Page:Pauperization, cause and cure.djvu/10



ERHAPS the most satisfactory way of describing the principles that should regulate Poor Law Belief will be to explain the administration of out-relief in a certain, now notorious, Union; for the management of out-relief has always been the crucial difficulty of the system, and is now acknowledged to be the main question. In attempting to demonstrate such administration as exemplified in the Union of Atcham, in Shropshire, an agricultural district of about 20,000 inhabitants—it may be instructive to state, first two or three facts or principles which will be found to lie at the root of, and to be the key to, the whole matter, and which have certainly been here the main cause of what are now considered successful results.

(1.) The systematic adoption of strict and sound principles in giving out-door relief: the chief one being an attempt to set a premium on thrift and a discount on improvidence, as far as the present Poor Law will allow.

(2.) Personal devotion to the work—a constant unremitting energy on the part of one or two guardians, acting and re-acting on the officials. It is unnecessary to remind an audience of practical men that this minute individual service is the secret and the soul of success in carrying out any such intricate matters as the administration of a Poor Law; and that without such living spirit even the soundest principles become deadened and inoperative.

(3.) Sanitary precautions to mitigate as far as may be that fruitful cause of pauperism, illness from bad drainage, and bad ventilation.

First, then, with regard to out-door relief:—When an applicant comes to the Board, and before he appears there, a minute investigation is made into his circumstances and antecedents, his home is visited, and his family and relations scheduled. Some such course is supposed to take place at most Boards, but in many, such as in London, where the applicants are many and the relieving officers comparatively few, the enquiry is not very thorough. But further, there is required here the earnings of applicant's family, children or relatives able and bound to assist, rent paid, and quantity of land held, state of cottage whether tidy or the contrary, character of applicant, and name of his employer; whether he ever belonged to any club or has ever made any efforts to provide for himself or his family, and if his children have been vaccinated.

If a parent's sons or daughters are earning wages this would be taken into account, and the guardians would consider them bound to