Chapter XIV: Act 1898: ; or (iv.) a parent of the child has been sentenced to (2)

In some instances, even if their bodily ailment is very slight, they sleep in the sick wards in order that they may come under the supervision of the nurses, and they frequently disturb other patients at night. By day they are a source of much irritation and annoyance, and in a small workhouse I have known the lives of a number of old men made seriously uncomfortable by a mischievous idiot for whom no place could be found in an asylum.... I am much afraid," prophetically continued Mr. Preston-Thomas, "that ... the question will be postponed indefinitely, and six or eight years hence the idiots will still be worrying the sane inmates of workhouses.... It is in the country workhouses, sometimes with only a dozen imbeciles or less, divided among the sexes, that the chief difficulty arises.... A good many are often found useful in the laundry and other domestic work of the institution, but I do not think this consideration ought to outweigh what may almost be characterised as the cruelty of requiring sane persons to associate, by day and by night, with gibbering idiots."[731] When the Select Committee on the Bill to establish Cottage Homes for the Aged Poor in 1900 strongly recommended the removal of all imbeciles from workhouses, the Central Authority, observing that the advisability of this step had been repeatedly brought to its notice by guardians and others, declared that the question must be deferred.[732]

[731] Mr. Preston-Thomas's Report, in Thirtieth Annual Report,
1900-1, pp. 122-3.

[732] Circular of 4th August 1900, in Thirtieth Annual Report,
1900-1, p. 18.

_G._--DEFECTIVES

For the first twenty years after 1871 there is no alteration of policy to record with regard to defectives. In fact, the Central Authority does not seem to have paid much attention to this class, whether mentally or physically defective, during this period. It enjoined no policy for the treatment of them till 1891. A Circular on "Blind and Deaf and Dumb inmates of Workhouses" then required the inspectors to "continue to give special attention" to children among this class, and urge their removal from the workhouse when desirable. It was held that the guardians might, if they chose, pay the whole of the maintenance of deaf and dumb children sent to appropriate institutions. No limit has been fixed, but in no case has more than £20 a year been sanctioned.[733] Adults also were to be given instruction in reading and writing, if able to profit thereby, and if such instruction could not be provided in the union, they might be sent, under contract, to the workhouse of some other union where teaching might be available, either in the workhouse or in the town. It is also suggested that arrangements might with advantage be made for reading aloud to the aged blind in the workhouse. But it was held to be illegal to pay for the technical instruction of blind workhouse inmates at a non-Poor-Law institution.[734] From 1903 onward, however, we have the almost dramatic extension of the scope of the Education Authority with regard to defective children of all kinds--a change which has already gone far to transfer responsibility for the treatment of the blind, the deaf and dumb, the crippled, the epileptic, and the mentally defective children up to sixteen from the Poor Law to the Education Authorities. The first step was the Act of 1893, which required the local Education Authority to provide education for blind and deaf children; but children sent to any institution from the workhouse, or boarded out by the guardians, were expressly excluded.[735] In 1899 similar provision was made for defective and epileptic children; and the guardians were authorised to arrange with the Education Authority to take over Poor Law cases on payment.[736] Under these Acts provision is more and more being made, especially in London, for the education, treatment, and even (where requisite) maintenance in educational institutions of these children up to sixteen.

[733] _Selections from the Correspondence of the Local Government
Board_, vol. i 1880, p. 53; vol. ii. 1883, p. 281; vol. iii. 1888,
p. 102.

[734] _Ibid._ vol. iii. 1888, p. 101.

[735] Elementary Education (Blind and Deaf Children) Act 1893 (56
and 57 Vic. c. 42).

[736] Elementary Education (Defective and Epileptic Children) Act
1899 (62 and 63 Vic. c. 32).

