1824.] Plan to restore the London Workhouse to its Original Purposes. i 
their spirits, which before were languid 
and depressed, would be revived, and 
their best energies would be exerted in 
endeavouring to procure their liveli- 
hood in an. honest and respectable 
manner. 
There are also many unfortunate 
persons acquitted at the sessions, or 
dismissed after examinations before 
the magistrates, who are turned adrift 
without shelter or resources. The 
innocent and the guilty are alike aban- 
doned to the world, and of necessity 
become vagrants and thieves. One 
object, therefore, of the proposed insti- 
titution, would be to find active em- 
ployment for persons of this class, or 
to see that they were conducted to 
their respective parishes. 
It may not be unnecessary to ob- 
serve, that the proposed institution 
might be the means of receiving, 
clothing, educating, and otherwise 
employing, vagrant and other children, 
who have no home or legal settle- 
ment. 
In taking a review of the situation 
of the London Workhouse and premises 
as affording accommodation for the 
reception of the houseless poor, it ap- 
pears to me that there is sufficient 
room to make (ata trifling expense) 
suitable classifications for every de- 
scription of persons proposed to be 
received therein: 
4. Those who are in immediate want. 
2. Those sent from the hospitals, or 
discharged from service without notice. 
3. Those sent from the prisons. 
4. Those that may be sent by magis- 
trates as undeserving punishment by con- 
finement in Bridewell or the House of 
Correction. 
‘5. Vagrant, ‘deserted, and houseless, 
children. 
In order to carry into effect the ob- 
ject I have suggested, and to alter the 
present system and government of the 
London Workhouse, it may be requi- 
site to apply.to the legislature for re- 
pealing the Act of the 13th and 14th of 
Charles the Second, chapter 12th, so 
far as regards the workhouse in Lon- 
don, and to grant other and more 
extensive powers; and in that case I 
would recommend particularly, in 
order to counteract the local prejudice 
and apprebension of injury that might 
-be excited in the parish where the 
institution might be established, that 
‘the same, together with such other 
places of a similar description as it 
might be found necessary to appoint in 
other parts of the metropolis, should 
be made extra-parochial; and, as I do 
not propose that such institutions 
should be held out. as a permanent 
abode likely to induce objects to seek 
for reception therein with that view; 
but, on the contrary, as an asylum for 
a time only, until other employment 
can be found for the parties, or they 
can be removed to their respective 
parishes ; I think it would not be diffi- 
cult under the circumstances to procure 
from the legislature a power for the 
governors or managers to administer 
an oath to the paupers and indigent 
with regard to their places of settle- 
ment, which oath should be conclusive 
as relating to the institution; and. the 
governors or managers should be em- 
powered to remove the pauper to his 
parish at the expense of the institution 
in the first instance, but to be after- 
wards repaid by the parish to which the 
pauper may properly belong; and, in 
order to prevent as much as possible 
any vagrant or pauper becoming a 
second time troublesome to the institu- 
tion, or obnoxious to the public, a 
register should be kept, in which should 
be entered the name and description ° 
of every person received into the insti- 
tution, and any particular cireum- 
stance relating to them respectively, 
and the manner in which they have 
been disposed of, and describing the 
parish to which they have been re- 
moved. By this means the governors 
Or managers would be enabled to as- 
certain whether the cause of the pau- 
per’s subsequent reception into the 
institution has arisen from the officers 
of the parish to which the vagrant or 
pauper may have been removed, not 
having properly carried into effect the 
Poor Laws of the country. 
With regard to the government.of 
this institution, I would earnestly re- 
commend, that the same should be 
thrown open to the public ; and that, 
in addition to the Lord Mayor, the 
aldermen, or any given number of 
them, and any portion of the members 
of the Common Council as may be 
thought fit, any person contributing to 
a certain amount should be admitted a 
governor in the same manner as in the 
Royal Hospitals; and, as it is not my 
intention in suggesting this establish- 
ment in the least to interfere with any 
other charitable institution, or to throw 
any impediment in the way of the 
promoters and supporters of those in- 
stitutions, or to which their exertions, 
although they may come within the 
scope 
