery and further staff which the enormous manure works 
 resultant would involve, might again provide an extensive and pro- 
 fitable industry for other sections of the same class. That the 
 manure manufactured under Mr. Moule's system is already a valuable 
 marketable commodity is, I believe, admitted, and when once the 
 prejudices of long continued habit have given place to a recognition 
 of the real interests which the adoption of the new method will 
 
 * By a strange coincidence Mr. Bailey Denton, in a recent number of the Daily 
 Neivs (September i8), printed after the writing of this paper, has most strongly 
 advocated the adoption of the earth- closet system, as a means of improving the 
 condition and increasing the resources of our agricultural labourers. He further 
 suggests in the same place, the appointment of public scavengers for carrying out 
 the system — a form of employment precisely similar to that recommended in this 
 paper, and obviously capable of affording occupation to a large body of persons. 
 I therefore thank Mr. Bailey for the confirmatory evidence which his experience 
 affords in support of my own views. See also article on " Earth Conservancy at 
 Dover Castle " in Lancet^ October 31, 1868.
 
 promote, I have little reason to doubt that the thorough elabora- 
 tion and extension of the process indicated would lead to the most 
 profitable results. I may add that all details afifecting the real 
 merits and general feasibility of Mr. Moule's system can be obtained 
 in the prospectus and occasional publications of the Company 
 which has undertaken (already with considerable success) the 
 carrying out of the patent involved in it. I have not thought it 
 necessary to enter here into any statistical calculations on the 
 numbers of workmen which the adoption of this suggestion would 
 employ ; it is, however, obvious enough that the continual neces- 
 sities of every household in the land, in this respect, would demand 
 the services of a body of men at least equal to, if not greater than 
 that already engaged in the analogous occupation of removing the 
 dust and rubbish from our towns. That the carrying out of this 
 scheme would be sufficiently remunerative to attract the attention 
 of private capitalists, I, in my own mind, entertain little doubt, but in 
 default of such private enterprise, I would suggest the immediate 
 recommendation and execution of Mr. Moule's system by the 
 various municipal bodies throughout the country. That an ample 
 compensation would be provided in the profits of the manure, and, 
 indirectly, relief afforded to local rates by employment of the poor 
 in this way, I thoroughly believe, but have not space to prove or 
 enlarge on here. Meanwhile I offer this second suggestion for the 
 consideration of our national economists, adding at the same time 
 this further fact in its favour, that its adoption will at once create an 
 entirely neiu field of employment, and not to a very large extent, as is 
 too often the case in the promotion of new inventions, by establish- 
 ing a new class of labourers, dislodge and impoverish others hitherto 
 profitably engaged on the superseded methods. 
 
 III. My third recommendation is one of a much less extensive 
 nature, and has, in all probability, been made by others before me, 
 but as a contribution to the stock of suggestions available for our 
 public authorities, may be worth subjoining here. My recom- 
 mendation is that the duties of street crossing- sweepers, now under- 
 taken, and too often without any public demand for them, by the 
 lowest class of our vagrant poor, should in future be entrusted to 
 proper and accredited servants of the parish or Union in which 
 such crossings are situated. 
 
 The necessity or desirability of establishing such recognized crossings 
 might fairly be left to the consideration of the Vestries or Local Boards, 
 or in the event of these bodies not taking cognizance of the smaller 
 local wants in the matter, the representation of four householders 
 (to adopt Mr. Torrens' provision for other purposes) living in the 
 immediate neighbourhood, might be sufficient primary authority for 
 the appointment of such a registered sweeper as my suggestion 
 contemplates. It will be observed that in the furtherance of this 
 suggestion again, my before-proposed system of registration might 
 be rendered most serviceable, and in consideration of the light 
 duties which such posts involve, and the slight physical capacities 
 which their discharge demands, only a particular class of the
 
 27 
 
 unemployed poor, and consisting of the otherwise incapacitated and 
 weakly, might be considered eligible for the service. The remunera- 
 tion of these persons might, as heretofore, rest with the generous 
 public, or, if the service was properly organized might be supplied, 
 and we think ungrudgingly, out of the Local Rates, and in the latter 
 case I would suggest that the functions of a Commissionaire might 
 in many instances under certain conditions, be added to those of 
 the ordinary crossing-sweeper. The convenience to the public of 
 such a class properly supervised and drilled, considering the present 
 limited supply of the ordinary commissionaire, would, I think, be 
 undeniable ; whilst the employment it would furnish to a really 
 deserving class, now only supported by precarious alms, together 
 with the indirect check thus necessarily afforded to the most 
 insidious form of mendicancy, make its establishment, in my 
 opinion, a matter of public importance and benefit. All vested 
 interests, if I may use such a term in such a matter, would of course 
 be respected by the authorities in a new distribution of sweepings. 
 
 With respect to the action of this scheme on mendicity and vagrancy, 
 I would suggest that statutory provision might be made, that any per- 
 son not duly registered as a sweeper and found after a stated period, 
 say a fortnight's idleness, engaged in street sweeping in any place 
 not recognised by the local authorities, should be treated as a 
 vagrant and punished accordingly. The mischief now occasioned 
 to many of our poorer class, and especially children, by the present 
 indeterminate, unrecognised system of crossing-sweepings, is almost 
 incalculable, and in some places hardly a corner of our streets is 
 free from some noisy and insolent representative of this class, who 
 with the threadbare pretence of service rendered to the public, 
 demands his pence with all the importunity of the most accom- 
 plished beggar. All this might be abolished by the adoption of 
 some such system of registered sweepers as I have recommended, 
 and to our parochial authorities especially its execution belongs.* 
 Any agitation from the outside, such as the publication of these 
 and similar suggestions may promote, may, however, quicken 
 vestries into more immediate action, and with this hope I have 
 dwelt at some length on this third and minor recommendation. f 
 That many other local improvements, suitable for execution under 
 a similar system of registered labour will occur to other minds, I 
 have no doubt, but doubtless we have, in the multiplication of 
 such improvements, a proportionate increase of rates or taxes which, 
 
 * For a more elaborate development of the author's views on the employment 
 of the better class of poor, temporarily reduced to parish relief and the ' ' stone- 
 yard," see letter in Morning Star, January 23, 1868, and Standard, January 
 16, 1868. Appendix D. 
 
 t In June 1869, the further portion of Mr. Peabody's magnificent gift for the 
 London Poor will be at the disposal of the trustees^ — a sum amounting to 
 ;i^ioo,ooo. Would it be inconsistent with the conditions of the trust to apply 
 this through the assistant agencies of the Local Improvement Committees, before 
 suggested, to the restoration and purchase of workmen's dwellings in London imder 
 Mr. Torrens' Act? Without pulling down the old, it is useless, in my opinion, to 
 pile up new and palatial dwellings for the poor.
 
 28 
 
 in the present attitude of the pubhc mind on the subject, would 
 offer almost insuperable obstacles to their accomplishment. I 
 therefore forbear to treat in any further details this branch of the 
 subject. At the same time I would express an opinion that not the 
 least useful of lessons for our vestries to learn is that a wise ex- 
 penditure '" is often the best economy, and in support of this view 
 from another aspect, I have only to point to the miserable results 
 which official niggardleness has too often brought about in our 
 Poor Law and other departments of the Local Administration. 
 