In 1903 a Special Order provided for the transfer, from the Metropolitan workhouses to the special homes of the Metropolitan Asylums Board, of children who, without being certified as of unsound mind, were mentally defective; and for their retention in such homes until twenty-one years of age.[737] We do not find any corresponding provision with regard to the mentally defective children outside the Metropolis; or for the mentally defectives beyond sixteen years of age. In the rural workhouses, at any rate, which make up three-fourths of the whole, it would seem that in 1907, as it was officially reported in 1879, these mentally defectives, together with "the imbeciles, are more or less mixed up with the ordinary inmates of the class to which they belong."[738]

[737] Special Order of 4th March 1903; Thirty-third Annual Report,
1903-4, p. ci.

[738] Mr. Courtenay Boyle's Report, in Eighth Annual Report,
1878-9, p. 120.

In recent years we see the Central Authority willingly sanctioning special provision for individual cases. Thus, special assistance may be given for starting in trade persons handicapped by their infirmities. In one case, the Board sanctioned the purchase of tools for a blind man who had been taught a trade.[739] In another case, "an adult having become incapacitated by reason of accident from again following his usual occupation, the guardians were desirous of paying a premium in consideration of his being taught a trade which the nature of his infirmity would not prevent his carrying on. On the proposal being submitted to the Local Government Board, the Board observed that as the person was too old to be bound as an apprentice, there was no authority for the payment of the premium, but they suggested whether the difficulty might not be overcome by out-relief being granted during the period of learning."[740]

[739] _Local Government Chronicle_, 29th November 1902, p. 1203.

[740] _Ibid._ 6th December 1902, p. 1225.

A third instance is given as follows: "A boy, aged sixteen years, has been a pupil at an institution for the blind, the fees for his board and education having hitherto been paid by the said board [of guardians] under the Elementary Education (Blind and Deaf Children) Act 1893. The boy is desirous of competing for a scholarship of the value of £40 a year from the Institution for the Blind in London; total fees, £60 a year. The guardians wish to contribute £13 a year, the father, who earns on an average £2:2s. a week, being willing to pay the balance of £7, in addition to travelling expenses and outfit. The Board hold that the guardians can, assuming the boy is in need of relief, carry out their proposal under 30 and 31 Vic. c. 106, sec. 21."[741] An interesting feature of this case is the vagueness of the term "in need of relief," instead of "destitution."

[741] _Decisions of the Local Government Board_, 1902-3, by W. A.
Casson, 1904, p. 14.

_H._--THE AGED AND INFIRM

(i.) _Outdoor Relief_

The crusade of the inspectorate of 1871-85, in favour of the "workhouse system" of Poor Law relief, made no exception in favour of aged persons, whether deserving or undeserving, any more than it did in favour of widows with young children or the sick. On the contrary, Mr. Longley assumed, in every paragraph of his Report,[742] that the "workhouse principle" was universally applicable to "the disabled"--the term he used for the aged and infirm--as well as to the able-bodied. A rigid adherence to the policy of "offering the House" would, he argued, lead the poor to provide, or induce their relatives to provide, for old age as well as for sickness and widowhood.[743] Further, Mr. Longley strongly deprecated any deviation in particular cases from what he euphemistically called "the offer of indoor relief." "That which an applicant does not know certainly that he will not get," he forcibly argued, "he readily persuades himself, if he wishes for it, that he will get; and the poor, to whom any inducement is held out to regard application for relief as a sort of gambling speculation, in which, though many fail, some will succeed, will, like other gamblers, reckon upon their own success."[744] For every "hard case" he relied on the springing up in every union of intelligently directed private charity. "It is, in fact, the very existence of charity"--assumed thus to be always at hand whenever required--"which strengthens the hands of the Poor Law administrator in adherence to rule."[745] Yet, with a certain want of logic, he desired this charitable provision to remain "precarious" and "intermittent;" something which it was possible to argue would always be there when a "hard case" occurred, and which, nevertheless, could not be counted upon by the poor themselves. In other words, he seemed to imply that charitable outdoor relief was superior to Poor Law outdoor relief for the very reason that though some applicants for it would succeed, others in like circumstances would fail to get it--thus inducing, one would have thought, exactly the spirit of "gambling speculation" on the part of the poor that he clearly perceived to arise from the adoption by boards of guardians of an intermittent and uncertain relief policy.

