Page:History of the Fylde of Lancashire (IA historyoffyldeof00portiala).pdf/490

 country, they were generally hunted out and driven home for fear they should become burdens on rates to which they had no title. Such a condition of things went on with little change for nearly two centuries, but the causes which finally brought about a material alteration in the arrangement of pauper relief will be noticed in the context. The erection of workhouses for the different parishes of the kingdom was sanctioned in 1723 by the legislature, and three years later, as learnt from the following extract out of the minute book of the bailiffs of Kirkham, the inhabitants of that town determined to establish one:—

"22 May, 1726:—Mem. That the town of Kirkham was summonsed from house to house, and the inhabitants unanimously agreed to the setting up of a workhouse."

The act which decreed the building of workhouses for the employment of the poor, stated that if any one refused to enter those houses, or objected to perform his share of labour, no relief should be apportioned to him. There can be little doubt that workhouses sprang up at Poulton and in the other parishes of the Fylde about that date, as well as at Kirkham, but in their cases there are no bailiffs' registers, or similar records, to fall back upon for proof as to the accuracy of the surmise, and consequently we are unable to speak with absolute certainty. In the twenty-second year of the reign of George III. (1782), it was enacted that the guardians of the poor should employ the paupers of their separate parishes in labour on the land at small remuneration, and that the poor rate should be used only to increase the payment to a sum large enough for the subsistence of each pauper thus employed. Country justices, desirous of standing well in the opinion of the peasantry, were not over scrupulous in the discharge of their supervisionary functions, and granted or sanctioned the granting of relief orders without any minute inquiry into the merits of the cases. Immorality was encouraged by an allowance from the poor-rate to the mother for each illegitimate child. Practical responsibility for the proper administration of the fund rested on no one, and about 1830 "the poor-rate had become public spoil, the ignorant believed it an inexhaustible source of wealth, which belonged to them; the brutal bullied the administrators to obtain their share; the profligate exhibited their bastards, which must be fed; the idle