 I have now only to sum up the suggestions contained in this 
 paper on the subject proposed for consideration, and to add a few 
 words on the way in which these and similar suggestions are most 
 likely to be adopted, with reasonable chances of success. In the 
 first place then, I recommend the construction of some machinery 
 by which the thorough classification and recognition of the various 
 sections of our poorer classes may be established, before attempting 
 to relieve or employ them. And for this purpose, I think that a system 
 of local, district, and, if possible, national registration of labour should 
 be instituted. Such a system of registration forjthe present I propose to 
 be grafted on, as far as possible, to the existing framework of the Post 
 Oftice service, especially as developed in the Savings Bank and Insur- 
 ance Departments of that office. Side by side with this system of 
 registration for the really industrious but unemployed class, I would 
 recommend a most f careful classification on the part of the Poor 
 Law Authorities of all persons coming under their operations. By 
 this means the residuum of the industrious unemployed, separated 
 from the stratum of pure pauperism, might be placed under the best 
 conditions for returning as soon as possible to labour and re-assum- 
 ing their proper position amongst the industrial ranks of the com- 
 munity, whilst the idle and incompetent would be left to the 
 necessarily sterner discipline of an efficient Poor Law, by Avhich the 
 greatest possible labour obtainable from them would be demanded 
 for the least possible wage consistent with the health of the 
 pauper. Having by these means, therefore, separated the really 
 deserving and unemployed poor from the idle and incompetent, I 
 recommend the distribution and employment of the better class of 
 the former on all public works of utility, created by any existing or 
 future compulsory clauses in Acts of ParUament. The indication 
 and promotion of such works would be at first entrusted to Local Im- 
 proveinent Covunittees, composed as far as possible of representative 
 and public spirited men, acting in the first entrance in a volunteer 
 capacity, but hereafter if possible to be clothed with such official 
 authority as the State may think fit to extend to them. I have 
 further suggested that the execution of these public works with 
 
 * Recent proceedings in reference to the St. Pancras Board of Guardians, and 
 their liberal expenditure for a time with the opposition it has awakened in the 
 minds of the rate-payers are worth examining on this point,' See Daily Papers, 
 passim. 
 
 t For development of this idea, see Author's lettei* to the Times, Januaiy 9, 
 l868. Appendix C.
 
 29 
 
 other subsidiary measures, will, if properly encouraged and energeti- 
 cally pursued, afford sufficient occupation for our unemployed poor, 
 until such times as the more permanent and general remedies which 
 the progress of society brings jwith it, have acquired the strength to su- 
 persede such temporary palliatives. Meanwhile, and as a few subsi- 
 diary methods of meeting the acknowledged wants of the unemployed, 
 I have suggested (ist) the construction of casual wards on a uniform 
 plan, and accommodated to the wants of the various districts, 
 throughout the length and breadth of the land, and this suggestion, 
 it is contended, is based on the best principles of economy and 
 national policy, both for the suppression of crime and the main- 
 tenance of industry. The national monument to Lord Brougham, also 
 finds a place in this part of my scheme, and that liberal public 
 subscriptions for such a purpose would be forthcoming this winter 
 in place of our usual indiscriminate almsgiving to the unem- 
 ployed there is little reason for doubt. (2nd). The adoption 
 and development of the dry-earth system of sewerage in town and 
 country, affording as it would employment to thousands, and multi- 
 plying the fertilising resources of the country at large. And (3rd) 
 I have recommended the establishment primarily, in the metropolis 
 and elsewhere, if circumstances demand it, of a properly registered 
 staff of crossing-sweepers and district commissionaires, the latter class 
 to be recruited as far as possible from the better educated but 
 invalided section of the unemployed poor. I may add the more 
 perfect registration of employment of scavengers under this head. 
 The above are the main recommendations which this paper contains, 
 others of a collateral description might have been added, but will 
 readily suggest themselves to any persons who may be disposed to 
 follow me generally in the propositions I have made. Such recom- 
 mendations are, I am well aware, but a very slender contribution 
 towards the study of a great and most urgent question. To be of any 
 true service they must be supplemented by the thoughts, sympathies, 
 and willing action of those in whose hands the real reformation of 
 society lies. From a new Parliament and the early energies of 
 young legislators much may be expected in the direction of those 
 improvements which I have now but faintly indicated. National 
 education, protected co-operation amongst working men, and a 
 properly organised system of emigration are among the first boons 
 we may expect at their hands ; but it is in the steady development 
 of sober and industrious habits amongst the operative classes them- 
 selves, and in the true patriotism which urges every man to do his best 
 for the common weal that the ultimate triumph must be looked for. 
 The closer union of all classes, the diminution of crime, * the repres- 
 sion of drunkenness, and a thousand other lesser victories have to 
 be won before the campaign is accomplished. I have as it were but 
 planted a flag or two in the direction in which I believe this final 
 victory lies, to other and to stronger hands must be committed that 
 
 * On the connection of intemperance and pauperism, I republish, in Appendix 
 F. a valuable letter in Timts of January 15, 1868.
 
 organisation and command which will alone carry us to the 
 desired end. With such I most hopefully leave this great question 
 and all the important issues that it involves. 
 
 APPENDIX. A. 
 
 CHARITY AND THE POOR LAWS. 
 
 THE CENTRAL EXECUTIVE RELIEF COMMITTEE IN EAST LONDON AND 
 ITS RELATION TO THE POOR LAW. 
 
 Letter from the Author to the Standard, February nth, 1868. 
 
 Sir, — The remarks of your correspondent, writing in to-day's 
 paper on East-end distress and the proposed operations of the 
 Central Committee in their relations to the administration of the 
 Poor Law, are, as it seems to me, most valuable, and deserving of 
 even more amplification than his article afforded space to develope. 
 If it be made a primary principle of the Central Committee's opera- 
 tions, or of any other Committee, that no relief* shall be afforded 
 through its machinery to any persons in receipt of relief from the 
 parish, surely the day for all thorough and satisfactory reform of 
 our Poor Law is indefinitely postponed. 
 
 The one great object that we have before us in the solution of 
 present difliculties at the East-end is how to render the administra- 
 tion of our Poor Law as complete and comprehensive as possible. 
 If, therefore, we start with the assumption of a large distressed class, 
 who are either too proud, or in a certain degree too well off, to make 
 application to the Board, we are clearly continuing, if not creating, 
 the lamentable necessity of a large and necessarily uncertain system 
 of supplemental machinery by the side, if not in the place of, a 
 properly constituted State organisation. This supplemental machi- 
 nery, once constructed and made use of by the distressed poor, will 
 with difficulty be hereafter supplanted by more efftcient Poor Law 
 operations. 
 
 All who have any experience of the poor know the prevalence of 
 that seemingly reasonable but truly false logic by which many 
 distressed persons declare themselves too proud to accept assistance 
 from the parish, but by no means unwilling to take any amount of 
 alms from the first though unknown visitor who makes his appearance 
 amongst them. 
 
 This false logic, one of the chief stumbling-blocks in the way of 
 all almoners, will now, by the proposed action of the Central 
 Committee, be increased and intensified. Assuredly this is no 
 desirable result in the direction of reform. 
 
 It is, as your correspondent so clearly states, admitted on all 
 
 * These remarks were evoked by a Resolution of the Central Executive Relief 
 Committee, as stated iu the text.
 
 31 
 
 hands that the out-door relief at the East- end is painfully inade- 
 quate, and, notwithstanding the increase and uniformity now 
 suggested and partially enforced by Mr. Corbett, must continue 
 so as long as the equalisation of rates is postponed. This being so, 
 the recognition of the fact is fairly within the scope of the Central 
 Executive Committee, and a determination to send all cases for 
 primary investigation at the hands of the Guardians, with power of 
 supplementing the slender relief now, under existing circumstances, 
 afforded out of the rates, would, in the end, materially strengthen 
 the hands of the law and hasten an improvement in its administra- 
 tion for the future. 
 
 The real root of all evil in the present anomalous working of our 
 Poor Law is the want of proper discrimination in the treatment of 
 our paupers. Whether this is to be cured, as I have suggested else- 
 where,* by a system of first, second, and third class certificates, 
 awarded as in bankruptcy, according to the merits of the case, with 
 relief up to a certain point, proportioned to the necessity of the 
 applicant, or by some other machinery to be hereafter proposed, I 
 cannot say. Meanwhile the only practical method of promoting 
 the discrimination required is, /// the first instance, to place all 
 distressed persons under the operations of the Poor Law. 
 
 For a time aid might perhaps be fairly afforded by the Central 
 Committee, or other charitable body, to that class of persons who 
 from competence and ease have in the present crisis been reduced 
 in their means to the level of the highest out-door relief afforded by 
 the parish — such persons under the circumstances forming an 
 exceptional body, and having obviously no claim upon the rates. 
 And I would further suggest that any supplemental aid given in 
 view of the present acknowledged inadequacy of out-door relief 
 might be endorsed by the officer of the Committee on the ticket 
 which is or ought to be furnished by the relieving officer to all 
 persons in receipt of such parish relief By this means all accumu- 
 lative and indiscriminate charity would be prevented, and the Poor 
 Law authorities would be primarily responsible for the relief 
 afforded, as well as subsequently acquainted with all contributions 
 given in aid. 
 