[742] Report on the Administration of Outdoor Relief in the
Metropolis, in Third Annual Report, 1873-4, pp. 136-209.

[743] "One of the chief defects," he said, "in the present
administration of the law in respect of the disabled class, and
especially of that large section of it which consists of the aged
and infirm ... is its failure to relieve the rates from the burden
of the maintenance of paupers whose relatives, whether legally
liable or not, are able to contribute to their support. It is, I
believe, within the experience of many boards of guardians, that
while there are persons who, even when in prosperous
circumstances, readily permit their aged relatives to receive
out-relief, an offer of indoor relief is frequently found to put
pressure upon them to rescue themselves, if not their relatives,
from the discredit incident to the residence of the latter in a
workhouse" (_Ibid._ p. 188). Another inspector expressly reported
that he urged guardians with regard to the aged "to apply the
workhouse test _in order to put a pressure on relatives who are
not legally liable_" (Mr. Culley's Report in Third Annual Report,
1873-4, p. 76). So again, in 1875, Mr. Longley argued that the
"deterrent discipline" of the workhouse was "the keystone of an
efficient system of indoor relief," not merely for the
able-bodied, but also for the aged ("directly on the able-bodied,
and more remotely upon the disabled class of paupers," the term he
always used for the aged) (Report on Indoor Relief in the
Metropolis, in Fourth Annual Report, 1874-5, p. 47). It may,
however, be noted that Mr. Longley never pretended that this was
the policy of the Report of 1834, or of the Act of 1834. To him it
was "_a further and special development_ ... of the principles of
the Poor Law Amendment Act" (_Ibid._ p. 41).

[744] Mr. Longley's Report in Third Annual Report, 1873-4, p. 144.

[745] _Ibid._

How far this policy of offering the House to all aged persons, deserving or undeserving, was assumed by the other inspectors to be the official policy, and how far it was pressed by them, on boards of guardians throughout the country, we have been unable to ascertain. Apart from the approval of Mr. Longley's views implied by the publication of his Reports and the circulation of them among boards of guardians, the Central Authority maintained, between 1871 and 1896, an absolute silence[746] on the question of outdoor relief to the aged.

[746] We ought, perhaps, to mention that, already in January 1895,
under Sir Henry Fowler's presidency, we find the Central Authority
writing to a board of guardians, to bespeak greater consideration
for the aged and infirm, who needed outdoor relief. The Bradford
Guardians had been in the habit of requiring their outdoor paupers
to come every week to the workhouse to receive their doles. The
Central Authority, far from deprecating this outdoor relief,
spontaneously pointed out that the system involved very long walks
for many infirm people, and suggested that the guardians should
institute four local pay stations (Local Government Board to
Bradford Union, 8th January 1895; in MS. archives, Bradford Board
of Guardians).

All the more surprising to boards of guardians must have been the sudden and unexpected reversal of this policy by the Central Authority between 1896 and 1900. In July 1896, the Central Authority, under the presidency of Mr. Chaplin, issued a Circular to boards of guardians outside the Metropolis, drawing attention to the importance of the relieving officers and medical officers discharging their duties with the greatest particularity. In a concluding paragraph the Central Authority significantly reminds the guardians of the recommendations of the Royal Commission on the Aged Poor, of which an extract is appended. "We are convinced," run the recommendations thus exceptionally brought to the guardians' notice, "that there is a strong feeling that in the administration of relief there should be greater discrimination between the respectable aged who become destitute and those whose destitution is distinctly the consequence of their own misconduct; and we recommend that boards of guardians, in dealing with applications for relief, should inquire with special care into the antecedents of destitute persons whose physical faculties have failed by reason of age and infirmity; and that _outdoor relief in such cases should be given_ to those who are shown to have been of good character, thrifty according to their opportunities, and generally independent in early life, and who are not living under conditions of health or surrounding circumstances which make it evident that the relief given should be indoor relief."[747] But this is not all. The poor, far from being left uncertain as to the grant of outdoor relief, were to be specially told that they would receive it if only they led deserving lives. "It accordingly appears to us eminently desirable," continue the recommendations, as communicated by the Central Authority to the boards of guardians, "that boards of guardians should adopt rules in accordance with the general principles which we have indicated, by which they may be broadly guided in dealing with individual applications for relief, and _that such rules should be generally made known for the information of the poor of the union, in order that those really in need may not be discouraged from applying_."[748]

