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 PAUPERIZATION: 
 
 CAUSE AND CURE. 
 
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 BY 
 
 SIR BALDWIN LEIGHTON, BART. 
 
 FOURTH EDITION.
 
 PAUPERIZATION: 
 
 CAUSE AND CURE. 
 
 BY 
 
 SIE BxiLDWYN LEIGHTON, Bart. 
 
 Being tiro Papers read at tlte Social Science Congress at Leeds, October, 
 
 1871. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY MESSES. SANDFORD, HIGH STREET, 
 SHREWSBURY. 
 
 1871. 
 
 Price Sijcpence.
 
 " Tub Englisli are a dumb people. They can do great acts but not describe 
 " them. Like the old Romans, and some few others, their epic poem is written 
 " on the earth's surface : England her mark ! . . . . The spoken word, the 
 " written poem, is said to be an epitome of the man ; how much more the done 
 " work. Whatsoever of morality and of intelligence ; what of patience, per- 
 " severance, faithfulness, of method, insight, ingenuity, energy; in a word, 
 " whatsoever of strength the man had in him, will be written in the work he 
 " does." 
 
 Carlyle's " Past and Pbesent."
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 The two following papers, read at the Leeds Social Science Con- 
 gress, Octobei", 1871, having attracted more attention than could 
 have been anticipated, and having already by private circulation 
 contributed something tovi^ards an improved Poor Law administra- 
 tion, it has been suggested that they should be published. What 
 value they may have arises entirely from their being a record of 
 Fact ; a description of the successful application of the simplest, and 
 yet most neglected, economic truths to the condition of the poor : 
 Thrift, Sympathy, and Work, instead of Improvidence, Cash-nexus, 
 and Charity-doles, and it is certain that the same results as are 
 exhibited here, incredible as to some they have appeared, may be 
 attained elsewhere in town as well as country, if individuals 
 informed and capable are forthcoming. 
 
 Of these results, the work of a life now gone, the present 
 writer is but the recorder; but if these pages may set some to 
 think and to work, or bring others together who should not bide 
 apart, they will not have been written in vain. 
 
 BALDWYN LEIGHTON. 
 
 Loton Park, December, 1871.
 
 POOR LAW OUT-RELIEF. 
 
 PERHAPS the most satisfactory way of describing the principles 
 that should regulate Poor Law Belief will be to explain the 
 administration of out-relief in a certain, now notorious, Union ; for 
 the management of out-relief has always been the crucial difficulty 
 of the system, and is now acknowledged to be the main question. 
 
 In attempting to demonstrate such administration as exemplified 
 in the Union of Atcham, in Shropshire, an agricultural district of 
 about 20,000 inhabitants — it may be instructive to state, first two 
 or three facts or principles which will be found to lie at the root of, 
 and to be the key to, the whole matter, and which have certainly 
 been here the main cause of what are now considered successful 
 results. 
 
 (1.) The systematic adoption of strict and sound principles in 
 giving out-door relief: the chief one being an attempt to set a 
 premium on thrift and a discount on improvidence, as far as the 
 present Poor Law will allow. 
 
 (2.) Personal devotion to the work — a constant unremitting energy 
 on the part of one or two guardians, acting and re-acting on the 
 officials. It is unnecessary to remind an audience of practical men 
 that this minute individual service is the secret and the soul of suc- 
 cess in carrying out any such intricate matters as the administration 
 of a Poor Law ; and that without such living spirit even the soundest 
 principles become deadened and inoperative. 
 
 (3.) Sanitary precautions to mitigate as far as may be that fruitful 
 cause of pauperism, illness from bad drainage, and bad ventilation. 
 
 First, then, with regard to out-door relief : — When an applicant 
 comes to the Board, and before he appears there, a minute investi- 
 gation is made into his circumstances and antecedents, his home is 
 visited, and his family and relations scheduled. Some such course 
 is supposed to take place at most Boards, but in many, such as in 
 London, where the applicants are many and the relieving officers 
 comparatively few, the enquiry is not very thorough. But further, 
 there is required here the earnings of applicant's family, children or 
 relatives able and bound to assist, rent paid, and quantity of land 
 held, state of cottage whether tidy or the contrary, character of 
 applicant, and name of his employer ; whether he ever belonged to* 
 any club or has ever made any efforts to provide for himself or his 
 family, and if his children have been vaccinated. 
 
 If a parent's sons or daughters are earning wages this would be 
 taken into account, and the guardians would consider them bound to 
 
 ^ UIUC 
 
 \ v?^
 
 contribute to the support of their parent according to their ability. 
 No relief is ever given to non-residents ; and no out-relief is ever 
 allowed to illegitimate children, nor to deserted wives, whom expe- 
 rience shows are generally in collusion with their husbands. 
 