 One good which would result from the discrimination in relief, 
 now so much needed, would be an acknowledgment of the fact that 
 there is a large semi-criminal stratum of pauperism which, under 
 existing circumstances, when respectable and vicious have all the 
 same scanty dole, is barely recognised, or, if so recognised, by no 
 means sifted with the severity it deserves. As a matter of simple 
 justice to ratepayers, hard fare, if not penal tasks, should be 
 imposed on men who do as little as they can in a parish stone- 
 yard though professing to starve, and sell the workhouse bread for 
 the drams of the nearest tavern. That there is a great host of 
 these incorrigibles no one will deny. A discriminating machinery 
 for reUef can alone detect them, and give them their due. 
 
 * See Author's letter to Times, January 9, 1868, Appendix C.
 
 jSfean while, I submit again that the proposed rule of the Central 
 Committee in the matter of out-door relief, and their independence 
 of the workhouse poor must, if carried out, indefinitely postpone the 
 discrimination which can alone render our Poor Law universal, and 
 sufficient for the necessities of all the distressed. 
 
 LETTER FROM " EAST-END INCUMBENT " (THE REV. H. M. M'gILl), 
 
 Times, December 27, 1864. 
 
 PRIVATE CHARITY AND THE POOR-LAW. 
 
 Sir, — The question with which your leading article of this day 
 concludes, " Why^does the Poor Law leave its work to be done over 
 attain by private hands?" * is one which demands especial attention, 
 at a time when the claims upon the resources of the charitable are 
 so numerous and pressing, as your columns shew. People may well 
 inquire how it is that the ;!^7 50,000 annually raised in London for 
 the relief of the poor fails to accomplish its object, and how it is 
 that so many thousand persons are thrown in the winter season on 
 the casual charity of refuges and other kindred institutions. 
 
 Perhaps you will allow me briefly to state some of the causes 
 which appear to me to have led to this state of things ? 
 
 The first and chief, if not the only cause, is the decided antipathy 
 which exists on the minds of the poor to have recourse to the parish 
 authorities at all, and especially to enter the walls of the workhouse. 
 I have had an extensive experience of the feelings of the poorer 
 classes, both in the country and in London, and there is nothing 
 which I have found so universally prevalent among them as a horror 
 and dislike of the so-called "bastille," or Union-house. An inmate 
 of such an abode is, in the eyes of the decent poor, a fellow-creature, 
 and to be a " workhouse brat " is regarded as a degradation. Now, 
 there must be some substantial reason for this antipathy, otherwise 
 it would never be so deep-rooted and so wide-spread as it is. If we 
 can trace its origin and prevent its continuance we shall stop that 
 preference which many now entertain of dying of starvation in their 
 wretched homes, or even in the streets of London, rather than 
 darken the door of the workhouse. 
 
 It appears to me that this dislike of the workhouse flows from two 
 distinct sources — one originating in the poor themselves, the other 
 in the system on which the house is regulated. A simple every-day 
 example will illustrate what I mean. Let us take the case of a 
 widow with three or four children, left penniless by the death of her 
 husband, a dock labourer perhaps, or a costermonger earning a 
 precarious livelihood in the streets. Her support is gone, and she 
 applies to the relieving ofliicer for assistance. In most of the poorer 
 
 * The same question will doubtless be asked with the same force in the 
 present winter, and, in view of tliis certainty, I venture to reprint here an "East- 
 end Incumbent's " Letter. 
 
 The views expressed in the above letter are so sound that they cannot be too 
 widely circulated again. — A. H. H.
 
 33 
 
 parishes the rule is to allow about $s. per week in such a case. She 
 finds that she cannot live upon that wretched pittance, and applies 
 for an increased allowance ; the request is refused, and she is com- 
 pelled, sorely against her will, to become an in-door pauper. As 
 soon as she is admitted her children are taken from her, and she is 
 placed in the receiving ward for a few days, very likely in company 
 with some persons of abandoned character, whose bearing and 
 language are often sufficient to outrage the feelings of any one who 
 has lived a respectable life. She is afterwards removed to the 
 common workroom, and made to pick oakum — not a very elevating 
 employment — in the society of persons whose conduct is such as to 
 lower her moral tone, and make her long even for the poverty- 
 stricken freedom which she has lost. All sorts of tempers have to 
 be borne with, all sorts of language to be listened to, till the heart 
 is almost broken, and the spirits are weighed down with misery. 
 The hatred of the workhouse is thus fortified and strengthened by 
 the conduct of the poor themselves. 
 
 But the chief cause of it, after all, is the mode in which the 
 workhouse is, in accordance with the law, usually managed. It is 
 to all intents and purposes a kind of prison. There is no exit 
 allowed, except about once in three months for a solitary holiday. 
 Few under the age of sixty years are allowed to go out on the Sunday, 
 and all are liable to be searched both when they go out and when 
 they return. The children are separated from their parents, and 
 the parents from the children. All are subjected to an iron rule 
 very different from that " charity which thinketh no evil."* If the 
 settlement of an inmate is doubtful, every effort is made to remove 
 him to his legal parish, wherever that may be. He may be passed 
 to the Land's End or to Ireland ; to some place where he knows 
 no one and no one knows him. It is true that there is always 
 the option of taking his discharge, which means in many cases, 
 especially in the winter months, running the risk of starvation. 
 And this being the case, can we be surprised that the Poor Law 
 leaves its work to be done by private hands 1 I think not. Its 
 principles are too harsh even to be acceptable to the poor ; its code 
 is too rigorous even to relieve the most deserving, and till this is 
 modified the evils which we now deplore will undoubtedly continue. 
 
 But what is the remedy ? " Greater union and a more com- 
 prehensive system ; greater discrimination and delicacy in the 
 treatment of the in-door poor, and a considerable extension of 
 out-door relief It is in London that the weakness of the present 
 law is chiefly seen, and this arises from the fact that it is the direct 
 pecuniary interest of each board of guardians to throw the burdens 
 of the poor from their own shoulders to those of others. Let this 
 be remedied by equalising the rate over the whole metropolitan 
 area, and then we should not hear of the refusals to admit the 
 destitute into the houses provided for their accommodation in the 
 wholesale way chat we now do. Let the respectable poor be dealt 
 
 * This has, I think, been somewhat modified of late. — A. H. H. 
 
 D
 
 34 
 
 with more liberally and kindly than the profligate and vicious, and 
 let those who can by honest means contribute to their own sup p ort 
 out of doors be more generously aided in their efforts. Let the 
 workhouse be deprived of its prison-like character, and then we 
 shall find that, though the necessity for charitable appeals will not 
 be utterly put aside, it will be materially diminished, and private 
 hands will not be left to do that essential work which the law of the 
 land has left undone. 
 
 I am, Sir, your obedient Servant, 
 
 An East-End Incumbent. 
 December, 24. 
 
 APPENDIX. B. 
 
 EMIGRATION FROM THE EAST OF LONDON. 
 
 Letter of Author in Standard, May 21st, 1868. 
 
 Sir, — Your leading article of to-day, on the petition presented by 
 the distressed operatives to the Poplar Guardians, asking for assist- 
 ance out of the rates for purposes of emigration, once more calls 
 attention to the most important question of emigration generally 
 and its practicability as an engine of relief. 
 
 The necessities of the poor in East London are even in this 
 season undenied. The probable recurrence of last winter's misery, 
 and the sensational philanthropy which it evoked * may therefore 
 again be looked for. Whilst the summer is with us, can no 
 machinery for relief be devised ?f In the stress of the storm 
 there is little time or material for constructing the lifeboat. Now, a 
 thoroughly organized system of labour registration, and the promo- 
 tion of a sound plan of emigration, seem amongst the most available 
 lifeboats we can devise. The former will see that the home market 
 for labour is properly adjusted ; the latter will, in a measure, provide 
 for the surplus labourers, of which, say what others may, there is 
 always a formidable army in Eastern London, and elsewhere. 
 
