714 REPORT — 1889. 



cases until, in the course of tlie year 1870, the labour yard was permanently 

 closed ; (2) in cases of sick men with families, who were relieved usually upon 

 some condition of personal effort to avoid future recourse to the rates for support ; 

 (3) in those of widows with dependent children, who were I'elieved for a strictly 

 limited period pending inquiries as to circumstances and possibilities, and efforts to 

 place them in positions to achieve independence ; and (4) in the cases of the 

 ' aged and infirm,' in which relief was restricted as much as possible to those who 

 gave evidence of thrift, and had no relatives capable of maintaining them ; adding 

 that even these exceptions and limitations became non-existent and unnecessary 

 with the organisation of voluntary charity, which gradually undertook the bene- 

 volent work of saving the reallj' deserving poor from the poor-law. Thus the door 

 of out-relief became gradually closed, and, as a fact, no cases — other than those of 

 urgent necessity, relieved by the relieving officer in kind — have now for some 

 eighteen years been added to the out-door reUef lists. The number of out-door 

 paupers (remnants of a former system) now remaining chargeable is but five — all 

 aged women. The statistical tables appended to the paper showed that, whereaa 

 in 1870 there were in one week 1,419 in-door paupers and 5,339 out-door paupers 

 relieved, in the corresponding week of 1889 tnere were but 1,308 in-door paupers 

 — including 137 imbeciles not previously classified — and 46 out-door — including 38 

 boarded-out children — relieved. In other words, whilst in 1870 79'0 per cent, of 

 the paupers relieved were out-door, in 1889 but 3*4 per cent, were out-door. 

 The cost of relief in money and kind in 1869 was 7,458/., and in 1889, 117/. A 

 further table gave the mean number of in-door and out-door paupers in each of 

 the years 1870-89, from which it appeared that the mean number of in-door 

 paupers in 1889 was 1,303, as compared with 1,311 in 1870; and tliat the mean 

 number of out-door paupers in 1889 was 305 (including 216 lunatics in asylums, 

 41 in receipt of medical relief only, and 40 boarded-out children), as compared 

 with 3,554 in 1870; and, further, that the ratio of pauperism to population in 

 1870 was 61-6 per 1,000, and in 1889, 22-5 per 1,000. The moral results of the 

 system were next referred to in the direction of the improved condition of the poor, 

 in their increased thrift and self-respect, and in the work of voluntary charity 

 being more and more in the form of personal service and less in that of almsgiving. 

 So uniform and strict has become the administration of legal relief, and so well 

 understood is it, that an application for out-door relief is now seldom made to the 

 Guardians. Simultaneous with the restriction of out-door relief has been the 

 endeavour of the Guardians to make their workhouse a ' well-regulated ' establish- 

 ment, and contributory, as far as possible, to character and self-reliance, as well as 

 deterrent to the idle malingerer. In this workhouse every pauper is employed to 

 the extent of his ability and, as far as possible, at his own trade; the Guardians 

 relying upon dissociation and continuous occupation for discipline, and the absence 

 of extra diet for work, however skilled and useful, as a deterrent. The evening 

 hours of the paupers are also usefully and profitably employed under male and 

 female ' mental instructors,' whose aim is generally to exercise a salutary restraint 

 upon conduct and conversation, and to inspire the paupers to renewed efforts to 

 obtain an honest livelihood. Having referred to other departments of poor-law 

 administration, and sought to justify the policy above indicated, the author sub- 

 mitted that the existing system of legal relief does not in itself meet the more 

 pressing needs of the poor, and that the influence of its gi-adual restriction will be 

 found in a corresponding increase of sympathy between classes, and an intelligent 

 study of the many social questions which lie at the root of our pauperism. The 

 work of co-operation was next dealt with, and its importance enforced ; the close 

 co-operation and earnest work of the Charity Organisation Society in dealing with 

 the more pressing needs of the deserving poor being acknowledged, and a plea 

 urged for more voluntary work in our workhouses and infirmaries in the dispau- 

 perisation of those who have fallen by the way, and especially in the restoration to 

 a virtuous life of young fallen women. In conclusion, it was submitted that if, as 

 the result of a gradual abolition of out-door relief in one union, it can be said that 

 in-door pauperism has not thereby increased, that the poor do not rely upon the 

 poor-law as they formerly did, that cases of ' starvation ' are of rarer occurrence. 