 If the rent of a cottage exceed 41., relief would only be granted 
 for a short time, in order to allow the pauper to look out for a 
 cheaper dwelling. Should the applicant have more land than a 
 garden, the guardians would refuse out-relief, except medical or 
 temporary, on account of the bad example to the poorer neighbours. 
 Should the bedrooms be over-crowded, except Avith a man's own 
 family, the guardians might refuse out-relief. 
 
 If a man or a Avoman's character is indifferent, out-relief is gene- 
 rally refused, but in the instance of members of benefit societies the 
 case is always favourably considered. In determining the amount 
 to be given to a member of a benefit society (not sufficiently provided 
 for thereby), this Board, after some scruple, in which the desire to 
 promote provident habits has come into collision with the rule of the 
 Poor Law, have determined, ceteris paribus, to give the members 
 of benefit societies one half they Avould give to applicants in the same 
 position who were not members. This cannot be considered alto- 
 gether satisfactory, and it is altogether illegal, but of this more here- 
 after. 
 
 When widows or men with children apply, the Board offer to take 
 part of their family into the house, and though this plan was first 
 introduced in order that the children of widows should receive 
 an education, or in the case of sick men that the ventilation of his 
 home should be improved by lessening the numbers, yet it has proved, 
 rather to the surprise of the guardians, a most efficient test of des- 
 titution. It is, in fact, an application of the workhouse test, without 
 breaking up the home ; but the children so admitted, are far more 
 carefully seen to than in most Union schools, and according to the 
 reports of the Poor Law inspector, it is one of the best managed in 
 England. 
 
 In considering the question of out or in-relief the Board have 
 never been guided by motives of economy, falsely so called, but 
 wholly and solely by principle. " Money is no object to us " has 
 often been the conclusive answer to guardians or applicants who 
 argued for granting some wretched dole that would only have gone 
 to pauperise, or to supplement Avages. In the return of expenditure 
 for in-door paupers, it may be perceived that the individual cost is 
 higher than in most unions, thus proving, that as far as money goes, 
 more care and regard are shown than in most unions. 
 
 (2.) And that brings us to the personal service and supervision in 
 the Avhole administration. Very considerable interest has been 
 taken by the Chairman and some of the other guardians in the con- 
 dition generally of the inmates, and especially in the school. The 
 childx'en are not only taught reading and writing, but they are 
 industrially trained and so fitted for service that there is never the 
 slightest difficulty in obtaining them places ; there is, in fact, a local
 
 (lemaud for them. It has been found by careful enquiry that a very 
 small number of these children ever return to the workhouse, and 
 hardly any who have had time to experience the effect of the trainiug, 
 so carefully bestowed. With this practical experience before his eyes, 
 and with a lively knowledge of certain facts existing under the old 
 Poor Law, when relations, and often mothers themselves, were paid 
 for taking care of their own children, the Chairman, who for nearly 
 forty years successfully worked this Union, had formed a strong 
 opinion adverse to the effect of such an experiment in this country 
 as the boarding-out system which has lately been sanctioned by the 
 Poor Law Board. 
 
 Upon the same grounds, namely, to discourage that sort of com- 
 munistic dependence too often promoted by the present adminis- 
 tration of the Poor Law, the Chairman was strongly opposed to the 
 introducing of the Compound Householder Act into his Union, 
 namely, the creation of a class of persons unconscious of rates. 
 When Tom Smith has to pay for his neighboui*, Jack Kobinson, he 
 •will see that he does not too easily come on the rates, but when 
 Smith has nothing to pay, he is not so careful ; and to this insidious 
 cause may be often traced the prevalence of actual pauperism ; in the 
 Union above quoted, the only district where pauperism appears above 
 the average being where the Small Tenements Act is in force. Per- 
 haps it may some day be made clear that those who, for political or 
 other reasons, made this Act universal iu towns, exhibited culpable 
 ignorance of a fruitful source of pauperism, and have aggravated, not 
 a little, the difficulties of those engaged in dealing with the matter. 
 
 To the personal energy which made the school a model to Poor 
 Law inspectors, was in great part the whole success of this adminis- 
 tration due. A chairman of a union who will find opportunities for 
 constant personal communication with the master, schoolmaster, and 
 other officials, will strengthen both his own and their hands, and a 
 guardian who will inquire minutely of the inmates of a workhouse 
 how they came there (generally flagrant improvidence) will learn 
 some of the most fertile local causes of pauperism. An inquiry as to 
 how those are living who have left the workhouse, and who have 
 been refused out-relief, will often lead to still further disclosures ; 
 but this, it should be observed, is impossible in any vei'y large area 
 of management, and difficult in any but a very moderate one. There- 
 fore the present policy of the Poor Law Board in enlarging areas, 
 some already unmanageable by their bulk and thereby destroying 
 the possibility of personal supervision, is not the way best calculated 
 to reduce pauperism. 
 