 The powers of the guardians for promoting emigration are well 
 known, and have been before explained in your columns. A spirit 
 of economy, wise or unwise I will not say which, prevents the exercise 
 of these powers. Cannot this spirit be fairly met and overcome ? 
 It is admitted that labour is required in Canada, and that wages are 
 good. I The same may be said of other colonies. 
 
 I would ask, then, cannot some arrangement be made through 
 agents in such colonies by which a system of emigration could be 
 started on loans provided by the Guardians, such loans to be repaid 
 
 ^ This prophecy is already fulfilled. November, 1868. 
 
 t None such has been constructed. November, 1868. — A. H. H. 
 
 \ See Letters from Mr. W. F. Lynn in Beehive, November 7 and 2ist, 1868, 
 again strongly comfirming this view. By recent advices from Canada we learn 
 that the whole question of immigration to that dominion is about to be considered 
 by the Government, and proper arrangements made for the introduction and 
 well-being of future emigrants. Sqq Canadian A'e^i.'s,
 
 35 
 
 by an agreed-upon deduction of wage on arrival in the colony 1 
 This repayment would be secured by the government agents. 
 An arrangement for receiving from the applicants for emigration 
 small weekly payments up to the necessary amounts for taking 
 them out, might also perhaps be worth consideration. 
 
 Under any circumstances, and assuming the colonial agencies, 
 duly accredited by government, to be established, surely the experi- 
 ment of emigration by the loan system might be made on a picked 
 body of men, such as the East-end Emigration Committee * could, 
 no doubt, readily supply. 
 
 1 1 would venture to add that in the face of the tremendous problem 
 in Eastern London the application of some part, if not all, the large 
 surplus fund of the Lancashire relief subscriptions, for purposes of 
 emigration might be fairly suggested for the approval of subscribers 
 and the public. Surely a wider and more lasting benefit to the 
 poor could not be furnished in any other way. 
 
 APPENDIX C. 
 
 CLASSIFICATION OF PAUPERS. 
 
 Extract from letter of Author in Times, January 9, 1868. 
 
 Sir, — Your notice in The Times of to-day on the " Distress in 
 the East-end " will, I am sure, be read and appreciated by thousands 
 really interested in the welfare of the vast population of which it 
 treats. Will you allow me as an almoner of the Society for the Relief 
 of Distress, with some considerable experience of East- end poverty, 
 to heartily endorse the sentiments expressed in your article, and 
 also to offer one or two simple suggestions, by the carrying out of 
 which I think some of the more obvious evils in the present method 
 of administering relief would be reduced, if not altogether removed 1 X 
 In the first place I would suggest that in view of such exceptional 
 distress as now seems to prevail in East London, a system of special 
 relieving officers, properly accredited by the Local Board of Guar- 
 dians, might be adopted, and I feel confident that many competent 
 gentlemen would be only too willing to offer their services in such 
 a capacity in the present emergency. Such persons, as supplemen- 
 tary to the regular staff of relieving officers of the parish, might 
 investigate a vast number of cases, reporting them to the Board, and 
 so materially abridge and at the same time strengthen the labours 
 of the Guardians. My second suggestion would, perhaps, be more 
 difficult to carry out without the direct sanction of Parliament, but I 
 am disposed to think must ultimately, in some form or other, be 
 adopted. § What I allude to is a systematic classification of the 
 
 * This Committee still continues its useful labours. 
 t Since this was written the Fund has, I believe, been otherwise applied, 
 i The same difficulties being likely to occur this winter I venture to suggest my 
 old recipes again. November, 1 868. 
 
 § In support of this, see " East-end Incumbent's " Letter, Appendix A. 
 
 d2
 
 36 
 
 applicants for relief. Why not then, I would ask, as in the case of 
 bankruptcy (and after all pauperism when considered is but social 
 bankruptcy), grant, after a careful investigation of each case, a first, 
 second, or third class certificate, according to the merits of each 
 applicant. If misfortune and unavoidable causes should be the 
 sources of distress, let a first-class certificate and liberal out-door 
 relief be awarded ; if simple improvidence be the source, let a 
 second-class certificate be granted and a scantier allowance made ; 
 if, on the other hand, vice and wrong-doing are proved to be the 
 sources, let a third class certificate only be awarded, with the work- 
 house and hard labour to the utmost of the pauper's powers rigidly 
 enforced. By such a system of certificates, duly registered in the 
 workhouse books, the labours of the Guardians in cases of renewed 
 applications for relief would be materially diminished, while the 
 production of the first and second class certificates to the volunteer 
 almoner, who might fairly be called in to supplement parish relief, 
 but not to precede it, would afford sufficient testimonies of respect- 
 abiUty, without the necessity of a lengthened investigation. I as- 
 sume that in all cases the pauper would himself be furnished with 
 these certificates, properly dated and signed, so that the absence of 
 such certificate would be an indication that he had either not made 
 application to the Board, or that his claim for relief had been 
 disallowed. 
 
 APPENDIX D. 
 
 COMPULSORY EDUCATION AND LONDON PAUPERISM.* 
 
 Letter from Mr. E. W. Hollond in Daily News, January 23, 1868. 
 
 Sir, — Whilst the proceedings of the Manchester conference are 
 being watched with the most intense interest by all those, of every 
 shade of opinion, who have the permanent welfare of the lowest 
 classes most at heart, it is rather discouraging to observe the signs 
 of an obstructive reaction, which those proceedings have already 
 called forth. The favourite form which this reaction has taken is 
 somewhat singular, on a subject on which so many jDreliminary 
 terms have to be defined, and so much can be said both pro and co?i. 
 Instead of bringing forward arguments built on expediency, practi- 
 cability, justice, and perhaps liberty, the opponents of compulsory 
 education seem to imagine that they are able to set the question at 
 rest, and to make all further discussion of the subject unnecessary, 
 by the mere enumeration of all the grand results in the way of 
 education that have been already achieved. The Times has a 
 leader which, after recapitulating the glorious eftbrts of the past, 
 apparently recommends a policy of laisser-aller for the future. No 
 one, of course, can despise what has been done, but the question 
 
 * I have ventured here to insert a valuable letter from my friend " E. W. H." 
 (Mr. E. W. Hollond) to the Daily Neii>s, January 23, 186S, and my own reply 
 thereto containing a Scheme of " Street Schools" for Eastern London.
 
 37 
 
 cannot fail to recur to the mind as one reads these comfortable 
 assurances. Do the efforts already made, and the results already 
 obtained, really justify the encomiums bestowed upon them? 
 Statistics have been brought forward to shew that there are whole 
 classes of the community left almost entirely without the rudiments 
 of education. We are told that these statistics are incorrect. Very 
 likely this is true ; but the question cannot rest here. It matters 
 not whether in whole districts of the metropolis more than 80 per 
 cent, of the growing population are being brought up without 
 sufficient education to enable them to earn a decent livelihood in 
 after life, or whether the number is 70 per cent., or 50 per cent. 
 We have the great, staring, palpable fact, that London destitution, 
 in other words, London pauperism, is increasing at a rate which is 
 beginning to alarm the whole kingdom ; and we have the opinion 
 of all those who know anything about the matter that want of in- 
 struction — industrial, moral, and religious — is at the root of the evil. 
 This being so, it is worse than trifling to attempt to argue down the 
 question by merely proving that some of the figures advanced are in- 
 accurate. The prospect for educational reform certainly does not look 
 cheering. The fact is that satisfactory results will never be obtained 
 until we procure an admission for the great truth that education is 
 as necessary for the purpose of keeping body and soul together as 
 food and clothing. How far we are as yet from the acknowledge- 
 ment of this proposition is made painfully evident by the conclusion 
 arrived at by the Parliamentary Committee which sat on the Poor 
 Laws as lately as 1864, viz., that "the proposal of the Educational 
 Commissioners to compel guardians to insist upon the education of 
 the child as a condition of out-door rehef to the parent is incon- 
 sistent with the principles upon which the relief of the poor is 
 established." The guardians are now empowered to make provision 
 for such education ; but how far are such powers exercised 1 The 
 Saturday jReviezu, after favouring us with an educational resume, 
 written in very much the same spirit as that in the Tunes, does 
 indeed inform us most complacently that we have arrived at such a 
 state of perfection that " even boards of guardians have been long 
 in the habit of making the attendance of the children of those they 
 assist at school a condition of their out-door relief" Whether your 
 contemporary means in this curiously involved sentence to assert 
 that all boards of guardians, or the majority, or some, or only a few 
 of them have been accustomed to distribute that out-door relief 
 upon these conditions, does not clearly appear. But at all events, 
 as far as the metropolis is concerned, it is indeed news to hear that 
 matters are so arranged. Would that the news were true ! It is 
 clear that ratepayers could exercise no greater wisdom or more true 
 economy than to insist upon, and even where necessary to pay for, 
 the education of the children of their out-door poor. It is only by 
 adopting some means to insure the education of the young that we 
 can expect to stem the tide of pauperism, and ultimately to effect a 
 reduction in the rates. It is almost impossible to estimate to what 
 extent the ranks of pauperism are swelled by the unfed, unclothed,
 
