274 THE RELIEF OF THE UNEMPLOYED 



dependents were young children, who formed 90 per 

 cent, of the whole dependent class. 



Relief was also given by Government in the follow- 

 ing categories : 



(a) Employment at their homes for women who are 

 debarred by national custom from appearing in public. 



(b) Gratuitous relief in poorhouses, chiefly for home- 

 less cripples or casual vagrants, who were drafted on 

 to the relief works when their strength was re- 

 established. 



(c) Gratuitous distribution of relief at their homes 

 to persons who were unable to labour, and were 

 reduced to distress. 



The organization of relief in these three categories 

 was a complicated and delicate task, but it was pri- 

 marily in the nature of charity to enable the recipients 

 to tide over a season of high prices. The central 

 problem was the relief of the able-bodied unemployed, 

 and this was solved upon the large earthworks. 



The cause of the harvest failure of 1896-97 was the 

 premature cessation of the rains in August. In Sep- 

 tember distress began to make itself manifest, and 

 test works were opened by Government. Bundel- 

 khand, which had suffered from a succession of bad 

 harvests, was already in need of assistance. By the 

 end of October evidence of distress became apparent 

 in a considerable part of Oudh, chiefly in the Lucknow 

 division. ' In the Rohilkhand division every district 

 was threatened with partial failure, and in Agra the 

 country outside the canal-protected area had begun 

 to need relief. In parts of Benares and Gorakhpur 

 districts there were forebodings of the scarcity which 

 subsequently developed there, and test works had 

 become necessary. The hill districts of Kumaon, en- 

 joying good harvests, lay outside the sphere of possible 

 distress, and Meerut and part of Agra sat secure in 

 their network of canals. . . . 



' About the middle of November the failure of the 