 But this personal supervision and care were still more shown in 
 the district where the Chairman himself resided. Here in two Poor 
 Law parishes, comprising a population of about 2500 souls, the 
 pauperism amounted to only -^ per cent., almost all being in-door 
 relief. While in one of those parishes, containing 300 souls, entirely 
 owned by the Chairman, the pauperism amounted to some fraction — 
 virtually nil. Thus by no spasmodic or accidental process, but by
 
 distinct gradation and care, an example of tlie extermination of 
 2)aupensra is here shown. This consummation was entirely arrived 
 at by setting a premium on thrift, and a discount and discourage- 
 ment on improvidence, as a landlord can, by giving away little or 
 nothing directly, but by spending considerable sums iii impi-ovement 
 of cottages, drainage, &c., and by always declining, under any cir- 
 cumstances, to supplement the Poor Law relief. 
 
 These principles have been systematically applied for nearly forty 
 years with the following results as regards statistics : — 
 
 1836. 1856. 1870. 
 
 Population 17,855 ... 19,080 ... 19,314 
 
 Paupers 1,395 329 293 
 
 or 8 p. c. or If p. c. or 1^ p. c. 
 
 The reduction in expenditure is more than 100 per cent., namely, 
 from 9800^. in 1837, to 4230/. in 1868. The present rate is 6d. in 
 the pound for the relief of the poor. But these reductions, inaugu- 
 rated by the new Poor Law, were going on in many places during 
 those years, and are in no way exoeptioual. What is exceptional 
 and unique in England is the proportion of the out-relief to the in- 
 door poor, namely : — 
 
 1834. 1856. 1870. 
 
 In. Out. In. Out. In. Out. 
 
 196 ... 1199 176 ... 153 154 ... 139 
 
 Showing the pauperism proceeding at a decreasing ratio to the in- 
 crease of population. Out of 600 unions in England this is the only 
 one that exhibits a smaller proportion of out-door poor to in-door. 
 For anything approaching a parallel you must go to the Irish Poor 
 Law, where the regulations and medical relief make comjDarison 
 difficult. But the ablest men have now declared their convictions 
 that it is not the in-door but the out-door pauperism that is the sub- 
 ject that most demands attention and reform. 
 
 It does not require anything like forty years to produce these re- 
 sults ; less than forty months, in the opinion of the aforesaid Chair- 
 man, might suffice to make a serious diminution in even the most 
 pauperised unions ; but what makes the difficulties so gt eat is the 
 habits of the people promoted by the present fatuous administration, 
 and the absence of men capable and willing to devote themselves to 
 the work. And, indeed, it is hardly wonderful if few are to be 
 found to give themselves up to the laborious and gratuitous, but at 
 the same time thankless, task of taking in hand a union of some 
 80,000 or 100,000 souls, of whom some 8 or 9 per cent, are already 
 hopeless paupers. 
 
 (3.) Then, with regard to preventive measures, the most pre- 
 ventible and yet most fertile cause of out-relief is sickness, from 
 ueglect of the most obvious sanitary precautions. Therefore, in any
 
 8 
 
 case of more than casual sickness, in any sudden epidemic, attention 
 in this Union is immediately directed to the state of the cottages in 
 question ; and if found, as is usually the case, in a state of palpable 
 uuhealthiness, the notice of the landlord or his agent is at once 
 called to the circumstance; and it generally happens that either 
 through the local guardians, or some other influence, an improvement 
 is made. By this means the death rate in the Union has been re- 
 duced to fourteen per 1000 — one of the lowest in England. And 
 hei'e it might be mentioned that the duties of guardian should not 
 altogether cease when leaving the board. If landlords and clergy- 
 men, guardians and others, would interest themselves a little in these 
 apparently small matters of the economy of life ; if, instead of 
 diffusing direct charity, they would use some active intelligence and 
 sympathy in their own immediate neighbourhood by first serving on 
 boards of guardians and getting to understand the relation of law, 
 and then applying practically sound principles to the elevation and 
 impi'ovement of the poor, they would be the greatest allies a board 
 of guardians, and a chairman in particular, could have in his struggle 
 with pauperization, and make the Poor Law itself a means of raising 
 instead of a mode of degrading a population. 
 
 In many unions it would be desirable to appoint at once a medical 
 inspecting officer for a short time, to examine and report upon 
 sanitary deficiencies, and this more especially in towns where much 
 sickness is produced by neglect of the most simple precautions. 
 