 3« 
 
 and uneducated children of the out-door poor. The hereditary 
 character of pauperism is proverbial, and it is to the everlasting 
 disgrace of the Poor Law administration that it is so. 
 
 There are very good grounds for supposing that any system of 
 compulsory education to be successful must be introduced step by 
 step, and by making certain classes whose position is exceptional 
 subject to the provisions, the benefits of which should be gradually 
 extended to the whole community. The Factory Acts, and the 
 various extensions of the Factory Acts, have all been advances in 
 the right direction. The recipients of out-door relief are a class 
 which presents perhaps the most favourable subject for the next 
 application of the principle of compulsion. All the really important 
 objections which have reference to the individual right of the parent 
 to make us*e of the labour of the child, in cases at all events of 
 necessity, are in their case inapplicable, the right of the ratepayers 
 to insist upon such conditions as may protect themselves having 
 an indisputable and an anterior claim. — I am, &c.. 
 
 Temple, Jan. 21. E. W. H. 
 
 COMPULSORY EDUCATION. 
 
 Letter of the Author to the Daily News^ January 25, 1868. 
 
 Sir, — The letter of "E. W. H.," published in your paper 
 yesterday on the subject of " Compulsory Education and London 
 Pauperism," must, I think, be considered by all who have any 
 knowledge of, or interest in, the great question involved, as a timely 
 and valuable contribution to the materials from which a sound and 
 decisive judgment must ultimately be derived, Of the intimate 
 connection which exists between ignorance and pauperism, there 
 can be but little doubt in the minds of all reasonable men ; and 
 as this matter has been so plainly put before your readers in 
 " E. \V. H.'s " letter I do not propose to enlarge upon it here. I may 
 simply state that my own experience, extending now for several 
 years in some of the poorest and most benighted districts of 
 London, entirely confirms all that your correspondent has stated 
 in that respect. There remain, however, several questions opened 
 out by the communication of " E. W. H.," upon which, in con- 
 sideration of their great and growing importance, you will perhaps 
 allow me to say a few words. And, first, assuming the gradual 
 method of compulsion as indicated by the writer, with attendance 
 at school made, as I presume " E. W. H." intended, a condition 
 precedent of our-door relief, I would ask how far such a system could 
 be made applicable to the more densely populated districts of London 
 and other large cities : and, in conclusion, attempt to point out 
 what seem to me essentials of any satisfactory scheme to meet the 
 difficulties involved. To compel attendance at school under 
 existing circumstances in some of the worst parts of London (with 
 which I am myself acquainted), where almost every room shelters a 
 'half-ragged family, and where, consequently, the population of a 
 street is often equal to that of a large country village, would, I
 
 39 
 
 believe, prove a task beyond the compass of the whole army of 
 special constables now for the moment enrolled, much more then that 
 of the limited staff of school officials which even the most liberal 
 education rate would supply. Indeed, as things appear to me, 
 personal persuasion, though difficult enough to force upon an 
 ignorant mind, would in the end be far stronger than compulsion of 
 law ; and the educational crusade, for such it is, which now lies before 
 us, must be conducted by a Peter the Hermit, rather than by the 
 supposed omnipresent Policeman X. To beat down and annihilate 
 the excuses which are now made, and in some cases not without some 
 element of reason, for the non-attendance of children at school, must 
 be the first of our duties, and of these the principal will, I think, be 
 found to be, distance from school and loss of wage. Other minor 
 excuses in poor quarters are, of course, want of clothes, want of 
 money, and not unfrequendy, I may add, want of information, as to the 
 very existence of schools and the manner of joining them. Now, the 
 two principal difficulties can only be met by the multiplication of 
 schools on a less expensive scale than those at present existing with 
 the addition of some species of compensation, of which I will add a 
 word hereafter. 
 
 The minor excuses to which I have briefly alluded would best be 
 set aside by the explanation and vigilant recruiting of the local 
 district visitors. 
 
 No small evil resultant on the present system of schools is the 
 size of the classes and the limited supply of teachers. By the 
 institution of smaller schools, and the supply of an intelligent, but 
 not too highly trained body of teachers, this evil might clearly be 
 diminished. I have long devised, and elsewhere promulgated, 
 the scheme of what, for want of a better term, I would call 
 Street Schools ; such places of instruction to be distributed at 
 short distances over the area of all our larger parishes, to be 
 supphed with teachers capable of giving instruction in the 
 merest elements of learning, and furnishing accommodation for 
 some 25 or 30 children at the most. Such schools would, to 
 some extent, correspond with those of the old dames' system, whilst 
 securing more intelligent instruction, and there would, I consider, 
 be litde difficulty in securing sufficiently qualified teachers for a 
 very small consideration. Moreover, should such a scheme be 
 adopted, these schools would insure individual attention to the 
 pupils, which seems acknowledged on all hands to be the prevailing 
 want of all our large existing establishments. At best a sort of 
 regimental discipline and roll-call reading, utterly devoid of all 
 intelligent apprehension on the part of the pupils, is all that in nine 
 cases out of ten is now attained in our ragged and poorer schools. 
 This conclusion, I may add, I have arrived at, not without some 
 careful experience and investigation. With respect to the necessary 
 accommodation for these schools I now suggest, such for temporary 
 purposes might I think be found in the ground-floor rooms of many 
 East-end houses, some of which are already so used by the few sur- 
 viving representatives of the schoolmistress dames, who still con-
 
 40 
 
 tinue to take in pupils on their own account, at 2cl. or 3d. a week. 
 Moreover, the use of Churches and Chapels for similar purposes 
 during the week would, in my opinion, be no desecradon. My 
 scheme of street schools is, of course, but given in outline here, but 
 the details will, I think, readily suggest themselves, and are, of 
 course, matters not necessary to dwell on now. I assume that 
 such schools would afford instruction gratis, as it is difficult to see 
 how any form of even half-compulsory education could be based on 
 any other than a gratuitous footing. Now, with respect to com- 
 pensation, a matter alluded to in a letter by Mr. Biddell in 
 reference to the agricultural labourer, and commented on in your 
 columns yesterday, the difficulty is probably not so great in town 
 as in country districts. Nevertheless, in large families, where 
 " every little " in the false and short-sighted economy of ignorant 
 parents is supposed to " help," this is a question the consideration 
 of which cannot be entirely neglected. Only yesterday I visited a 
 family of six, where the eldest, at the age of 12, with the smallest 
 possible elements of knowledge, gained after irregular attendance at 
 lessons, had been sent away from school to earn "sixpence a week 
 and her victuals," and this I feel assured was no exceptional case. 
 In the face of such a fact loss of contribution to the family stock 
 cannot be denied ; but a judicious system of reward, in money or 
 otherwise, held out to successful pupils, and perhaps in some cases 
 a slight mid-day meal provided at the school, might afford a 
 sufficient and reasonable compensation for any services so lost by 
 attendance at school. One other point, and I have insisted on all 
 the main essentials for a satisfactory arrangement of this necessary 
 machinery as they at present occur to me. That point has 
 reference to the certificates of attendance. To insure the usefulness 
 of my scheme, or, indeed, of any similar scheme, a rigid system of 
 attendance, and certificates of such attendance, must be insisted on. 
 I would myself suggest a yearly book, to be supplied to every pupil, 
 with the smallest possible daily requirements of entry on the part 
 of the teacher, with, perhaps, an occasional space for a monthly or 
 quarterly report of the progress made by the scholar. Such a book 
 systematically kept would afford all necessary evidence as to the 
 attendance at schools, and would at the same time give a sufficiently 
 long retrospect to afford a clear view of the regularity and con- 
 tinuance of such attendance. Furthermore, and assuming for the 
 moment your correspondent's suggestion of attendance at school as 
 a condition of out-door relief afforded to the parents, these cer- 
 tificate books would furnish the clearest and most satisfactory 
 evidence for the guardians to act on in administering relief. Under 
 existing circumstances, as the experience of all acquainted with the 
 poor will attest, the most difficult of all evidence to obtain is that 
 which relates to school attendance. In some districts there might 
 perhaps be found but small difficulty in obtaining volunteer teachers 
 for such a system as I advocate, and such would be useful enough 
 to put the machinery in motion ; but for a permanence and proper 
 carrying out of the plan, no doubt a paid staff would be essential.
 
