Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/495

Rh widow is considered as given to her (4 & 5 Will. IV. c. 76, 56) ; but this provision docs not interfere with the liability imposed by the statute of Elizabeth. Further a man marrying a woman having legitimate or illegitimate children is liable to maintain them as part of his family, and is chargeable with all relief on their account until they attain sixteen or until the death of the mother (ibid., 57). A married woman having separate property is liable for the maintenance of her husband and children on their becoming chargeable (45 & 46 Viet. c. 75). The position of illegitimate children and their parents stands on a distinct foundation. By a statute of 1576 (18 Eliz. c. 3) justices were empowered at discretion to charge the mother and reputed father of bastards with their maintenance on the pain of imprison ment in default. The principle of this statute, renewed and not expressly repealed until recently, is carried out now, after receiving repeated attention, especially on the great reform of the poor laws and administration of relief in 1834, by an order of maintenance on the reputed father, at the instance of the mother, or where the child is actually chargeable to a union or parish at the instance of the guardians. Such order is in force until the child is thirteen, and in some instances until sixteen. The main features of the Acts are concisely stated in the article BASTARDY. he The conditions of persons entitled to relief are indicated rigen- by the terms of the statute of Elizabeth. If they fall f b -f e t ~_ within the definitions there given they have right to relief. ef. poor is that the condition of the pauper ought to be, on the whole, less eligible than that of the independent labourer. The pauper has no just ground for complaint, if, while his physical wants are adequately provided for, his condition is less eligible than that of the poorest class of those who contribute to his support. Although a fund has become a practical necessity, it should be always borne in mind that he who claims it is not honest if his own labour and work can suffice to pro vide for his wants. It is as immoral and unjust to take unnecessarily from the industrious and saving by force of a law made and a tax raised for other objects as it would be for a labourer of equal means to pillage and take from the pocket of his fellow labourer. If a state of destitution exists, the failure of third per sons to perform their duty, as a husband, or relative men tioned in the statute of Elizabeth, neglecting those he is under a legal obligation to support, is no answer to the application. The relief should be afforded, and is often a condition precedent to the right of parish officers to take proceedings against the relatives or to apply to other poor unions. The duty to give immediate relief must, however, vary with the circumstances. The case of wanderers under circumstances not admitting of delay may be different from that of persons resident on the spot where inquiry as to all the circumstances is practicable. The statute of Elizabeth contemplated that the relief was to be afforded to the poor resident in the parish, but it is contrary to the spirit of the law that any person shall be permitted to perish from starvation or want of medical assistance. Whoever is by sudden emergency or urgent distress deprived of the ordinary means of subsistence has a right to apply for immediate relief where he may happen to be. Persons comprehended within this class are called &quot; casual poor, &quot; although the term &quot;casuals&quot; is generally used in reference to vagrants who take refuge for a short time in the &quot; casual wards &quot; of workhouses. Various tests are applied to ascertain whether applicants are really destitute. Labour tests are applied to the able- bodied, and workhouse tests are applied to those to whom entering a workhouse is made a condition of relief. ture As to the nature and kind of relief given under the creUef P r laws tlie great distinction restored rather than intro duced by the amendment of the poor-law system in 1834 was giving all relief to able-bodied persons or their families 475 in well-regulated workhouses (that is to say, places where they may be set to work according to the spirit and inten tion of the statute of Elizabeth), and confining outdoor relief to the impotent that is, all except the able-bodied and their families. Although workhouses formed a con spicuous feature in legislation for the poor from an early period, the erection of those buildings for unions through out the country where not already provided followed imme diately on the amendment of the system in 1834. Since that time there has been a constant struggle between the pauper class and the administrators of the law, the former naturally wishing to be relieved at their own homes, and in many instances choosing rather to go without aid than to remove within the walls of the workhouse. Relief given in a workhouse is termed &quot;in (or indoor) mainten ance &quot; relief, and when given at the homes of the paupers is termed &quot; outdoor relief.&quot; The regulations, accounts, and returns to parlia ment, as well as the principles governing relief, are based on these distinctions. It is impossible, however, to apply rigid principles very closely, or rather the exceptions in practice are so numerous that tho majority of resident poor are relieved at their own homes by being supplied with necessaries in kind, or by payment either wholly or in part in coin, as circumstances are held to demand or warrant. The general order is that every able-bodied person, male or female, requiring relief shall be relieved only in the workhouse, together with such of the family as may be resident with such able- bodied person, and not in employment, including his wife residing with him. The exceptions made are where the person requires relief on account of sudden and urgent necessity, or on account of any sickness, accident, or bodily or mental infirmity affecting such person or any of his family ; where relief is required for the pur pose of defraying the expenses of burial of any of the family ; in the case of widows, relief in the first six months of her widowhood when she has legitimate children dependent upon her incapable of earning a livelihood, and has no illegitimate children born after her widowhood. Further relief in or out of the workhouse may be given by guardians in their discretion to a wife or children of an able-bodied man not resident within the union. By the Industrial School Act any child found begging or receiving alms (whether actually or under the pretext of selling or oifering for sale anything), or being in any street or public place for the purpose of begging or receiving alms, or found wandering and not having any home or settled place of abode or proper guardianship or visible means of subsistence, or found destitute, either being an orphan or having a surviving parent who is undergoing penal ser vitude or imprisonment, or that frequents the company of reputed thieves (as also in some other cases recently added), may be sent to a certified industrial school, and while a school is being found justices may order detention for a week in the workhouse. In the metropolis justices have power to cause inmates of dan gerous structures to be received into a workhouse. Besides workhouses, district asylums are provided for the desti- Asylums. tute poor in certain places. Under the Poor- Law Amendment Act, 1844, reciting that it was expedient that more effectual means should be provided for the temporary relief of poor persons found destitute and without lodgings within the district of the metro politan police or the city of London, and in Liverpool, Manchester, Bristol, Leeds, and Birmingham, district boards were established, by which provision is made for such temporary relief and setting to work therein of any poor person found destitute within any such district, not professing to be settled in any parish included in it and not known to have any place of abode there and not charged with any offence under the Vagrant Act. In 1867 under the Metropolitan Poor Act of that year unions and parishes in the metropolis were by order of the board formed into asylum districts, in each of which there is one asylum or more for the reception and relief of the sick, insane, or infirm, under a body of managers partly elective and partly nominated by the board, who build or hire asylums and furnish them, and appoint committees. The attendance at the asylum of a special commissioner of lunacy is provided for. Special provision is made as well for outdoor as indoor medical relief by providing dispensaries and the dispensing of medicines, with regulations for the appointment of medical officers in the district. The necessarily large expenditure for the asylums is principally defrayed by a fund called the metropolitan common poor fund, by contributions from the several unions, parishes, and places in the metropolis. The amount of the respective assessments is deter mined by the local government board according to the valuation lists (noted hereafter) or on such other basis as the board directs, the contribution being enforced by a precept of the board ; and tho bodies called on to pay levy the amount by a rate on occupiers of rateable property in tho nature of a poor rate.
 * &amp;lt;r r e. A fundamental principle with respect to legal relief of the