[747] Circular of 11th July 1896; in Twenty-sixth Annual Report,
1896-7, pp. 8-9. No mention is made of this Circular in the Annual
Report itself.

[748] _Ibid._ p. 9. In September 1896, under Mr. Chaplin's
presidency, the Central Authority "saw no objection" to a proposal
of the Poplar Guardians to "board out" an aged married couple in a
country cottage at 12s. a week, and added that its sanction was
not required, if the case fell within "exception 2 to art. 4" of
the Outdoor Relief Regulation Order. It was simply "non-resident
relief." But the Central Authority declared that it was impossible
for such relief to be made chargeable on the Metropolitan Common
Poor Fund, as "boarding-out" was outdoor relief (Local Government
Board to Poplar Union, 25th September 1896; MS. archives, Poplar
Board of Guardians). The expenses of "boarded-out" children had
been placed upon the fund by statute, the Metropolitan Poor
Amendment Act 1869.

How far this reversion to the policy contemplated by the 1834 Report, and continued, as we have shown, by the Poor Law Commissioners, and the Poor Law Board down to 1871, obtained the adhesion of the inspectors who had grown up in the traditions of Mr. Longley's Reports of 1871-5, we have been unable to ascertain.[749] Nor is it clear that the partial circulation[750] by the Central Authority of the recommendations of the Royal Commission affected the admonitions against outdoor relief generally, which the inspectors had for nearly thirty years been addressing to the boards of guardians.[751] Four years later the Central Authority took an even more decisive step.

[749] Some of them hardly concealed their dismay. "In some
instances," says Mr. Davy, "where Guardians have been for years
endeavouring with patient care to administer the Poor Law strictly
... the opinion of the [Local Government] Board with reference to
outdoor relief to certain classes of paupers, has been the cause
of some change, if not of opinion, at all events of practice, with
the result that the amount paid weekly as outdoor relief has
increased largely.... This has been notably the case in the
Faversham Union.... During the last six months the expenditure has
increased about 25 per cent.... In some other Unions ... the
effect of the Circular has been still more marked, for the
recommendation that adequate relief should be given has been made
the occasion for increased grants of outdoor relief all round, the
word "adequate" being taken to refer to the amount of money given
only.... It cannot be too strongly insisted that adequate relief
means not only that the relief should be sufficient for the wants
of the pauper, but that it should be the most suitable form of
relief for each particular case." Mr. Davy went on to intimate
pretty plainly that, in his view, normally and typically, "the
only adequate form of relief is an offer for the workhouse"
(Thirtieth Annual Report, 1900-1, pp. 87-9).

[750] To Boards of Guardians "outside the Metropolis" only.

[751] It seems, at any rate, not to have affected their practice
of compiling statistical tables in which the Unions were
contrasted one with another, according to the percentage of the
paupers on outdoor relief--irrespective, as we have already
observed, of the relative proportions of the aged, among their
several populations; and (as must now be added) of the policy of
the Royal Commission on the Aged Poor, which the Central Authority
had promulgated.

