CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE. 



being ultimately set afloat in the world as appren- 

 tices. With regard to illegitimate children, several 

 former provisions of evil tendency were annulled ; 

 and it was provided that no regard should be paid 

 to them till they became actually chargeable upon 

 the parish, when relief should be extended through 

 the mother, she being in this respect treated as a 

 widow. Persons unable to support themselves 

 through accident, or from sudden and dangerous 

 illness, were to receive temporary relief, and to 

 have all necessary medical attendance. Insane 

 paupers were to be placed in proper asylums at 

 the expense of the public. 



The provisions for able-bodied claimants formed 

 the most important part of this Act, as indeed it 

 was in this department that the abuses of the old 

 system were the most glaring. The main feature 

 of the new arrangements was the erection of work- 

 houses by unions of parishes, where relief should 

 be offered to able-bodied claimants, on the con- 

 dition of their giving their labour in return, and 

 submitting to the rules of the establishment. 

 This was only a revival of the test applied by 

 the Act of 1723, the object being to check applica- 

 tions for relief from the slothful, and to throw 

 upon the able-bodied in general the duty, which is 

 everywhere else the lot of free labourers, of finding 

 employment for themselves. The new law con- 

 templated that the food and accommodation of 

 the workhouse should be good and sufficient, but 

 yet not quite so good as those which the free 

 labourers of the district could obtain by their 

 own exertions ; so that it might, upon the whole, 

 be more agreeable to the able-bodied man to 

 work for himself than become chargeable to the 

 parish. At the same time, it being acknowledged 

 that a change from one system to another could 

 not be expected to be suddenly effected without 

 some degree of hardship, provision was made for 

 enabling the administrators of the law to exer- 

 cise a humane discretion in applying the new 

 regulations. 



Some material changes were likewise made 

 in the machinery for the local administration of 

 the poor-laws. The ratepayers elect for each 

 union of parishes a board of guardians, each 

 ratepayer having votes in proportion to his prop- 

 erty, and the proceedings of these boards were 

 under the control of a central board, composed of 

 three commissioners appointed by the crown. 

 Under the chief-commissioners there were twelve 

 assistant ones, each of whom had the inspection 

 of a particular district. 



In the first year of the new system, the com- 

 missioners issued a general order, prohibiting 

 relief in money to the able-bodied in the employ- 

 ment of individuals, thus throwing their entire 

 support upon their masters. In the second year 

 they began, in a cautious manner, in obedience to 

 the spirit of the Act, to put a stop to outdoor 

 relief to the able-bodied meaning labourers who, 

 with their families, are in health, but excepting 

 widows with young children. 



The first effects of the stop put to the allow- 

 ance system were most surprising. The so-called 

 surplus population the hordes of unemployed 

 men who had required to be partially or entirely 

 sustained by the parish funds, who had been con- 

 demned to stand in the parish pound for days, 

 and spend half their lives in a kind of idleness in 

 the parish gravel-pits disappeared as if by magic. 



504 



It was found that, left free to seek employment 

 where it could be had, and furnished with the 

 usual motives to exert their industry, they all 

 obtained employment. On this subject, the 

 earlier Reports of the commissioners gave some 

 valuable information, shewing how delusive must 

 have been those views which held forth the popu- 

 lation as redundant, and as needful of artificial 

 support. The whole evil seemed to be one of 

 derangement. Once disengaged from the tram- 

 mels which confined men to certain spots of 

 ground, and put a bounty upon their remaining 

 idle, the labourers quickly fell once more into 

 natural arrangements, and there was an inde- 

 pendent maintenance for all 



The improved system of poor-law administra- 

 tion enabled the gross expenditure upon the poor 

 to become reduced from .6,317,255, in 1834, to 

 4,044,741, in 1837. In 1856, it again rose to 

 ,6,000,000 ; the sum received from the rate- 

 payers being 8,200,000. During the five years 

 following, the annual amount of relief sunk to an 

 average of 5, 500,000 ; but in 1862, the occurrence 

 of the cotton-famine in Lancashire caused the 

 amount of relief to rise to 6,077,525. In 1863, 

 the amount of relief was 6,527,036. In 1872, 

 the amount of relief was 8,007,403, the total 

 number of paupers (exclusive of children, who 

 numbered 282,851) being 594,154. Large as is the 

 total amount of pauperism in England and Wales, 

 improved poor-law management has prevented it 

 from keeping pace with the increase of popu- 

 lation, the number of paupers at no time since 

 1849 having reached the figures for that year, 

 which shewed a total of 1,088,659 persons, out 

 of a population of 17,534,000, in the receipt of 

 parish relief. In 1834, the amount expended in 

 relief per head was 8s. 9|d. ; from 1835 to 1867 it 

 averaged 6s. per head; but since 1868 the high 

 price of provisions, improved medical attendance, 

 &c. have caused it to rise to an average of 6s. iod., 

 the amount in 1872 being 6s. n^d. The net 

 annual value of rateable property in England and 

 Wales in 1841 was ,62,540,030; in 1847 it was 

 67,320 587 ; in 1850 it was ,67,700,153 ; in 1856 

 it was 71,840,271 ; in 1866 it was 93,638,403; 

 in 1868 it was .100,668,698; in 1870 it was 

 104,420,283 ; in 1871 it was 107,398,242 ; and 

 in 1872 it was 109,447,111. 



The poor-law of 1834 has undergone numerous 

 modifications during the last forty years, chiefly 

 affecting the administrative machinery, the sub- 

 ject of medical relief, the care of pauper lunatics, 

 the management of vagrants, the law of settle- 

 ment, the education of pauper children, and other 

 improvements which the condition of the country 

 for the time being has rendered expedient. By 

 an Act passed December 17, 1847, the commis- 

 sioners were superseded by a controlling board, 

 known as the Poor-law Board, consisting of four 

 members of the government ex officio, and certain 

 commissioners appointed by the Queen in Council 

 In 1867 an Act was passed for the establishment, 

 in London, of district asylums for the sick, insane, 

 and other classes of helpless poor ; of dispensaries ; 

 and for a kind of equalisation of the various local 

 poor-rates, by throwing certain charges on the 

 whole of the metropolis, thus compelling the 

 wealthier parishes to assist in lightening the burden 

 of pauperism in the less affluent districts. To 

 secure the efficient working of the new Act, the 



