

POPULATION POOR-LAWS LIFE-ASSURANCE. 



poor-rates. The use of the workhouse as a test 

 of real indigence and inability was thus in a great 

 measure undone, and all its benefits in repressing 

 a pauper population lost. Gilbert's Act may be 

 said to have been the foundation of all the 

 pecuniary oppression to the public, and all that 

 demoralisation of the lower classes for which the 

 English poor-laws were latterly so remarkable. 



Towards the close of the last century, numerous 

 abuses crept into the working of the poor-law 



spirit, which experience has shewn to be the prin- 

 cipal obstacle to the formation of thrifty and self- 

 reliant habits among the labouring poor. Practi- 

 cally, the condition of the humbler portion of the 

 English labouring-classes at this period was a 

 species of slavery. In the pauperised districts, 

 where the labourer's means consisted partly of his 

 wages, partly of- parish allowance, the married 

 labourer was virtually a slave. He ' had no more 

 free-will as to the parish in which he should 



system. In 1795, the price of wheat, which, at an j reside, the master whom he should serve, or the 



subsistence which he and his family should receive, 

 than the horse which he drove. In parochial 

 language, he belonged to the parish in which he 

 had his legal settlement.' 



This most objectionable system lasted with 



average of the three preceding years, was 543 

 rose to 745., without a corresponding rise in wages, 

 and the condition of the labouring-classes con- 

 sequently became one of considerable privation 

 and hardship. Instead of temporary measures 



for getting over a temporary difficulty, one of a ' little alteration for nearly forty years ; but long 



--- - before the end of that time, its moral evils, and 

 the enormous increase of expenditure which it 

 demanded, had excited great alarm, and made 

 England, with regard to this particular part of its 

 domestic polity, a wonder to neighbouring nations. 

 The sum raised for poor-rates in 1776, while the 

 workhouse system of 1723 was still in operation, 

 was only ,1,720,316; in the three years after the 

 passing of Gilbert's Act (1783-4-5), it averaged 

 ^2,167,749. But the average of 1801-2-3 was 

 .5,348,205 ; in 1818, a year of scarcity, it reached 

 the enormous sum of ^9,320,440 ; and even in thj 

 fair seasons of 1830-31-32-33, it was above 8 mil- 

 lion. This was an increase far exceeding that 

 of the population, and the more alarming, as it 

 took place during a period of progressive national 

 prosperity. Almost everywhere it pressed very 

 severely upon the property of the country, and in 

 some places had even caused property to be aban- 

 doned, the rates exceeding all that could be 

 derived from the land. 



The evil being generally felt and acknowledged, 

 a royal commission was issued in 1832 for inquir- 

 ing into it, in order that parliament might apply 

 a remedy. The labours of the commissioners 

 were of an extremely heavy and difficult char- 

 acter ; but within the space of a couple of years 

 they were enabled to prepare a Report of a most 

 comprehensive nature, in which they fully ex- 

 plained the working of the law, its effects upon 

 different classes, and the character of the remedial 

 measures required. The publication of this Report, 

 in February 1834, was followed, in August of the 

 same year, by the passing of an Act, usually called 

 the ' Poor-law Amendment Act,' by which many 

 of the abuses complained of were removed, and a 

 return made to the just principles and practices 

 dictated by the Acts of 1601 and 1723. 



With regard to the impotent poor, the new Act 

 rather increased than diminished the liberality of 

 the arrangements for their relief, while it made 

 several other considerable improvements. The 

 great class of adult persons who, from old age, or 

 infirmity of body, are wholly unable to work, were 

 to remain, as before, entitled to a support by 

 means of outdoor allowances. Of destitute chil- 

 dren, those unlikely, from natural defects, to be 

 able to win their own bread, were provided for by 

 outdoor relief: those, on the other hand, who were 

 likely to prove useful members of society, were 

 taken in charge, and reared in separate establish- 

 ments, where their education and training for 

 industrious callings were particularly cared for. 

 Judicious provisions were also made for their 



603 



permanent nature was adopted. The magistrates 

 of Berkshire in that year issued tables stating 

 what the wages of a labourer per week ought to 

 be, according to the magnitude of his family and 

 the price of the gallon loaf ; directing at the same 

 time the overseers, and others concerned in the 

 management of the poor, to regulate their allow- 

 ances accordingly. The minimum weekly wages 

 of an unmarried labourer, supposing the gallon 

 loaf to sell at is., were set down at 33. ; when 

 married, and having one child, wages were to be 

 at least 6s. ; if he had five children, they were to 

 be at least 1 2s. ; if he had seven children, they 

 were to be 155. In the event of the price of the 

 gallon loaf rising to is. 6d., the wages of an un- 

 married man were not to be less than 45. 3d. a 

 week ; while the wages of a married man with a 

 single child were not to be less than 8s. 3d. ; and 

 those of a married man with seven children not 

 less than 2os. 3d. These regulations, which 

 remind one of the ignorant legislation of the I4th 

 century, were made binding, universal, and per- 

 manent, by an Act passed in the ensuing year 

 (36 Geo. III. c. 23). It cannot fail to be remarked, 

 that it was thus thought necessary to undertake 

 for the labouring-classes some of the simplest 

 duties which they owed to themselves, and to make 

 them everywhere pensionaries upon the public for 

 a considerable part of their subsistence. As an 

 attempt to secure to a portion of the community 

 the same supply of food in scarce as in plentiful 

 years, and consequently to relieve them from the 

 necessity of those retrenchments by which a defi- 

 cient supply is distributed over the whole year, 

 and absolute famine averted, the Act was further 

 liable to be considered as a gross absurdity. The 

 evils of the regulations themselves were increased 

 by peculiarities in the administration, by which 

 the labouring-classes became a means of enabling 

 one class of ratepayers to carry on a constant 

 warfare against the pockets of another. The 

 general evils of the poor-laws were much aggra- 

 vated by the arrangements with respect to settle- 

 ment ; virtually, the labouring-classes were im- 

 prisoned in the parishes of their nativity, or 

 where some subsequent circumstance, as appren- 

 ticeship, marriage, and inheritance, had given 

 them a claim. Thus the population was distrib- 

 uted, not as required by the demand for labour, 

 but as certain accidental circumstances might 

 direct ; and accordingly there were often hordes 

 of useless labourers at one place, and a great 

 amount of labour without hands to undertake it 

 in another. This tended to perpetuate the pauper 