In the famous pronouncement on Poor Law Administration generally which Mr. Chaplin issued to all boards of guardians in 1900, systematic and adequate outdoor relief to all aged persons who were at once destitute and deserving was laid down as the definite policy of the Central Authority. "It has been felt," runs this Circular, "that persons who have habitually led decent and deserving lives should, if they require relief in their old age, receive different treatment from those whose previous habits and character have been unsatisfactory, and who have failed to exercise thrift in the bringing up of their families or otherwise. The Board consider that aged deserving persons _should not be urged to enter the workhouse at all_ unless there is some cause which renders such a course necessary, such as infirmity of mind or body, the absence of house accommodation, or of a suitable person to care for them, or some similar cause, but that they should be relieved by having adequate outdoor relief granted to them. The Board are happy to think that it is commonly the practice of boards of guardians to grant outdoor relief in such cases, but they are afraid that too frequently such relief is not adequate in amount. They are desirous of pressing upon the guardians that such relief should, when granted, be always adequate."[752] Nor did the Central Authority content itself with merely issuing the Circular. Letters were sent in a few months' time to all the boards of guardians asking what action had been taken with regard to the suggested grant of outdoor relief to aged deserving persons, and, in particular, whether the practice was to grant an adequate amount to each case. The effect was (to use the words of an inspector) to produce "a good deal of discussion ... upon the question of the amount of outdoor relief granted to aged deserving persons."[753] "I rather fear," said another inspector, "that in some unions it has rather been regarded as a sort of mandate to increase the system of out-relief generally. This the Circular did not intend."[754] On the other hand, yet another inspector remarks that only "a few boards have looked at the (Local Government) Board's suggestions from a sympathetic point of view, and have increased their regular allowances to the aged out-paupers, but in a large majority of the unions the guardians state that alteration is not called for.... The principle is ... warding off destitution, not providing maintenance."[755] Whatever was the intention of the Central Authority, it is evident that the replies (which were not published and which we have not seen) that it received to its repeated inquiries must have revealed an enormous diversity of practice, utterly at variance with the principle of national uniformity. In one union there would be hardly any cases for which the guardians would grant outdoor relief at all. In the next union practically every aged applicant would get it. The conception of adequacy revealed in the replies must have been equally various. In the West Riding the amount allowed per aged person ranged from 1s. 6d. a week to as much as 7s. 6d. a week, whereas in the East Riding the variations were only between 2s. 6d. and 5s. for each person.[756] We happen to know that the Bradford Guardians reported that, with greater uniformity, they gave 5s. a week for each deserving aged person.[757] We have not been able to ascertain what action, if any, was taken by the Central Authority on these replies. No objection appears to have been taken, and no criticism to have been made, either in respect of the virtual refusal of outdoor relief to the deserving aged in some unions, or in respect of its almost indiscriminate bestowal in others, or again, in respect of the wide range of variation between union and union, in the amount allowed for each person. It is thus not clear what is now the policy of the Central Authority on these points. Its latest utterance is the Circular of 1900. Since then, so far as we can discover, it has been silent on the subject.

[752] Circular of 4th August 1900; in Thirtieth Annual Report,
1900-1, pp. 18-19. This momentous new departure is not referred to
in the Annual Report itself. Returns published in the previous
year had shown that of the 286,929 paupers over sixty-five on 1st
January 1900, only 74,597 were indoor paupers, and of these, only
40,809 were in the workhouses as distinguished from infirmaries,
etc. The other 212,332 had outdoor relief. Outside the Metropolis,
indeed, eight out of every ten had outdoor relief; one was in the
infirmary, and there was only one in the workhouse (Twenty-ninth
Annual Report, 1899-1900, p. lvii).

[753] Mr. Bagenal's Report, in Thirtieth Annual Report, 1900-1, p.
154.

[754] Mr. Wethered's Report, in Thirtieth Annual Report, 1900-1,
p. 133.

[755] Mr. Baldwyn Fleming's Report, in Thirtieth Annual Report,
1900-1, pp. 112-113.

[756] Mr. Bagenal's Report, in Thirtieth Annual Report, 1900-1, p.
154.