 4t 
 
 A certificate of competence to teach reading and writing, with 
 testimonials of character, granted by the National or Local Board 
 of Education, would be the only necessary qualification for such 
 teachers as I should propose to enrol ; and I have small doubt 
 that almost every clergyman could find in his parish persons able 
 and willing, for no large remune ration, to undertake the ofhce. 
 With the frequent appeals to us on behalf of educated but unemployed 
 women, there should be no dearth of suitable teachers amongst us. 
 These teachers would of course be in immediate communication 
 with the national or other large schools of the district ; and all 
 children having arrived at a certain degree of proficiency would be 
 at once drafted out to such larger establishments. With respect to 
 the first establishment and support of these ^^ street schools" I would 
 propose the levying of either a local or national rate, in very 
 poor districts the latter could alone be applied, the application 
 of such a rate being determined by report from the school 
 inspector on the educational necessities of the district. This being 
 a scheme to meet only the case of very poor districts, establishments 
 would be inexpensive, and the salaries low. These questions of 
 finance, however, must be determined by the Committee of Educa- 
 tion, and varying with the wants of the places assisted, cannot 
 properly be entered on here. This is the outline of my scheme ; and 
 I am disposed to think that it will only be by some such minute 
 subdivision of educational labour that the real necessities of the 
 ignorant poor in our large towns will be met and relieved.* 
 
 LETTER OF REV. H. MOULE. 
 THE EDUCATION OF PAUPER CHILDREN.f 
 
 {Times, November 21, 1868.) 
 
 Sir, — The statement in the Times of the 4th instant, of the cost 
 of maintaining and educating pauper children in the Central 
 London District Schools at Hanwell is in itself sufiiciently startling. 
 But it becomes doubly so when contrasted with what a body of 
 300 children might, if properly taught and directed, do for them- 
 selves. 
 
 About eleven years ago, I pubhshed a scheme for self-supporting 
 boarding-schools for children of the industrial classes, and in 1861, 
 I published an extension of this scheme to day-schools ; and of both 
 these publications I have received from several leading statesmen of 
 the day, and from two or three of our bishops, expressions of 
 approval. No valid objection has ever been urged against the 
 scheme, and although none have come forward to test it by experi- 
 ment, yet every year since its first publication has afforded me some 
 additional confirmation of its soundness, its feasibility, and of the 
 
 * See also a valuable little pamphlet, — "Popular Education: What it is and 
 what it is not," by M. A. B. (Booth, London) — in support of this view. 
 
 t I have, without waiting to communicate with Mr. Moule, republished the 
 letter. My interest in its subject and belief in its value must be my only justifica- 
 tions for the theft. -A. II. H.
 
 42 
 
 vast amount of benefit which, from a general adoption of such a 
 system, would accrue to all classes. 
 
 Pray allow me, then, to place before your readers, in contrast 
 with the statement respecting the District Schools at Hanwell, the 
 introduction of one of my papers, together with a general view of 
 the mode by which I propose to render schools self-supporting. 
 I am, Sir, your humble Servant, 
 
 Henry Moule. 
 Fordington Vicarage, November 12, 
 
 " SELF-SUPPORTING BOARDING-SCHOOLS. 
 
 "An education for the working classes, which shall be truly and 
 largely beneficial to them and to their country, ought to consist not 
 merely in the imparting of a certain amount of instruction in secular 
 or even religious subjects, but in a system of teaching and of training 
 which shall be at once intellectual, religious, and industrial. Such 
 a system cannot exist in our day-schools. Useful as they are, to a 
 certain extent, and high as their standard of intellectual training 
 occasionally rises, they altogether fall short of a system of education. 
 For the very early removal of the children — a difliculty wdiich no 
 educational rate nor any scheme of compulsory attendance will ever 
 obviate — renders even the intellectual training generally afforded 
 very imperfect. At the same time, partly from the children being so 
 small a portion of the day under the teacher's influence, and so large 
 a portion of it under counteracting influences, and partly from the 
 want of opportunity, religious training and industrial training are 
 altogether impracticable. In the boarding-schools which I propose 
 there would be, on the contrary, full scope and opportunity for the 
 most complete system of intellectual, religious, and industrial 
 training, and, if adopted even to a very partial extent, these schools 
 would hold, in relation to our primary schools, the same position of 
 influence which our Universities hold in relation to public and 
 private schools for the upper and middle classes. On the bare hope 
 and probability of all this I venture to claim the most serious atten- 
 tion on behalf of my scheme for the institution and maintenance of 
 such schools. I will first shew whence the funds for their main- 
 tenance are to be derived. These will necessarily be large. For, 
 in order to induce the mechanic or labourer to part with his child, 
 as the higher classes do, for the greater portion of the year — in order 
 to induce him to give up his child's earnings from 10 to 15 years, 
 or from 12 to 17 years of age — you must first give him good ground 
 to expect such an education as shall improve the child's condition in 
 life. This will involve the necessity of a highly- qualified, and there- 
 fore highly-paid, staff of masters. And in the next place you must 
 lodge, feed, and clothe the child free of all expense to the parent. 
 Now this, if looked for from the pecuniary aid of the richer classes 
 in the way of gift, would be the absurdity of extravagance. But if, 
 with no more aid from the rich man than a temporary loan, which 
 shall be a fair investment, it can be brought about by the working 
 classes themselves, or rather by the children themselves, then we
 
 43 
 
 shall have in these schools a system which shall not only be worthy 
 the name of education, but which for economy, shall be so vastly 
 superior to any system hitherto devised, as to be independent both 
 of charitable subscription and of Government grants. And this I 
 assert can be effected. The well-directed labour of loo boys 
 bestowed on a sufficient extent of land suitable for the purpose 
 shall, with God's blessing, raise an income sufficient to repay with 
 interest the necessary capital to be borrowed, to pay rent, rates and 
 taxes, to provide food, clothing, and a savings' fund for the children 
 in the way of encouragement, and to furnish good salaries for the 
 best masters, directors of work, and servants. Such an assertion 
 will, doubtless, appear to many perfectly visionary ; but both it, and 
 what follows in support of it, rests upon facts and experiments, and 
 on the opinions of men of the first intelligence and most practical 
 knowledge. A healthy boy, only lo years old, working 7 hours a 
 day, with a steel fork, and on light soil, can dig an acre in 6 weeks. 
 If so, then under proper direction he may cultivate 3 acres, digging 
 them twice during the year. And a school of 100 boys, averaging 
 from 10 to 17 years of age, and working in companies of 20 with a 
 director over each company, may thus keep 300 acres, constantly 
 under the fork or spade, and may produce, by wide and alternate 
 cropping, and by the application of manure to the plant instead of 
 to the ground, certainly two crops a year. From land thus under 
 garden cultivation, a much larger produce may obviously be ex- 
 pected than from an ordinary farm ; and ;^2o per acre per annum 
 is the lowest estimate of gross produce which, provided there be a 
 due supply of manure, has been allowed me by men of great expe- 
 rience ; while some of them have set their estimate so much higher 
 than this that I consider myself quite safe in reckoning the value of 
 the gross produce of 300 acres, so cultivated, at ;i^6,ooo annually." 
 
