increased virulence, occasioning great mortality in many places. The poorest of the people were chiefly its victims wherever it appeared, but its ravages were partial, many rural districts being exempt from its visitation. Even in some of the populous manufacturing towns it scarcely showed itself, and very few cases occurred in the union workhouses. The regulations promulgated by the Board of Health, with a view to preventing or mitigating this fearful malady, were sent to the several boards of guardians for their guidance under the visitation, and were in general zealously executed, and in some instances anticipated -the union machinery thus proving its efficiency for other objects, irrespective of the administration of relief under the Poor Law.1 of expendi repression rancy. Notwithstanding the prevalence of cholera, and Reduction the incidental charges for sanitary arrangements in ture, and most of the unions, the expenditure was consider- of vagably reduced in the two years following 1848, when, as we have seen, it reached its third maximum of £6,180,765;2 whereas in 1849 the expenditure amounted to £5,792,963; and in 1850 to £5,395,022, being less by £785,743 than it had been three years preceding. The numbers relieved were lessened in proportion, and the evil of vagrancy had likewise remarkably decreased after the promulgation of Mr. Buller's minute at the end of 1848,3 the number of vagrants relieved in 580 unions being or little more than one-fifth of the number to whom relief was administered in 1848, before the minute was circulated-a strong proof of its usefulness, and 1 For statistics of this cholera outbreak, see History of Scotch Poor Law, p. 227. 3 Ante, p. 403. 1850. Number of union officers, and amount of their salaries. of the soundness of the principle on which it was founded. The number of paid officers, and the amount of their salaries in 1846, has already been given, the number of unions being then 591.' The following is a more complete statement of the several classes of paid officers in 1850, and the number of each class employed at that time in 604 unions and parishes under boards of guardians,2 and 30 places under local Acts, together with the total and the average amounts of the salaries severally paid to them : This statement possesses considerable interest, as showing the magnitude and the cost of what may be called the official staff employed in administering to the necessities of the poor in England. The prescribing of the duties, and fixing the salaries of each and all of these officers, devolves, under the provisions of the Amendment Act, upon the Poor Law board, to whom appeals are made in cases of alleged 1 In 1852 this number was increased to 608. 2 Ante, p. 370. 3 Treasurers and collectors are usually paid by a poundage or commission, which is not included in the above. 4 Ibid. misconduct, and who are empowered to dismiss offenders. This power of dismissal is rarely exercised, and never until after a full and sometimes a lengthened investigation; but its existence secures a degree of order and efficiency which, without such a power, it would be impossible to establish among so numerous and varied a body of functionaries. applicable and infirm poor. The amount of the salaries exhibited in the foregoing statement, is certainly large, and when employment is abundant, and all things moving satisfactorily, the workhouse is apt to be complained of. At such times the number of inmates is usually small, for the most part consisting of aged and infirm persons and young children, all of whom might probably be provided for at a less cost elsewhere; so that the workhouse comes to be regarded as an encumbrance, and a source of unnecessary expense. But even with respect to the Workhouse aged and infirm poor, the workhouse is always useful; to the aged for if on attaining advanced age, or being visited by infirmity, each person was to be unconditionally provided for at his own home, all inducement to industry and forethought in early life would be destroyed; and the union would become, as the parish had been in times past, a resort for the spendthrift, and the nursing mother of idleness and improvidence. It is only by coupling such needful relief as humanity and the law require, with conditions in themselves undesirable, or perhaps in some degree repulsive to the recipient, that these consequences can be averted; and this is accomplished by means of the workhouse, the object of tendering which enables the guardians to protect the ratepayers from being unduly burthened, and at the same time to protect the community from what might otherwise operate as encouragement to improvidence. Use of the with regard The foregoing observations chiefly apply to the workhouse workhouse in connection with the relief of the aged to the ableand infirm poor. But with respect to the able-bodied, poor. bodied 1850, 13 & 14 its usefulness, indeed it may be said the necessity for it, is still more obvious and urgent. In the multifarious occupations existing in this country, some are continually subject to stagnation, at times all are more or less so subject; and on such occasions, if persons temporarily out of employment through any cause— whether by a long-enduring snowstorm, as in the cases of Andover and Cuckfield, or by commercial embarrassment, as in the case of Nottingham'—were at once and without condition to be supported at the public charge, it is clear that the burthen might, under certain circumstances, become intolerable, and destructive of all property. The workhouse is a fence against this contingency. If rightly used, it so far repels applicants for relief, as to afford an assurance that nothing short of necessity will lead them to accept it, that all other available means for obtaining support will first have been tried; and if this has been done, and if the necessity be nevertheless urgent, no one will deny that it should be relieved at the public cost, and in the way least likely to occasion its recurrence, or to injure the public interest. Relief in the workhouse fulfils both these conditions, as was shown in the two instances just referred to; and its existence ought therefore to be regarded as a security against a great and possible evil, cheaply purchased at the cost which it occasions, even although the house were to be almost or altogether void of inmates. Indeed it is hardly an exaggeration to say, as a general rule, under ordinary circumstances, that a workhouse may be regarded as being more or less useful, according to the small number of its inmates. The 13 & 14 Victoria, cap. 99, for the better Vict. assessing and collecting the rates on small tenements, is too important an Act to be passed over without notice. Its recital declares that "the collection of cap. 99. 1 Ante, pp. 326 and 327. poor-rates and highway-rates assessed upon the occupiers of tenements of small annual value, is expensive, difficult, and frequently impracticable"; and it enacts that "it shall be lawful for the vestry of any parish, from time to time and at all times, to declare and order that the owners of tenements the yearly value whereof shall not exceed six pounds, shall be rated and assessed in respect of such tenements instead of the occupiers," which order can only be rescinded "by a majority of two-thirds at least of the votes of the persons present at a meeting duly called for that purpose.' But the owner is, in respect of every such tenement, to be rated at no more than three-fourths of the amount at which it would otherwise have been liable to be rated; and the occupiers are to be entitled to the same municipal privileges as if they had been rated and themselves paid the rate. 1851, 14 & 15 Vict. сар. 11. Early in the following session an Act was passed for the better protection of poor children put out as apprentices or servants. Several instances of great cruelty had occurred, showing the necessity of further protection in such cases; and accordingly 14 & 15 Victoria, cap. 11, directs "that where the master or mistress of any person shall be legally liable to provide for such person, as an apprentice or as a servant, necessary food, clothing, and lodging, and shall refuse or neglect to provide the same, or shall unlawfully assault such person whereby his life shall be endangered or his health injured," such master or mistress shall be held guilty of a misdemeanour, and on conviction be liable to imprisonment with or without hard labour, for any term not exceeding three years. A register is like- Protection wise to be kept of every young person under the age children of sixteen, hired or taken as a servant from any work- put out as house; and every young person so hired, or bound or apprenapprentice by the guardians or overseers of any parish or union, is, whilst under sixteen, to be visited at least twice in every year by the relieving officer or some of poor servants tices. |