 Much of the success herein recorded was considered by the Chair- 
 man to be due to the perfect harmony and unanimity that reigned at 
 the Board, and to the zeal and activity of the officers. The changes 
 for the last thirty years, both in guardians and officers, have been as 
 slight as is compatible with human life. 
 
 In conclusion, to recur to the question of giving relief to members 
 of benefit societies (in which must be included the members of some 
 that have by a wrong basis of computation broken up), and also in 
 giving relief to applicants who at some time have attempted by 
 deposits in savings banks or otherwise to make some provision for 
 illness or old age, the issue is rather an important one. It is a 
 difficulty which has occurred to most practical administrators of 
 modern Poor Law, and it is a question not yet solved by the circular 
 of the Poor Law Board in 1840, or the letter of January 5, 1870, in 
 answer to Mr. Paget, and the Somersetshire miners, which is given 
 at p. 108 of the Poor Law Report of 1869-70. 
 
 This much, nevertheless, may be said, that, however correct in 
 law, or sound in theory, a system may be which encourages improvi- 
 deuce, or teaches the poor, as they arc being practically taught in 
 nearly every union in England, that any provision they make will 
 disqualify them for relief — which is looked upon often as a sort of 
 right — any such system must, eventually, come to be superseded by a 
 more elevating one, and however perfect, even in principle, it may 
 appear, you must first make it perfect in practice before it can be 
 advantageously adopted. Furthermore, as a matter of principle, is
 
 9 
 
 the essential communism incorporated into our Poor Law itself 
 altogether sound ? Is not the system itself a matter of expediency 
 and compromise, and therefore to be applied as a system of expediency 
 and practical effect? What is the practical effect of this, not what 
 is the strict theory, must be the question answered by the Poor Law 
 Board. 
 
 There is an association, co-extensive with the Poor Law districts, 
 now rapidly spreading over Loudon, and known as the "Society for 
 Organizing Charity and Repressing Mendicity," some of the members 
 of which from the first commencement realized this difficulty, namely, 
 when John Thrift and William Spendall appear before a board of 
 guardians, John Thrift, who has made some provision for himself 
 and family, is sent empty away, but William Spendall, who has 
 never saved a farthing, is provided and cared for by the other rate- 
 payers, and goes home rejoicing to pauperize his friends and neigh- 
 bours. 
 
 This Society, through some of its committees, has attempted, as 
 far as might be in the two or three years of its existence, to reverse 
 this principle. John Thrift is to them a subject for assistance and 
 sympathy, but AVilliam Spendall must look to tiie bare subsistence of 
 the Poor Law. Is it impracticable to introduce such a policy into 
 our present Poor Law? Here is a sort of outline for consideration, 
 quantum valet: — 
 
 (1.) Administer generally your relief on a more liberal scale to 
 those who have made some attempt at provision for themselves than 
 to those who have not, and so set a premium on thrift. 
 
 (2.) As a rule the annuity or allowance of a friendly society should 
 not be directly supplemented, since it ought to be adequate; but give 
 to non-subscribers, ceteris paribus, two thirds only of what members 
 are receiving, or the offer of the workhouse. 
 
 (3.) As a matter of principle and general rule, make it extensively 
 known that those who when able make no provision for themselves 
 will get less favour, if, indeed, any out-relief given at aU. This 
 need in no way be adopted at first as a hard and fast rule, but merely 
 declared as the ulterior practice gradually to be taught to the poor, 
 and the example of a few cases will soon be found contagious. 
 
 (4.) A Government recognition and insurance of all benefit societies 
 that will pass a liberal scale drawn up by actuaries; namely, on the 
 principle that one generation should support another — the young the 
 old. 
 
 A step has already been made in this direction by Mr. Gladstone's 
 Post-office Savings Bank and annuities — but information is at 
 present very scantily supplied to different post-offices. The atten- 
 tion of the Poor Law Board might be called to this. 
 
 And now, finally, as one fact is worth forty arguments, consider 
 these three — three great organized facts or systems working within 
 the cognisance of, and actually in connection with, the Central Poor 
 Law Board,|'and all tending to some better effect than towards 
 improvidence and pauperism.
 
 io 
 
 First. — The administration of tlie Union herein described, where 
 these sort of principles have been practically applied for nearly forty 
 years with this sort of result : — That if pauperism over the rest of 
 England could be brought to the same level, the country and the 
 ratepayers might be saved some 2,000,000/. or 3,000,000/. a year, 
 and according to this experience the poor proportionately benefited, 
 for that is the main point in question. 
 
 Secondly. — The Irish Poor Law where out-relief, except medical, 
 is so strictly administered that the number represents only 1"15 of 
 the proportion so treated in England. These statistics somewhat 
 tally with those of the Union above described. 
 