[757] Local Government Board to Bradford Union, 10th January 1901;
Bradford Union to Local Government Board, 26th January 1901; in
MS. archives, Bradford Board of Guardians.

(ii.) _Indoor Relief_

Meanwhile there had accumulated in the workhouses of the Metropolis (where the effect of the Metropolitan Common Poor fund had been to offer a premium on indoor relief to two-thirds of the unions), and in those of the unions up and down the country in which Mr. Longley's policy had been more or less carried out, a large number of aged people, who became permanent residents.[758] This fact, already noticeable and officially recorded in 1867,[759] did not lead to any change in the policy of workhouse administration laid down by the Central Authority. The General Consolidated Order of 1847, framed essentially to deal with workhouses in which the able-bodied were the most important feature, was not amended to meet the new conditions. The structural improvements which, as we have already described, began to be adopted after the _Lancet_ inquiry of 1865, continued to be pressed for, and eventually insisted on, so far as regards new workhouses. In this respect the old people in particular unions shared in the general benefit. But we do not find that the Central Authority, after 1871, had any policy of altering the general _régime_ of the old people's wards, corresponding to that which, as we have described, took place with regard to the sick wards. On the contrary, we must note, as part of Mr. Longley's policy, his emphatic warning in 1873, that the workhouses had already become so "attractive to paupers," as to furnish "no test of destitution."[760] He made no exception in favour of the old people's wards. It was, in fact, the "_deterrent discipline_" of the workhouse that he regarded as "the keystone of an efficient system of indoor relief," not merely for the able-bodied, but also, through its effect on the minds of those who were still young, and on the relations of those who were old, also for the aged.[761] We may, therefore, understand why it is that we find, between 1871 and 1892, practically nothing in the way of expression of the policy of the Central Authority with regard to the indoor treatment of the aged. It stood by the General Consolidated Order of 1847.[762] Even the attempt made in 1867-75 to revert to the policy of the 1834 Report, so far as to have specialised institutions for the aged, the sick, and the able-bodied, as well as for the children, was not persisted in, so far as the aged were concerned. No other unions were found to adopt the joint arrangements of Poplar and Stepney under which the aged and infirm of both unions had a workhouse to themselves, and even this one was brought to an end in 1892.[763]

[758] It was not so much that the "offer of the House" increased
the aggregate population of the workhouses. Between 1871 and 1891,
this only rose, outside the Metropolis, from 131,334 to 139,736.
(In the Metropolis, owing to the development of the infirmaries
into general hospitals, and the working of the Common Poor Fund,
the rise was more considerable, viz. from 36,739 to 58,482). But
the workhouse population gradually changed in character, the
able-bodied being replaced by the aged. On 1st January 1900, there
were found to be, in the workhouses themselves, no fewer than
40,809 persons over sixty-five, and in the workhouse infirmaries,
etc., 33,788 more, making a total over sixty-five of 74,597; being
more than 38 per cent of the total inmates (Twenty-ninth Annual
Report, 1899-1900, p. lvii).

[759] "Able-bodied people are now scarcely at all found in them
during the greater part of the year.... Those who enjoy the
advantages of these institutions are almost solely such as may
fittingly receive them, viz. the aged and infirm, the destitute
sick and children. Workhouses are now asylums and infirmaries"
(Dr. E. Smith, Medical Officer to the Poor Law Board; in Twentieth
Annual Report, 1867-8, p. 43).

[760] Office Minute of 1873.

[761] "Directly on the able-bodied, and more remotely, upon the
disabled class of paupers," the term he always used for the aged
(Report on Indoor Relief in the Metropolis, in Fourth Annual
Report, 1874-5, p. 47).

[762] See _ante_, pp. 54-82.

