Page:The Slippery Slope.djvu/199

 The figures are:—

In spite of the feeding and medical treatment of children by the Education Authority, as large a number of children as before continue to receive relief of all kinds from the Poor Law.

The figures are:—

There is good reason indeed to believe that some at least of these measures tend to feed the Poor Law rather than to atrophy it; any measure which creates pauperism outside the Poor Law must ultimately tend to create pauperism within the Poor Law, which has to deal with the wreckage. A very large proportion of those who have been inadequately dealt with by the Unemployed Workmen Act undoubtedly come back ultimately upon the Poor Law. A return presented to the Royal Commission from a single district showed that of 437 cases assisted by the Distress Committee, 234 were previously known to the Guardians, whilst 81 of them had already reverted to the Poor Law, and these figures may probably be taken as fairly typical of the conditions elsewhere. The Act had at that time only been in operation for about three years, and the number of similar cases must now