Page:Pauperization, cause and cure.djvu/11

5 contribute to the support of their parent according to their ability. No relief is ever given to non-residents; and no out-relief is ever allowed to illegitimate children, nor to deserted wives, whom experience shows are generally in collusion with their husbands.

If the rent of a cottage exceed 4l., relief would only be granted for a short time, in order to allow the pauper to look out for a cheaper dwelling. Should the applicant have more land than a garden, the guardians would refuse out-relief, except medical or temporary, on account of the bad example to the poorer neighbours. Should the bedrooms be over-crowded, except with a man's own family, the guardians might refuse out-relief.

If a man or a woman's character is indifferent, out-relief is generally refused, but in the instance of members of benefit societies the case is always favourably considered. In determining the amount to be given to a member of a benefit society (not sufficiently provided for thereby), this Board, after some scruple, in which the desire to promote provident habits has come into collision with the rule of the Poor Law, have determined, ceteris paribus, to give the members of benefit societies one half they would give to applicants in the same position who were not members. This cannot be considered altogether satisfactory, and it is altogether illegal, but of this more hereafter.

When widows or men with children apply, the Board offer to take part of their family into the house, and though this plan was first introduced in order that the children of widows should receive an education, or in the case of sick men that the ventilation of his home should be improved by lessening the numbers, yet it has proved, rather to the surprise of the guardians, a most efficient test of destitution. It is, in fact, an application of the workhouse test, without breaking up the home; but the children so admitted, are far more carefully seen to than in most Union schools, and according to the reports of the Poor Law inspector, it is one of the best managed in England.

In considering the question of out or in-relief the Board have never been guided by motives of economy, falsely so called, but wholly and solely by principle. "Money is no object to us" has often been the conclusive answer to guardians or applicants who argued for granting some wretched dole that would only have gone to pauperise, or to supplement wages. In the return of expenditure for in-door paupers, it may be perceived that the individual cost is higher than in most unions, thus proving, that as far as money goes, more care and regard are shown than in most unions.

(2.) And that brings us to the personal service and supervision in the whole administration. Very considerable interest has been taken by the Chairman and some of the other guardians in the condition generally of the inmates, and especially in the school. The children are not only taught reading and writing, but they are industrially trained and so fitted for service that there is never the slightest difficulty in obtaining them places; there is, in fact, a local