Page:The reports of the Society for Bettering the Condition and Increasing the Comforts of the Poor (IA b21971961 0001).pdf/66

34 and exertion that he possessed before he went in.

It is further to be observed, that as the farmers pay a certain and limited rate to the corporation, which cannot be raised, they care very little about the poor; and they frequently send whole families into the house, who might with a little assistance support themselves out of it. Besides this, the separating their children from them destroys all natural affection, and often occasions a wish that it would please God to take the child, instead of their being compelled to send it into the house of industry.

Of the five hundred persons in the house, about half are children under fourteen years of age. At that age the children are ballotted on the farmers or tradesmen (keeping servants) for one year: who are compelled by the act of parliament to take them, or pay £.10: but at the end of that year it happens that many return to