 Thirdly. — The movement known as the Society for Organizing 
 Charity and Repressing Mendicity, which has now laid itself along- 
 side the Poor Law in London, and is gradually extending itself over 
 the whole country, which, in reversing the present treatment of the 
 poor, and substituting personal service and sympathy for mechanical 
 cash-nexus, is seeking to raise up over England a new system to 
 correct the vices of the old. 
 
 For side by side with a strictly administered Poor Law we should 
 require and desire, especially in towns, a thorough co-extensive 
 administration of localized and organized charity; not that thought- 
 less, easy giving, miscalled charity ; not that vicarious system of 
 paid secretaries, endowments, subscriptions, and sympathy by deputy, 
 that is twice cursed — that curses him that takes and him that gives; 
 no, not that, but hearty co-operation and personal service, with 
 money spent on sound economic five-pei'-cent. principles, such as the 
 improvement of the dwellings of the poor in towns has been shown 
 to be, and with it all an associated power of repression towards 
 vagrancy and imposture. 
 
 To sum up, then, and to repeat the practical causes that have 
 been found in the aforesaid Union to reduce pauperism to a minimum, 
 and out-door relief to the smallest in England, they are these : — 
 
 (L) A strict administration of out-relief. 
 
 (2.) Personal energy, supervision, and sympathy. 
 
 (3.) Sanitary precautions. 
 
 (4.) And last, but not least, a practical reversal of the present 
 Poor Law policy, and a revolution by administration in setting a 
 premium on thrift.
 
 LANDLORDS AND LABOURERS. 
 
 Much has been written and said on the condition of the unskilled 
 agricultural labourer, his wants and his vacancies, his prospects and 
 his drawbacks. His position has been represented on the one hand 
 as hopeless and helpless, on the other hand it has been practically 
 shown that his lot is in many i-espects more eligible than that of the 
 town workman. Meanwhile though governments with expensive 
 commissions, and individuals witli knowledge more or less imperfect, 
 seem to have exhausted the subject, the condition of the rural 
 labourer, especially in parts of the south and west of England, is yet 
 an unsolved problem. 
 
 Since in these set of questions we are nothing unless practical, it 
 should be stated that the suggestions here put forward are founded on 
 what has been practically done by individual and especially landlord 
 influence in a certain agricultural district Avhere wages are not high, 
 and where Pauperism, audits natural concomitantsof misery, improvi- 
 dence, and degradation, were once rampant. Moreover since, under 
 institutions and customs generally similar, we have noAV two totally 
 different states of things existing (as in Northumberland and Devon- 
 shire), it would appear a practical undertaking to endeavour to raise ' 
 up the standard of the worst by the standard of the better. 
 
 Some fundamental facts must not be lost sight of in the considera- 
 tion of such a subject, because they Avill be found, after all that can 
 be said and done, to have an influence for good and evil respectively. 
 Such are, for instance, Race, Soil, and the presence of mines and 
 manufactures. 
 
 First, as to Race or natural constitution of people which, after the 
 lapse of centuries, can still be distinctly perceived in different coun- 
 ties, and that without any very great ethnological acumen. There 
 is the Saxon, or Anglo-Saxon of the south, and the Anglo-Celt of 
 the west ; there is the Danish nationality of the northern counties, 
 and the Gaelic Celt of the Highlands and of Ireland, differing again 
 distinctly from one another. And this distinction, which may be 
 traced in habits, in religion, and even in conversation, has a bearing 
 no doubt upon condition ; the Welsh waggoner will sometimes stop 
 to argue about religion, and the Yorkshire ploughboy turn to a dis- 
 cussion of horseflesh ; the Irish cottier will be garrulous about his 
 potatoes and his family, while the plodding Anglo-Saxon of the 
 south will be eloquent about want of work and wages, and the union 
 workhouse. It is with this Anglo-Saxon of the south that we are 
 now chiefly concerned ; and on this point one rather bold observation 
 has been made, which a practical diagnosis of the country seems 
 partly to bear out; namely, that the line of the Trent nearly divides 
 the prosperous from the ill-conditioned qua agricultural labourers, 
 who being, as it were, at the base of the social polity, are most liable 
 to the effects of what may be called natural causes. 
 
