of the country, were tried by a winter of peculiar severity which seriously impeded the labour of the country, and by the extensive prevalence of the influenza which afflicted great numbers of the labouring classes. The fourth year was distinguished by extensive reverses in trade, and severe depression in the manufacturing districts, which threw out of employment for a time the greater portion of the labouring population of several manufacturing towns; and this fifth year has been one of scarcity of food, and consequent high prices of provisions." These were trials putting to proof the soundness of the new law, and the sufficiency of its machinery, as well as testing the strength and resources of the country; and happily, both sustained the ordeal. That the law was upheld has been already shown; and that the condition of the labouring classes was not materially depressed or deteriorated by these trying circumstances may, independently of other evidence, be inferred from the fact, that between the 20th of November 1837, and the 20th of November 1838, there had been an increase of more 1838. than 50,000 depositors in the savings banks, and an deposits in increase of above £1,800,000 in the amount of deposits banks and as compared with the year preceding, the increase being and loan greatest in the rural districts. The number of friendly societies, and loan societies, had also considerably increased, as had likewise the purchase of government annuities of small amounts, expressly designed for the industrious classes.1

Increase of

savings

friendly

societies.

of pauper

Much attention had from the first been paid to the Education education of the workhouse children, it being rightly children. considered that if the lowest class of children were well trained and educated, it would be a sure means of bringing about improvement in the education and training of the classes immediately above them. Many pages of the fifth report are devoted to this subject,

1 See Fifth Report of the Poor Law Commissioners, p. 12.

and the Commissioners declare their reliance on "an improved industrial training as the chief available means for reducing the existing burthens, by changing the condition of the great numbers of pauper children, the descendants of former generations of paupers the test of such education and training being, they consider, "the number of the children so trained who are taken into honest and useful industrial courses, and remain in them as good servants or good workmen." This test was successfully worked out and applied in the case of a large school at Norwood, whither several of the metropolitan parishes and unions sent their children, to be kept or "farmed" at so much per head. The great number of children maintained in this establishment (upwards of 1000), afforded facilities for teaching and training them in classes or divisions, according to their age and progress, and the system there matured was afterwards adopted in other places, when the number of children was sufficient to admit of it.

of

poor

The subject of education is again adverted to in a supplemental report at the end of 1839, where it is stated that there are 42,767 children under the age of sixteen, in 478 workhouses, and that the total number poor children under sixteen is estimated at 64,570, and between the ages of two and sixteen years 56,835. The importance of securing a good religious, moral, and industrial education for this large number of poor children, is sufficiently obvious, and the Commissioners give a detail of the steps taken by them for the purpose. They arrive at the conclusion however, that as the number of children of both sexes and all ages in a workhouse, rarely exceeds 50 or 60, and sometimes does not amount to more than 20 or 30, so small a number cannot be divided into classes, or instructed in the most advantageous manner; and therefore, that it would be desirable to empower the Commissioners to form a combination of unions, for jointly educating

their pauper children, under a board of management to be elected by the several boards of guardians so combined. This power was afterwards given, but it has been less acted upon than was anticipated, the difficulties in the way of such combinations for educational purposes being very great. Meantime however, the workhouse schools have been much improved, and the instruction imparted in them appears on the whole satisfactory, although it is doubtless more costly than if the children were collected into groups of 500 or 1000, and it is probably also less effective.

mental

At the end of 1839, the Commissioners, by desire Suppleof the government, prepared a supplemental report Report. on the continuance of the Commission, and on the state of the law. With respect to the first, the Commissioners refer to the report of the parliamentary Committee, which in the years 1836, 1837, and 1838, made inquiry into the administration of the Amendment Act, and declared the powers of the central board to be indispensable to the execution of the law. They also cite the Committee's declaration, that "when the extent of the change, the number of individuals, and the variety of interests affected by it are considered, it is impossible not to feel that the task imposed on the Poor Law Commissioners was one of the utmost difficulty"—and further, that the arrangements made by them were generally skilful and judicious, and well adapted to local peculiarities; and that in no instance did their powers appear to have been abused.1 The Committee's favourable opinion "of the clear form in which many of the regulations and public documents are issued by the Commissioners, as well as of the practice hitherto pursued by them of stating fully in

1 See Report of the Special Committee of the House of Commons on the Administration of the Poor Law Amendment Act, 1838.

their letters of instruction, and answers to inquiries, the facts and reasonings on which their rules or recommendations are founded," is also quoted; as is likewise the resolution finally adopted by the Committee— "That in the important duties committed to them, the Commissioners have evinced zeal, ability, and great discrimination; and the Committee recommend the continuance of their power in preference to any system which, by leaving the administration of the Poor Laws without the control and superintendence of a central board, might cause the recurrence of those abuses which existed in many counties previously to the passing of the Poor Law Amendment Act." Such a testimonial, after a searching and protracted inquiry, and the examination of witnesses from all parts of the country, ought to have secured general acquiescence.

There were however special grounds for the continuance of the Commission, independently of the Committee's recommendation, as 799 parishes, with a population of 2,055,733, had not yet been brought under the new system, but either stood singly or were included in Gilbert or local Act incorporations. Seventy of the Poor Law unions were also still without workhouses, and other unions recently formed required advice and guidance to bring them into a state of efficiency. Moreover, regulations had not been prepared for the apprenticing of pauper children, and the arrangements for their education were yet imperfect. Relief was still laxly administered in many unions, notwithstanding the reduction which had been effected in the general expenditure; and no steps had yet been taken for constituting unions for rating and settlement, under the provisions of the Poor Law Amendment Act,' as the legislature doubtless intended should be done. These were the principal reasons adduced by the Commissioners in their supplemental report, for 1 See 4 & 5 William IV. cap. 76, secs. 33 to 37.

a continuance of their office; but they further observe that the Commission was originally intended to be permanent, and that the limitation was inserted during the progress of the Bill through parliament, for the purpose of subjecting the proceedings under it to a revision at the end of five years, and not with an intention that the Commission should terminate at that time, or that such a limitation should continue.

The supplemental report here describes the nature and extent of the business transacted by the Commission, and among other things, it is stated, that questions on points of law connected with the relief of the poor are continually submitted to the Commissioners, whose opinions and advice were generally acquiesced in, and contributed materially towards the reduction which had taken place in law proceedings since 1834; the amount expended on litigation and removals in that year having been £258,604, whilst in 1839 it was only £64,510. The difference in one year's expenditure therefore on this item alone, more than covered the entire expense of the Commission during the first five years of its existence.1 And it is further remarked, that under the former state of things, upwards of £7,000,000 were annually raised and expended by local functionaries, subject to little or no control or responsibility, whilst various contrivances for confounding relief with wages were resorted to by the employers to the eventual degradation of the labourer, the consequence of which perversion of natural relations was seen in the agrarian disturbances and burnings of 1830 and 1831. Although the amended law had been in operation only five years, these evils no longer existed. Relief in aid of wages was abolished, except in a few unions having as yet no workhouse. All the

1 The entire cost of the Commission from the 18th of August 1834 to the 31st of March 1839 (including £3613, 17s. 7d. for Ireland) was £182,679, 11s. ld.