TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. 713 



that ' frightful formula,' the percentage of passes. With absolute freedom to the 

 localities as to the curriculum best adapted to the requirementa of their children, 

 aud with entire liberty of classification to the teachers, we may hope for real 

 improvement in our methods of teaching, and reeiilts which will be truly valuable 

 to our industrial population. 



TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17. 



The following Papers and Reports were read : — 



1. On the Rate of 'production of Coal during the f resent Century, 

 By Professor Edward Hull, LL.D., F.B.S. 



2. Poor Laiv Progress and Reform, exemplijied in the Administration of an 

 East London Union. By William Vallance. 



After an introductory reference to the still unsolved problem of poverty, and to 

 the varied activities which have been called forth to stem the tide of human 

 misery, the author said that nowhere was there, side by side with a sound policy 

 of poor-law administration, more personal and practical interest in the well-being 

 of the poor, a larger measure of co-operation between legal relief and voluntary 

 charity, and a fuller recognition of the responsibilities which attach to churches 

 and religious organisations in relation to service for the poor, than in the East End 

 of London. Popularly regarded as a district of the metropolis in which wretched- 

 ness and criminality abound, it was yet strangely true how little the condition of 

 its poor differed from that of other centres of population. Upon the basis of Mr. 

 Charles Booth's tables, he stated roundly that in the Whitechapel Union the 

 * lower and upper middle classes ' number 6j per cent. ; the ' regular weekly 

 workers ' 71 per cent. ; the ' irregular and casual workers ' li'A per cent. ; and the 

 lowest class, which include * loafers ' and the criminal or semi-criminal classes, 

 but 3^ per cent. — figures which went far, he thought, to modify the general con- 

 ception of its horrors. In this district the administrators of legal relief could now 

 take a retrospect of twenty years' resolute adherence to sound principles of relief, 

 and see moral consequences far outweighing statistical, or fin.ancial, results. Up 

 to 1870 the relief system had been that of vicariously dispensing small doles of out- 

 door relief; the in-door establishments being reserved for the destitute poor who 

 voluntarily sought refuge in them ; able-bodied men out of employment being set 

 to work in a labour yard, and relieved in money and kind. Under this system the 

 administration was periodically subjected to great pressure, the aid of the police 

 being frequently invoked to restrain disorder, and to protect persons aud property 

 of the Guardians. The experience of the winter of 18G9-70, however, was such as 

 to lead the Guardians to review their position, and earnestly to aim at reforming a 

 system which was felt to be fostering pauperism aud encouraging idleness, impro- 

 vidence, and imposture, while the 'relief in no true sense helped the poor. It 

 ■was seen that voluntary charity largely consisted of indiscriminate almsgiving, 

 that it accepted no definite obligation as distinct from the function of poor-law relief, 

 that the poor-law was relied upon to supplement private benevolence, that the alms- 

 givers were too frequently the advocates of the poor in their demands upon the public 

 rates, and that botli poor-law and charity were engaged in relieving a dL-^tress much 

 of which a thoughtless benevolence and a lax poor-law administration had created. 

 They looked forward to the ultimate possibility of laying down a broad distinction 

 between ' legal relief and ' charitable aid,' and of interpreting the former as relief 

 in the workhouse or other institution, and the latter as personal sympathy and 

 help. The author then traced the processes of restriction (1) in 'out-of-work' 



