Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/491

Rh POOK LAWS 471 the impotent, was by degrees applied to purposes opposed to the letter and still more to the spirit of that law, and destructive to the morals of the most numerous class and to the welfare of all. The great source of abuse was the relief afforded out of the workhouse to able-bodied persons, a class never intended by the legislation as fit objects. The description of relief was also very objection able. Its most usual form was that of relieving the appli cants either wholly or partially from the expense of obtain ing house room. Partial relief from that expense was given or professed to be given by exempting the occupants of a cottage or apartment from the payment of rates on the ground of poverty, and in a great number of cases by paying the rent out of the parish fund. Relief afforded in money to the able-bodied on their own account or on that of their families was still more prevalent. This was gene rally effected by one of the five following expedients : (1) relief without labour, (2) the allowance system, (3) the roundsmen system, (4) parish employment, (5) the labour- rate system. (1 ) The relief without labour was by the parish giving to those who were or who professed to be without em ployment a daily or weekly sum, without requiring from the applicant any labour. (2) &quot; Allowance &quot; sometimes com prehended all parochial relief afforded to those who were employed by individuals at the average rate of wages of the district, and was sometimes confined to the relief which a person so employed obtained on account of his children, in that case any relief obtained on his own account being termed &quot; payment of wages out of rates.&quot; In some places allowance was given only occasionally or to meet occasional wants, for instance, to buy clothing or food or to pay the rent of a cottage or apartment. Sometimes the income of the poor was regulated by the name of &quot; scales&quot; giving in money the price of so many loaves of bread or of a specific measure of flour, according to the number of the family. (3) The roundsman (or, as it was sometimes termed, the billet, or ticket, or item) system was the parish paying the occupiers of property to employ the applicants for relief at a rate of wages fixed by the parish, and depend ing, not on the services, but on the wants of the applicants, the employer being repaid out of the poor rate all that he advanced in wages beyond a certain sum. According to this plan the parish in general made some agreement with a farmer to sell to him the labour of one or more paupers at a certain price, paying to the pauper out of the parish funds the difference between that price and the allowance which the scale, according to the price of bread and the number of his family, awarded to him. It received the local name of billet or ticket system from the ticket signed by the overseer which the pauper in general carried to the farmer as a warrant for his being employed, and afterwards took back to the overseer, signed by the farmer, as a proof that he had fulfilled the conditions of relief. In other cases the parish contracted with a person to have some work performed for him by the paupers, at a given price, the parish paying the paupers. In many places the roundsman system was carried out by means of an auction, all the unemployed men being put up to sale periodically, sometimes monthly or weekly, at prices varying according to the time of year, the old and infirm selling for less than the able-bodied. (4) As for parish employment, although work is made by the statute of Elizabeth a condition pre cedent to relief otherwise than in the case of the impotent, and it is a duty of the parish officers to provide it, pay ment by them for work was the most unusual form in which relief was administered. Scarcely more than one- twentieth part of the sum yearly expended for the relief of the poor at the period immediately preceding the inquiry that led to the amendment of the law in 1834 was paid for work, including work on the roads and in the workhouses. This was easily accounted for &quot; by many causes, including the trouble and difficulty attendant upon superintendence on the part of parish officers.&quot; (5) An agreement among the ratepayers that each of them should employ and pay out of his own money a certain number of the labourers settled in the parish, in proportion not to his real demand for labour but to his rental or to his contribution to the rates, or to the number of horses that he kept for tillage, or to the number of acres that he occupied, or to some other fixed standard, has been denominated the labour-rate system. This system was generally enforced by an addi tional voluntary rate on those who did not employ their full proportion. As illustrating the difficulties attendant upon providing for the poor, a temporary Act passed in 1832, which has disappeared from the statute book (as founded on vicious notions), may be noticed, applying to parishes where the poor rates exceeded 5d. in the pound. It recited that, notwithstanding the many laws in force for the relief and employment of the poor, many able-bodied labourers are frequently entirely destitute of work or unprofitably employed, and in many instances receive insufficient allowance for their support from the poor rates, and &quot; the mode of providing employment for the poor which may be expedient in some parishes may be inexpedient in others, and it may therefore be desirable to extend the powers of parish vestries in order that such a course may be pursued as may be best adapted to the peculiar circumstances of each parish,&quot; and enabled vestries (without interfering with Gilbert s Act), with the approval of justices at petty sessions, to make special agreements solely for the pur pose of employing or relieving the poor of the parish. The following table exhibits the growth of the poor rate Growth of from the middle of the last century to a date immediately the poor- preceding the reforms effected in 1834: rate. Years. Estimated Population of England and Wales. Expended on the Relief of the Poor. Per Head of the Population.

S. d. 1750 6,467,000 689,000 2 2 1760 6,736,000 965,000 3 1770 7,428,000 1,306,000 3 6 1780 7,953,000 1,774,000 4 5 1790 8,675,000 2,567,000 5 11 1800 1810 1818 1820 9,140,000 10,370,000 11,702,000 12,046,000 3,861,000 5,407,000 7,890,000 7,329,000 8 5 10 3 13 4 12 2 1830 13,924,000 6,829,000 9 9 1832 14,372,000 7,036,000 9 9 It will be observed that subsequent to 1818 there was an apparent diminution in the whole sum expended for the relief of the poor, making a difference of between 11 and 12 per cent. ; but the decline in the prices of the necessaries of life (wheat alone had fallen considerably, more than one-half in one of the intermediate years) was more than equivalent to the difference. The conviction, arising principally from the increase of Commis- the poor rates, that a change was necessary either in the sion of in- poor law as it then existed or in the mode of its administra- tion led to the issuing of a commission in 1832 &quot;to make diligent and full inquiry into the practical operation of the laws for the relief of the poor in England and Wales, and into the manner in which those laws were administered, and to report their opinion as to what beneficial altera tions could be made.&quot; The result of this inquiry was laid before parliament in 1834. The commissioners reported &quot;fully on the great abuse of the legislative provision for the poor as directed to be employed by the statute of Elizabeth,&quot; finding &quot; that the great source of abuse was the out-door relief afforded to the able-bodied on their own