 APPENDIX E. 
 
 EAST- END DISTRESS, AND THE EMPLOYMENT OF THE DISTRESSED.* 
 
 Letter to the Standard, January 16, 1868. 
 
 Sir, — Amongst the many methods of relief suggested in the 
 present crisis for Eastern London, all such as combine employment 
 with assistance, and making, as far as possible, such employment 
 the condition of the assistance rendered, seem to be universally 
 accounted the best. Up to the present time, however, a sort of 
 supererogatory stone-breaking, exceptional mending of the local 
 roads, and the speculative building of a ship at Millwall, would 
 appear to be the only occupations suggested as likely to meet the 
 necessities of the case. As a visitor of the poor for one of the 
 most influential of the relief societies, and as one who in years past 
 has seen much of East-end want and wretchedness, I may perhaps 
 be allowed to offer in your columns one or two, as it seems to me, 
 
 * The Author believes the suggestions contained in the foUov/ing letters likely 
 to be equally available for the coming WINTER.
 
 44 
 
 practical suggestions on this matter of pauper employment. In the 
 first place I assume that the Metropolitan Board of Works has some 
 sort of power and jurisdiction over the whole area now covered by 
 this East-end distress, and in view of this assumption I would ask, 
 are there no long-required but neglected local works which, with a 
 wise and prompt liberality, the board might at once undertake ? 
 I, for one, as an almoner to my cost in some of the worst parts of 
 Spitalfields and Whitechapel, can speak to a minor but most impor- 
 tant point, in the necessity there exists for a better numbering of the 
 eastern houses. In some streets which I could mention may be 
 found house after house without number at all except, perhaps, that 
 indicated by some almost unintelligible chalk mark (it may be 
 ingeniously perverted by some district wag) whilst in others the 
 unhappy traveller is bewildered and shuttlecocked from place to 
 place by a duplicate, triple, or even quadruple representation of the 
 number which he seeks. Surely, if there are any painters out of 
 work — and I may reasonably assume there are — here is at once, to 
 say the least, a few days' work, which would be only too readily 
 accepted, and would not require the genius of very high-skilled 
 labourers to accomphsh. I have only quoted this seemingly small 
 matter as an illustration of what requires to be done, but which, 
 under existing circumstances, is not done in some of the eastern 
 districts; and I feel certain that the already over-taxed postman, 
 as well as the bewildered almoner would rejoice to see my sug- 
 gestion carried out. Surely there are many other and more important 
 improvements which a little local inquiry would speedily furnish. 
 These once furnished, after proper investigation, I would suggest 
 that a local deputation should wait on the First Commissioner of 
 AVorks and ask assistance, either in the form of loan or otherwise, 
 for carrying out the necessary improvements. By such means a 
 large class of deserving, but now unemployed labourers would be 
 temporarily relieved, and a whole important district of London 
 permanently improved. 
 
 One more word and I have done. Your special reporter in the 
 last of his articles on East- end distress (published in yesterday's 
 journal) mentions the fact of numerous houses in the district visited 
 as being now empty aud deserted. Surely in such a crisis as this 
 there is a favourable opportunity for the Peabody trustees to step in 
 and purchase. As I have had occasion to write elsewhere on more 
 than one occasion, repair and reconstruction will do more for im- 
 proving the condition of our London poor and their habitations than 
 all the new model dwelhng-houses which the most philanthropic 
 architect could devise. So long as the old tenements are allowed 
 to stand I maintain the radical amelioration of the poorer lodging- 
 houses must be indefinitely postponed. Even in this proposed 
 reparation of untenanted and, no doubt, not too tenantable houses 
 alluded to above, there seems a prospect of good and profitable 
 employment for a large and deserving class of our distressed 
 population.* 
 
 * Since writing the above, I am happy to find that Mr. Toriens' Act is already 
 put in force mth good effect in some parts of Poplar. See daily papers, passim.
 
 45 
 
 THE WORKHOUSE STONEYARDS AND THE EMPLOYMENT OF THE 
 DESTITUTE POOR. 
 
 Author's Letter in Morning Star, January 23, 1868. 
 
 Sir, — Will you allow me a few words of commendation and 
 comment on Mr. Greenwood's " Round of the Stoneyards," which 
 appeared in your journal yesterday ? The whole question, as 
 opened out by your correspondent's most graphic article, is one, 
 as I think, of the deepest importance, and involves larger issues 
 than even his pertinent remarks would seem to imply. In the 
 first place, I would ask whether the whole question of out-door 
 relief, as administered in the stoneyards by the London Boards of 
 Guardians, does not urgently demand investigation and revision 1 
 Secondly. I would inquire whether some steps cannot be taken, 
 even under existing circumstances, to alleviate, if not altogether 
 abolish, the evils that are now so properly complained of. On the 
 first head, from very recent inquiry and experience, I can confirm 
 all that Mr. Greenwood has reported on the present system of 
 relieving through employment in the workhouse stoneyards. I 
 may state, then, that at a large West-end union a few days since I 
 found on admission to the stoneyard (to which, I must frankly 
 acknowledge, I was courteously and instantly admitted by the 
 authorities) about 100 men, many of them belonging distinctly to 
 the class of " casual labourers " and probably never at the best of 
 times in a very well-to-do condition, but others obviously of a 
 superior grade, engaged in the two occupations of stone-breaking 
 and wood-chopping. For this labour, extending from eight in the 
 morning till four o'clock in the afternoon, the utmost wage, I was 
 informed, is 6d. for a married man, and 4d. for a single one per 
 diem, with a proportionate amount of bread according to the number 
 in family of the labourer. Setting aside for the moment the scanti- 
 ness of the remuneration, I think there is fair ground for complaint 
 in the fact of these two occupations being afforded indiscriminately 
 to all applicants for relief, whether such applicants be artizans or 
 labourers. An additional hardship, however, has to be mentioned 
 here. The labourer having finished his allotted task, in the case 
 of stone-breaking the amount required being eight bushels, is not 
 permitted to receive his wage and spend the remainder of his day, 
 either in additional earnings from the same source, or in what 
 would in all ways be a more profitable enterprise — a search for 
 employment elsewhere. Under almost all circumstances he is 
 compelled to linger out his day idle and discontented. Both these 
 grievances have been touched on by your correspondent in his own 
 pathetic manner, but it appears to me that they require to be again 
 emphatically enforced, from a purely political-economical stand- 
 point, on all thinkers who are anxious to ameliorate the present 
 working of our Poor Law system. The hardship which such 
 tests as those now employed in stoneyards imposed upon skilled 
 mechanics I need hardly pause to remark on ; but I may add that 
 the labour master at the union I allude to informed me that there
 
 46 
 
 were at least ten or twelve superior artizans weekly engaged in the 
 stoneyard, and to whom the task imposed was frequently so irk- 
 some and unwonted as to be almost impossible of accomplishment. 
 I have assumed that the larger number of persons engaged in the 
 stoneyard, from their habits and antecedents, have probably no 
 especial claim on our sympathies ; and indeed many of these 
 incompetents and incorrigibles, for such they are, are earning their 
 wages, as I am informed, for little or no work, and are spending 
 those wages when so taken in the worst of ways. Nevertheless, 
 admitting this fact, there still remains a large residuum ^of distressed 
 but deserving artizans, for whom no proper provision, or even 
 opportunity for making provision for themselves, is, under existing 
 circumstances, afforded at all. 
 