 Then as to soil, it will be found that where the soil is rich, the
 
 1^ 
 
 farms large, and the farmers men of capital, the position of the agri- 
 cultural labourer will be better on the whole than where with small 
 farms and struggling tenants, as in the south-west of England, the 
 labourer is only employed for a few months in the year, and cast 
 adrift to his own resources or the cold comfort of the Poor Law in 
 winter. It is affirmed that in many parts of Hampshire, Berkshire, 
 and Devonshire, agricultural labourers who for eight months in the 
 year have steadily worked for the surrounding farmers, are during 
 many weeks or even months inmates of the workhouse ; or in what 
 will be found an almost equally degraded condition, regular recipients 
 of out-door relief every winter. This is supplementation of Avages 
 with a vengeance ; this is a state of things that cannot but call for 
 the most profound sympathy, and if it were not for practical demon- 
 stration of its unuecessity, for the most profound despair. Then as 
 to the accidental presence of mines and manufactures in a county 
 or district; it will generally be found that by supplying work, and 
 so absorbing almost on the spot the surplus labour, and in a lesser 
 degree by raising the wages and the value of agricultural produce 
 thereby in the neighbourhood, the condition of the labourer is im- 
 proved. The presence of mines and manufactures in the north may 
 be contrasted with their general absence in the south. 
 
 But in addition to these more fundamental and less alterable 
 causes, there are local and incidental reasons which perhaps in an 
 equal or even greater degree affect the condition of the agricultural 
 labourer; and seeing that thei'e is no insuperable difficulty to their 
 correction in any and every district in England, it is to them that 
 more especial attention should be directed — they ai'e chiefly these : 
 A badly-administered Poor Law, aggravated by that pest of the poor 
 man's home, a superfluity of beer-shops ; a want of intelligent and 
 improving landlords, and an absence of all means of investment for 
 the labourers' savings. 
 
 The question of a better administration of the Poor Law, which, in 
 some districts, seems to cause the very evils of improvidence and 
 dependence it should seek to cure, would take too long adequately 
 to go into here, more especially as some of the incidents of the 
 southern counties of England seem almost beyond the power of Poor 
 Law to deal with. It would seem as if labour were in excess, and 
 that migration is the only cure. If the farmers habitually turn oflT 
 their men in the winter, and there is no work for them, although, 
 during the summer months they are required, it may be that mi- 
 gration must naturally correct the overplus, and machinery supply 
 its place. This would have two effects, which the farmers, landlords, 
 and others, should well consider. First, wages would rise, which 
 would possibly be no loss to any one, as it has been often shown that 
 the lowest paid labour is not always the cheapest ; but secondly, the 
 beat men would be the first to migrate. This would soon be felt as 
 a serious and palpable loss in a district, as has practically been found 
 in more than one previously overstocked neighbourhood. But as to 
 the administration of the Poor Law, it may be mentioned that in the 
 district in a west midland county, the practical treatment of which
 
 13 
 
 forms the basis of these suggestions, pauperism ouce extensive, 
 amounting to 6 or 7 per cent., is now, by a judicious administration, 
 reduced to the lowest in England, namely, ^ per cent., while some 
 neighbouring unions, under similar conditions, are hardly reduced at 
 all from their normal level under the old Poor Law of 6 per cent. 
 The chief features of this administration have been great individual 
 supervision, a strict system of out-door relief, considerable regard to 
 sanitary conditions, and generally an attempt to encourage provident 
 habits, and to correct the communistic feeling of the old Poor Law by 
 thrift. As regards the demoralizing influence of the beer-shop, 
 legislation will no doubt shortly give to the magistrates, or some 
 local authority, larger powers than the emasculated measure of 1869, 
 One mode of legislation, not yet much considered, would be to raise 
 the rating qualifications, which would at a stroke do away witlx many 
 of the lower class of beer-shops. But in towns, in neighbourhoods 
 where the beer-shops and public-houses amount to about one for 
 every twenty or thirty grown-up males — not a very unusual pro- 
 portion — it is evident that either the beer-shop keepers or some of 
 the twenty or thirty men must, financially or morally, be ruined ; 
 and every inducement, legitimate or other, will be brought into play 
 to prevent the financial ruin of the beer-shop, especially when temp- 
 tation is so easy, and resistance so hard. This beer-shop and 
 licensing difficulty is the natural result of the Beer Act, an instance 
 of legislation by theory : what was then called free-trade in beer has 
 turned out to be free-trade in vice, and vice, too, now with a vested 
 interest acquired by law. But when actually under the guise of 
 thrift and providence, that is, for the monthly or weekly meetings of 
 a benefit club, labouring men assemble at the beer- shops, the land- 
 lord of which is the manager of the society, it is difficult for the 
 most providently disposed to resist the insidious snare; and seeing 
 that the friendly society, properly constituted, may ultimately be 
 shown to be one chief correction and cure for the low condition of 
 the labourer, you hereby have demoralization and improvidence 
 introduced under the very guise of thrift — the fountain poisoned at 
 its spring. The beer-shop and the benefit society, their antithesis 
 and their confusion, are subjects for the legislator, as difficult as they 
 are important. 
 
