350 0?7 emphyiug the Poor in Parish JVoi'kfiouses\ 



pairing the public roads. Wherever ground can be pro- 

 cured, it would be adviseable to annex to the workhouse a 

 large garden, or sort of garden farm, for raising potatoes and 

 other esculent vegetables, tu be cultivated by the poor. 

 Part of the ground may be appropriated to tlie growth of 

 hemp, tu be manufactured in the workhouse. After hemp, 

 turnips may be sown, as an useful and ameliorating crop. 

 This practice generally prevails amongst the most indus- 

 trious poor in Shropshire. About twenty perches of land 

 thus cultivated will there find employment in spinning for a 

 poor man's wife and children, — at times when other work 

 is not to be procured, — who will !)y their industry furnish 

 him and themselves with decent coarse linen, and pay the 

 rent of his cottage. 



The most general employment which can (more or less) 

 be introduced into all workhouses, and is usefid to ihe poor 

 in all situations, is perhaps that of manufacturing such arti- 

 cles of wearing-apparel, bedding, sheeting, &c. as are ne- 

 cessary and proper for their own use, and that of other poor 

 people. Picking, carding, and spinning wool ; winding 

 yarn; breaking and spinning worsted ; knitting coarse stock- 

 ings ; spinning flax, hemp,, and the refuse or coarse dress- 

 ins>"s, called hurds or hogs ; are all proper employments for 

 such of the poor in parish workhouses as cannot be more 

 beneficially employed in other matters, agreeable to the 

 principles hereby submitted to the Society. The linen may 

 be woven for sheeting, shirting, bedding, towels, stockings, 

 wrappers, &c. or part of it may be woven with woollen to 

 make linsey-woolsey for diflerent garments. Weaving 

 coarse articles is not difficult to learn ; witli a fly shuttle it 

 is perfectly easy. Lobby cloths and girth webs are woven 

 by the blind at the Asylum in Liverpool. Young girls 

 should be taught the use of the needle, so as to enable them 

 to do conmion )epairs,in which they should occasionally be 

 employed ; as also in the domestic business of the house, 

 in order to qualify them for service, as is practised in 

 the Shrewsbury house of industry. In some workhouses 

 I have seen the poor employed in spinning mop-yarn, 

 making mops, spinning shoc-lhread, and winding can- 

 dle- 



