GREAT BRITAIN. 



321 



time to come. Just at the close of the year 

 1869, a meeting was held in London under the 

 presidency of the Lord Mayor, for the purpose 

 of devising ways and means for promoting and 

 greatly enlarging the emigration to the United 

 States and the British colonies. At this meet- 

 ing, it was stated hy Sir James Lawrence that 

 there were hundreds of thousands of people 

 who would be glad to avail themselves of help 

 to emigrate to Canada, Australia, or the Uni- 

 ted States, on condition of afterward repaying 

 the amount advanced to them. The Lord 

 Mayor said that there were between TO, 000 

 and 80,000 skilled artisans who could not at 

 this time find employment in England, and 

 added that he felt that the sending of skilled 

 laborers out of the country was sending away 

 the very best portion of the community, but 

 there was no alternative, they must either re- 

 move them or starve them. The rate-payers 

 are so heavily oppressed by the constantly-in- 

 creasing poor rates, that they declare that un- 

 less relieved they must soon become paupers 

 themselves. 



Pauperism in the United Kingdom. The 

 increase of pauperism since 1866 has been 

 alarming. There had been a period of great 

 distress from the dearth of cotton, culminating 

 in the winter of 1862-'63 (see ANNUAL CYCLO- 

 PAEDIA for 1863), but from that time until the 

 autumn of 1866 there had been a fair amount 

 of prosperity among the working-classes. The 

 financial panic of that year, and the subsequent 

 extreme fluctuations in the price of cotton, 

 wool, silk, and other raw materials, have con- 

 tinued to exert a malign influence upon manu- 

 facturing, and the number not only of unskilled 

 but of skilled laborers who are only kept from 

 starvation by the aid received from the Poor- 

 Law Unions is one of the most serious difficul- 

 ties with which the statesman is called to grap- 

 ple. "When one-tenth of the entire population are 

 in receipt of temporary or permanent relief from 

 the constituted authorities, aside from the aid 

 afforded by private charity, and when a very 

 considerable proportion of this pauperized class 

 are skilled workmen of various trades, there is 

 ground for suspicion of wrong policy some- 

 where. In the year ending on Lady's Day 

 (about the 20th or 25th of March), 1866, the 

 entire number receiving permanent parish re- 

 lief from the poor-law guardians in England 

 and Wales was 920,344. Of these 149,320 were 

 able-bodied paupers, and the remainder not 

 able-bodied. In 1867 the number was 958,824, 

 and the proportion about the same. In 1868 

 it had risen to 1,034,823, of whom 185,630 were 

 able-bodied. In 1869 the number was 1,039,- 

 549, and 183,162 were able-bodied. But these 

 numbers do not include vagrants, nor the so- 

 called casual poor, to whom temporary re- 

 lief is given. In this class (divided into in- 

 door and out-door relief) are included the 

 greater part of these unemployed workmen. 

 A report laid before Parliament in June, 1869, 

 gives the number of these for each year pre- 

 VOL. ix. 21. A 



ceding that ending in March, 1868. For the 

 year ending March, 1869, the returns were not 

 received. For the year ending March, 1868, 

 the number receiving in-door relief was 150,- 

 040 ; those in receipt of out-door relief, 842,- 

 600, giving a total of 992,640, and making with 

 the other paupers of that year a grand total 

 of 2,027,463 for England and Wales alone. The 

 amount expended for the relief of these de- 

 pendent classes alone, in that year, was 8,- 

 108,829=$40,544,145. That these figures, large 

 as they are, have been materially increased in 

 the nearly two years which have since elapsed 

 is the concurrent testimony of all those who 

 have had occasion to examine the condition 

 of the poor in Great Britain. 



In Scotland the latest return of paupers and 

 dependants is to the 14th of May, 1868, and 

 gives the total as 128,976, exclusive of the 

 casual poor and vagrants, whose number is not 

 given. If these bear the same proportion to 

 the permanent paupers which they do in Eng- 

 land, they should make the grand total about 

 222,000, and would make the ratio of the de- 

 pendent poor to the whole population about 

 one to fourteen. 



In Ireland the returns are for the year end- 

 ing February 20, 1869, but are obscure. We 

 gather from them that in that year 288,953 

 were relieved in the work or almshouses, and 

 19,624 receiving out-door relief. Elsewhere 

 they state that medical out-door relief was fur- 

 nished, during the year, to 767,759 cases, or 

 about one in every eight of the population. The 

 vagrancy which is so common in Ireland seeks 

 relief generally in begging, and hence the va- 

 grants are not on the books of the poor-law 

 unions to any thing like the extent that they 

 are in England. 



Statistics of Crime. The number of persons 

 committed for trial for felony in England and 

 Wales, in 1868, was 20,091; of these 15,033 

 were convicted, and 5,015 acquitted. In con- 

 vict prisons on the 1st of March, 1869, 6,920 

 male convicts, and about 1,300 female convicts. 

 Aside from these there are a very large num- 

 ber arrested, tried, and convicted on summary 

 process (in police courts, and before county 

 or borough magistrates). These summary 

 convictions amounted, in 1867, to 335,339, out 

 of 474,665 persons proceeded against. There 

 is no reason to suppose that the number was 

 less in 1868. In 1867 there were 167,252 per- 

 sons in prison on the 29th September, and 145,- 

 184 had been committed to prison during the 

 year. There is but slight variation in these 

 aggregates from year to year. There were on 

 the 1st of January, 1869, 64 reformatory and 

 industrial schools in Great Britain (exclusive 

 of Ireland), and 6,248 children in them. The 

 annual expense was 121,697=$608,485. 



In Scotland, in 1868, there were 3,384 per- 

 sons charged with criminal offences, of whom 

 2,822 were tried, 2,490 convicted, and 297 ac- 

 quitted. This was exclusive of summary trials 

 by police justices and burgh magistrates. How 