 But in the face of these adverse causes, fundamental and incidental, 
 let us see what individualism, qua landlords, can do notwithstanding. 
 Much every wa)^, by residence, by intelligent sympathy, and practical 
 knowledge: — Thus (1.) Cottages and gardens; (2.) Land; (3.) Work; 
 and substitute clubs for beer-shops, economic outlay for charitable 
 doles, and thrift and self-respect for improvidence and dependence. 
 It will not cost much in money, but it will require time and 
 some personal sympathy and supervision. None other can do what 
 a landlord can, neither clergyman nor constable, schoolmaster nor 
 Government; and it is gradually being discovered that among some 
 debased town populations, the relation of landlord and tenant (not by 
 cash-nexus but by sympathy and kindly interest) is the greatest 
 leverage and renovation for some of the poorer classes.
 
 14 
 
 (1.) Cottages and gardens. It will at once be urged that cottages 
 don't pay — nor do they merely as buildings, but what if a large garden 
 be added of half an acre with fruit trees, which may be worth 3/. or Al. 
 beside the dwelling? If a new cottage can be built for about 100^., 
 and with using materials on an estate (such as timber and stone) a 
 two bedroom cottage can generally be built for about that sum, with 
 a garden of half an acre, it might fairly be let for 5/. or even 61. ; 
 deduct from 6/., 15*. per annum for the value of the land, and 5s. per 
 annum for the value of fruit trees planted, and you have a return of 
 51. per annum for the outlay of 100/., or 5 per cent. Where two or 
 three cottages are built together, they might be put up for less, or 
 one extra bedroom thrown in for the same sum. If half the garden 
 be planted with thirty or forty fruit trees (apples or damsons) it will 
 almost pay the rent of the whole. Good fruit trees, after a few 
 years, may be worth from 2s. to 3s. per annum. The labour to be 
 expended on the garden obtained, as it will be at odd hours snatched, 
 perhaps, from the public-house, need not be reckoned in this 
 calculation. 
 
 In the case of an old cottage the return would not be so clear, 
 since the rent of the cottage, as it stands, must be deducted ; but in 
 these cases it will generally be found that the cottage has been run 
 up by some former tenant, and even here by the addition of a garden 
 or allotment, a return of 3 per cent, might be obtained on a new 
 cottage. The money can be advanced by some of the laud im- 
 provement companies at about G per cent, repayable in twenty-five 
 years ; and though a landlord might not be able suddenly to 
 rebuild a number of cottages out of income, he will not find the 
 interest on the money in excess of the return of rent so heavy 
 as to debar him from gradually improving all on his estate ; and 
 against this is to be placed the elevation of the labourer, and the 
 economic necessity of their being housed for the cultivation of the land. 
 There is involved here, however, a slightly complicated economic 
 question. The landlord of farms is obliged necessarily to provide 
 cottages for the labourers on the farm as much as buildings for the 
 farmer. That they must then be looked on practically as part of 
 the landlord's outlay on the farm. When let, as they generally are, 
 at non-remunerative prices, they are actually let in supplementation 
 or part payment of wages ; but in such an arrangement an injustice 
 is done to the other owners of cottages, and yet more to the tenants 
 in the neighbourhood, namely, those built independently of any 
 farm ownership. This ought not, strictly speaking, to be ; a cottage 
 should be made to pay a fair rent, and the mode in which the 
 difficulty is here sought to be solved is, by the garden or allotment 
 system, which is easier to the large landlord than to the smaller 
 cottage speculator. 
 
 (2.) Land. — A great deal that is fallacious and absurd has been 
 written chiefly by theorists and closet agriculturists, about peasant 
 proprietorships, and "la petite culture;" for any one with practi- 
 cal knowledge of the subject is aware that the cottier or petty farmer
 
 15 
 
 endeavouring to live on his small place of ten or twenty acres is too 
 often a warning and example to all who would set at defiance the 
 practical facts of rural economy. It is a deplorable sight to witness a 
 hard-working, industrious labourer, who has saved a little money, 
 endeavour thus to carry on a life of struggle and rags, by depending 
 entirely on the resources of la petite culture ; but under all this fallacy 
 is a germ of truth, thus applicable : If a landlord will allot to a few 
 of his cottages at first (or later to as many as half or more) a few 
 acres of grass land, say from three to five, enough to keep a cow or 
 two, making alivays a previous conditio7i that tlie cottager shall have 
 saved a feio potmds, he will find that the incitement to obtain these 
 small privileges will act most beneficially as an inducement to saving 
 money upon the whole population. He will find, if careful in the 
 selection of his tenants, that no greater natural means of raising the 
 agricultural labourer is to bo found than the granting of these small 
 plots of land. It is at once an investment and a source of income 
 to the cottager, and that at no very great outlay by the landlord ; 
 but these two conditions must be always peremptorily observed. 
 First, the cottager must have previously saved by his own exertions 
 a few pounds, say 10/. or 20/., else ruin and failure will ensue through 
 the accidental loss of a cow, and the absence of previously formed 
 habits of thrift. Secondly, the land must be let to agricultural day 
 labourers, not to petty farmers who design to live or rather starve 
 on the place ; the profits are then made by the wife without inter- 
 fering with the weekly wages of the labourer. As much as 10/. 
 yearly net profit may be made in this way from the possession of 
 one cow, and it is impossible to reckon the amount of self-respect and 
 self-reliance thereby superinduced. 
 