 How to meet this difficulty, and furnish some machinery for 
 restoring these distressed artizans to employment and independence, 
 is the second question to which I desire now to direct your atten- 
 tion. It appears to me, then, that awaiting the permanent co- 
 operation, if not incorporation, of our existing charitable machinery 
 with that of the Poor Law, some arrangement might surely be made by 
 means of which our great relief societies, such as the Metropolitan 
 and that for the Relief of Distress, with its active staff of loo or 
 more almoners, might so put themselves in communication with 
 the parish authorities as to receive from them weekly a list of the 
 superior artizans now engaged in the stoneyards, with a view to 
 affording them that supplemental assistance in the direction of 
 obtaining employment or the purchase of tools as pointed out by 
 3'our correspondent, which, under existing regulations, the guardians 
 themselves would neither be ready to volunteer, nor, perhaps, 
 justified in giving. By such an arrangement as I suggest, a large 
 number of these men might at a comparatively small cost be 
 temporarily supported (without, I maintain, relinquishing their 
 proper allowance from the Poor Law both of work and wage), and 
 finally re-established in their respective trades and occupations. 
 
 One further method that appears to me to offer advantages in a 
 similar, and, perhaps, even more suitable way, would be by an 
 arrangement being eftected between the several boards of guardians 
 and the various labour registration societies, which seem now to be 
 steadily advancing in importance and usefulness. By [a small 
 subscription to such societies the guardians could, I presume, be 
 supplied — and I here speak with the authority of a gentleman 
 closely connected with the leading of these societies — with a list 
 of the registered vacancies in the various trades to which such 
 distressed artizans might belong, and by such organization the 
 guardians supplying the labourers vranted, the due relations of 
 supply and demand would be effectually maintained.* By such a 
 scheme, if carefully carried out, the rates would be economised, the 
 
 * In some stoneyards the practice of reading :iloud the daily papers to enable the 
 workers to see the available openings for employment has been introduced, and 
 deserves every extension, if properly guarded from abuse.
 
 47 
 
 labourer rendered independent, the employer supplied vv'ith the 
 required labour, and the anomalies of the stoneyard in some degree 
 diminished, if not altogether removed. How far Poor I^aw regula- 
 tions would at present sanction such an expenditure, small as it is, 
 as suggested above, by the guardians, I do not dare to say, but I 
 cannot but think the advantages once clearly recognised, the 
 sanction of the authorities could not be long delayed. On all 
 grounds — social and economical — such an expenditure would be 
 clearly to the benefit of all concerned. As the stoneyard exists now, 
 the very object of a labour test is in a great measure defeated, and 
 the labourer once confined within the workhouse bounds is shut off 
 in many cases altogether from that market without to which every 
 effort should be strained to restore him. 
 
 APPENDIX F. 
 
 DRUNKENNESS AND DISTRESS AMONGST OUR POOR. 
 
 Times, January 15, 1868. 
 
 Sir, — For some years past there has been much destitution 
 among the London poor during the winter months. No matter 
 whether the prices of provisions are high or low, or whether the 
 weather is unusually severe or not, this destitution is sure to crop 
 up on the return of winter. As you have generously allowed the 
 Times to become a channel for its relief, will you permit me to call 
 the attention of your readers to that which lies at the root of the 
 evil* — the drinking habits of the poor ? During nine months of the 
 year the majority of artizans and other labourers who are now on 
 the verge of starvation earn from a guinea to \os. a week, and a 
 portion of this might without inconvenience be laid by for the pinch 
 which they all know full well must come with winter's frost ; but, as 
 they earn it, it generally finds its way to the gin palace or the beer- 
 shop. This is the reason why many thousands of them are now 
 penniless ; and this improvidence is not confined to London and 
 the great towns, it is common all over the land. Here, alas ! in 
 this quiet country parish it prevails just the same as it does in 
 London. If the labourer merely drank a glass or two of beer with 
 his meals, I, for one, should not find fault with him ; but he is not 
 satisfied with this, he walks off from his family to the public-house, 
 pays 100 per cent, more for his beer than he has any need to pay 
 for it, and, what is far worse, becomes a tippler and drinks to excess. f 
 Here, then, is the chief cause of the existing destitution. And this 
 excessive drinking has been increasing for many years past. In the 
 year 1863 the number of cases of "drunkenness and drunk and 
 
 * My own experience in many iHstances, though myself no teetotaller, too pain- 
 fully confirms Mr. Adams' views. — A. H. H. 
 
 \ How this might be met by institution of reading rooms and clubs has been 
 pointed out elsewhere in this paper. See also many valuable publications of 
 Working Men's Club and Institute Union, 150, Strand, W.C.
 
 48 
 
 disorderly " reported in the " judicial statistics " for England and 
 Wales was 94,745, and in 1866, 104,368, shewing an increase of 
 more than 10 per cent, in four years. Relatively to the population 
 the number of such cases in 1863 was one in every 216, and in 
 1866, one in every 203 persons. Again, the number of beershops 
 in England, for consumption on the premises, exclusive of licensed 
 victuallers, was, in 1863, 38,547, and in 1865 (I have no later returns 
 before me), 42,660, being in the former year one for every 527 persons, 
 and in the latter, one for every 492. It would be easy to shew that 
 this prevalent intemperance is the parent of most of the crimes of 
 the poor as well as their poverty. Argument is needless on this 
 point, because it is generally admitted. During the last year seven 
 at least of the judges have called attention to the connection be- 
 tween crime and intemperance. The following are examples of 
 their opinions on the subject : — 
 
 " jNIore than one-half — nay, fully three-fourths — of the cases that 
 have been brought before me have had their origin directly or 
 indirectly in drunkenness." Such was the testimony of iNIr. Justice 
 Mellor at the Durham Assizes. " Drunkenness again," said Mr. 
 Justice Lush at the Manchester Assizes — " It is the case with almost 
 every one that is brought before me." And Mr. Baron Martin at 
 the Liverpool Assizes expressed his belief that drunkenness seemed 
 to be the cause of nine-tenths of the crime which was committed. 
 What remedies, then, can be provided for the mitigation of this 
 widespread evil ? The first and most important is the repeal of the 
 Beer Act of 1830. That pernicious measure, by removing the 
 granting of licences from the magistrate to the exciseman, and by 
 imposing no practical restriction on the multiplication of beershops, 
 has, in the opinion of the whole nation, tended to aggravate intem- 
 perance among the poor. Over and over again it has been con- 
 demned by Parliamentary Committees, and there is, I believe, no 
 class of the community, except that which is interested in its 
 maintenance, which does not regard it as a curse to the country. 
 Attempts have been made from time to time to amend it since the 
 year 1834, when a Committee of the House of Commons first 
 reported against it. In the year 1847, ^^^- G. Hardy introduced 
 a measure for its repeal, and would probably have carried it but 
 for the opposition of Lord Palmerston's Government, and their 
 promise to bring in a Bill themselves to put an end to the evils of 
 the beershop system. In 1850 a Committee of the House of Lords 
 condemned it, and again, in 1854, a Committee of the House of 
 Commons reported — " The beershop system has proved a failure ; " 
 but nothing eftective has yet been done, — no legislative remedy has 
 been provided for the mischief of a system which the Legislature 
 has denounced for more than a quarter of a century. 
 
 How long shall this incentive to intemperance be allowed to 
 victimize the poor ] Let it be tolerated by our statesmen for a short 
 time longer, and such a remedy as they would now think inexpe- 
 dient will be insisted on. The bondage of the beershops will become 
 so hateful that nothing less than a Permissive Bill or the complete
 
 49 
 
 extinction of the traffic in liquor, will satisfy the people's Parliament. 
 At all events let our statesmen remember that until a legislative 
 remedy for intemperance is applied all moral agencies will be unable 
 to repress it. We who labour night and day for the welfare of the 
 poor cannot deliver them from the power of the beershops. The 
 enormous influence for evil which they wield makes them invulnera- 
 ble to all the weapons which we can bring to bear against them. 
 We see them undoing our work, destroying the souls and bodies of 
 our poorer brethren, and filling their cottages with vice and misery, 
 but we are powerless to stay the plague ; and so it will continue 
 until there shall be such a change in the existing beer laws as will 
 dry up those poisonous springs of intemperance. 
 
 I am, Sir 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 JOHN ADAMS, 
 
 Incumbent of Stockeross, Berks . 
 
 FINIS.
 
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