1809.] 
granting relief contrary to the statute is 
now become a general practice; but if, 
by a combination of parishes, one cen- 
tral place were established, where a con- 
venient stock of flax, hemp, wool, thread, 
iron, and other necessary ware, and stult 
as directed by the statute, were always at 
hand, for setting to work all the able 
poor children and adults, of the sur- 
rounding parishes, who apply for reliet, 
we should soon get rid of a prodigious | 
number of trespassers on the poor’s tund. 
Money relief would then cease, ‘but to 
those lawfully entitled to it, the sick, 
blind, cripples, &c. and want of work 
would no longer be a pretence for asking 
Rte 
the Act of Eliz. in respect of finding em- 
ployment for the able paupers, seems to 
have given rise to the Act 9 Geo. |.c. 7, 
whereby it was enacted, that parish 
workhouses might be established 14 sin- 
gie or united parishes, and their poor be 
maintained under contract; and that 
where such workhouses are established, 
the parish-officers may contract for the 
maintenance of the poor of other parishes. 
But what has been the consequence? 
The generality of these workhouses, 
3765 10 number, have no means of regu- 
lar employment; in, others, the works 
carried on appear to have produced no 
profit worthy of notice. Of this we have 
sufficient evidence from the abstract of 
returns, where the net earnings of all the 
workhouse poor, in number 83,468, are 
stated at a sum which, on an average, 
amounts to about a farthing per head darly; 
but if we reject the unable part of them, 
we shall have, at the least, 50,000 able, 
in a greater or less degree, who, if pro- 
vided with proper means of work, and 
buckled to it, as Lord Bacon says, would 
have earned individually from 4d. to 
6d. in the same time, more than eight 
times as much as appears to have been 
earned by such reduced number; and 
when we consider that the earnings of 
the in-poor of incorporated parishes, and 
of the better regulated single ones (of 
which one of the best examples may be 
found in that of Boldre, Hants*, where 
children, even of four and five years of 
age are employed), produced the greatest 
part of these earnings, we must con- 
clude, that the inmates of very many of 
our common workhouses are kept ina 
state of positive idleness. The earnings 
* See Gilpin’s Account of the New Work- 
house at Boldre, Hampshire. 
Montuity Mag. No. 184, 
Observations on the Poor Laws. 
Workhouses.—The difficulty of fulfilling 
593 
of those poor, who are maintained under 
contract (those of 293 parishes) go to 
the contractor, and therefore are not 
brought to account, Were these earn- 
ings faithfully reported, it would enable 
us to judge, pretty accurately, what 
prolit may be expected from a general 
and diligent employment of ou: able 
paupers; for, without doubt, these con- 
tractors exacted the fuil condition of 
their bond. | oe 
It was certainly never intended by the 
Act ofthe 43d of Mhz. that the able poor . 
should be placed among the unable, in 
places like our parish-houses. he able 
pauper, in need of relief, was to be found 
in fit materials by the overseer, and set 
to work, and the impotent poor were to 
be relieved according to their necessity ; 
neither did it intend, that many of the 
latter should be crowded together in large 
workhouses, in towns; but if they were 
furnished with a parish abode, it was di- 
rected to be “ in cottages, convenient 
houses of dwelling, to be built on wastes 
and commons, parcel of the parish, with 
consent of the lord of the manor, at the 
parish expence;” and although two or 
more families were allowed to be placed 
in one cottage, yet it could never be 
meant, that many - of these impo- 
tent people should be associated there 
together, though this would be, per- 
haps, less irksome to them, than being 
intermixed with an equal or greater num- 
ber of younger inmates. It is certain, 
that one great cause which some elderly 
people have expressed against going into 
our present workhouses, has been on ac- 
count of the diversity of ages and cha- 
racters of the inmates, from some of 
whom they are led to apprehend mock- 
ery and ili-usage, and therefore often en- 
dure the rigors of nakedness, hunger, and 
cold, rather than submit to be so ill- 
associated. If we contrast with this 
antient mode of disposing of the aged and 
impotent poor, who required a parish 
residence, our modern workhouse plan 
of huddling them iato a contracted house 
of confinement, with others of all ages 
and both sexes, mingled promiscuously 
together, and maintained in idleness, we 
certainly cannot compliment the wisdom 
of our own times, as superior to that exhie 
bited, in this respect, im the 43d year of 
Elizabeth; nor even in the houses of in- 
dustry of incorporated pavishes, which 
are, in general, conducted in an exem- 
plary manner, can we see any mark of 
prudénce or propriety in combining with 
those, who are properly placed there, such 
3A as 