 (3.) Work. — Without going as far as Hampshire or Berkshire or 
 Devonshire, there are few agricultural districts where work is not 
 slack in winter as compared with the summer. Some day machinery 
 may come to compensate the vacuum ; but meanwhile there is a very 
 simple way in which landlords may, on the strictest economic prin- 
 ciples, do much to afford relief. There is hardly a parish or an 
 estate in England where draining, road-making, and other perma- 
 nent improvements are not, more or less, urgently required, and it is 
 in winter that such works may be best undertaken. If landlords 
 would take the trouble, either by borrowing money or more cheaply 
 out of income, to push forward suchiworks in their several neighbour- 
 hoods, very timely relief might be afforded in those cases where 
 labourers are employed only during the summer months, and heart- 
 lessly thrown on the rates in the winter. If it would be an argument 
 or inducement in the case, it might be known that the amount of money 
 spent in rate? could be saved to the ratepayers, but that is a narrow 
 view of the whole question, that ought to be beneath the considera- 
 tion of men in the position of English landlords. 
 
 The great secret of raising the poor is somehow to teach them 
 self-reliance and thrift. If, by reducing the temptation to the beer- 
 shop, encouraging sound friendly societies, and making opportunities 
 for investment of savings as a landlord can, the lesson and example
 
 16 
 
 of thrift is taught, and a premium put on providence ; and at the same 
 time, by a strictly-administered Poor LaAV a discount and a penalty 
 set on improvidence, the agricultural labourer, and equally the town 
 poor, Avill be taught, as it were contagiously, habits of self-reliance 
 and self-respect. We must give men some outlook and hope, some 
 means of investment and natural savings bank if we would wean 
 them from the beer-shop, and make them independent of the fatal 
 communism of the Poor Law. On the estate in question no cottager 
 is taken till he can produce evidence of money saved, if it be only a 
 few shillings, as a test of providence ; and if he then continues to 
 save money, he has the knowledge and inducement that he will be 
 eligible for a cottage with land on the iirst vacancy. In addition to 
 this there is a clothing club established, and in sickness or sudden 
 distress such assistance as medicines or strengthening food, or 
 clothing are given, but only to the members of the club, thus institu- 
 ing another and more inclusive provident test. 
 
 The systematic application of these principles, namely, inculcating 
 and promoting providence and self-reliance among the poor, has been 
 found during forty years' experience to be attended with the very 
 best results in the district in question. Those who too ignorantly 
 assert that there is no prospect for the agricultural labourer but the 
 workhouse, might be surprised to find in this district labourers at 
 11*. per week in the possession of 50/. or lOOZ. in the savings bank. 
 It is hardly necessary to say that such families are quite beyond the 
 reach of pauperism, indeed a pauper is unknown on the estate. Nor is 
 there any prudential check such as is insisted on by Mr. Stuart Mill, 
 nor yet any natural check to longevity — rather the contrai'y ; the 
 death-rate being less than 14 per 1000 ; large families and old age 
 are the rule not the exception, and the one supports the other. 
 
 By sympathy and supervision, not by direct gifts, a beneficial 
 relation has been promoted between rich and poor not uncommon to 
 many country districts, but rarer in towns — and pauperism has been 
 virtually exterminated. There are no demoralizing charities and 
 few beei'-shops — five beer-shops on the estate having been converted 
 into cottages. Little or no money is ever given, but considerable 
 sums have been spent in building cottages, and in draining and other 
 improvements ; and some such work is continually going on in the 
 neighbourhood during the winter. 
 
 Under different conditions, in some respects under greater diffi- 
 culties, these same principles may be, because have been, applied to 
 town populations • and the work carried out so successfully by Miss 
 Octavia Hill in the relation of a landlord in the worst and poorest 
 districts of Marylebone, where whole courts and alleys have been 
 converted from squalid misery into decent comfortable houses, and 
 the money invested has returned a steady interest of 5 per cent, 
 besides a large surplus for repairs and improvements — shows what 
 results are attainable if the intelligence and active sympathy of 
 Individualism be brought to bear upon this otherwise complicated 
 problem. 
 
 HxAD, Hole & Co., Printers, Farringdon Street, and Ivy Lane, E.G.
 
 
 
 
 
 
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