[763] Special Order of 18th April 1892; Twenty-second Annual
Report, 1892-3, p. lxxix. The only item of policy as regards the
aged in the workhouse, to be noted between 1871 and 1892, seems to
be the insistence by Parliament in 1876 that married couples (who
if both persons were over sixty could not since 1847 be made to
live separately) might, if the guardians chose to allow it, live
together if either person were over sixty, infirm, aged, or
disabled (39 and 40 Vic. c. 61, sec. 10). This was communicated to
the boards of guardians in 1885 (Circular of 3rd November 1885, in
Fifteenth Annual Report, 1885-6, p. 23.) No great attempt was made
to get the guardians to provide the necessary separate
accommodation, or to make it decently habitable. Thus, at Poplar,
there were no rooms for married couples until 1884, and then they
were left for fifteen months without any means by which they could
be warmed. At last the Central Authority called attention to it
(Local Government Board to Poplar Union, 27th May 1886; MS.
Minutes, Poplar Board of Guardians, 4th June 1886). It should be
noted, too, that it was held that newspapers and periodicals might
be provided (_Selections from the Correspondence of the Local
Government Board_, vol. iii. 1888, p. 134); and the employment of
old men in three workhouses in northern counties in teazing hair,
which was excessively distasteful to them, and liable to be
injurious to their health, was discontinued at the instance of the
inspector (Twentieth Annual Report, 1890-1, pp. 245-6).

In 1892 the note changes. From that date onward we get a distinct reversion, as regards the aged indoor pauper, to the policy indicated in the 1834 Report ("the old might enjoy their indulgences"), from which the Poor Law Commissioners of 1834-47, and the successive Central Authorities of 1847-1892, had turned away.

It is interesting to see that the new departure began over tobacco.[764] The Liverpool Select Vestry determined to give the well-conducted old men in the workhouse the indulgence of a weekly screw of tobacco, whether or not they were employed on disagreeable duties. The auditor objected. The vestry insisted. The Central Authority was obdurate. The local body appealed to its Parliamentary representatives. It was suggested as a compromise that the medical officer might be got to include it in the dietary table, when the Central Authority would not refuse to sanction it.[765] The vestry declined to compromise, and insisted on allowing tobacco as a non-dietetic indulgence. Finally, the inspector was instructed to say that the objection was withdrawn. No publicity was given to the concession, but it gradually leaked out. During the year 1892 we see the Central Authority sanctioning by letter, without any official publication on the subject, such applications as were made by individual boards of guardians to be permitted to allow an ounce of tobacco weekly to the men over sixty in the workhouse.[766] At last, in November 1892, a General Order was issued permitting it in all unions, irrespective of sex, and without limit of amount.[767] Little more than a year later, as some compensation to the old women (though they had not been excluded, in terms, from the indulgence of tobacco or snuff), they were allowed "dry tea," with sugar and milk, irrespective of that provided for in the dietary table.[768] Presently, this indulgence is extended to "dry coffee or cocoa," if preferred, and the men also are allowed to receive it.[769] At last, the Central Authority, by two lengthy Circulars in 1895 and 1896,[770] under the presidency of Sir Henry Fowler and Mr. Chaplin respectively, systematically laid down principles of workhouse administration, so far as the aged were concerned, in sharp contrast with those advocated by Mr. Longley, or indeed, with those which had been inculcated from 1835 to 1892. It was expressly stated that as the character of the workhouse population had so completely changed since 1834, the administration no longer needed to be so deterrent. The old idea of fixed uniform times of going to bed and rising and taking meals was given up, it being expressly left to the master and matron to allow any of the aged (as well as the infirm and the young children) to retire to rest, to rise and to have their meals at whatever hours it was thought fit. The visiting committees of workhouses were now specially enjoined to see that the aged were properly attended to, and recommended to confer with them as to any grievances without any officials being present.[771] It was suggested that the great sleeping wards should be partitioned into separate cubicles. The guardians were reminded that aged or infirm couples might be provided with separate rooms. The well-behaved aged and infirm were to be allowed, within reasonable limits,[772] to go out for walks, to visit their friends, and to attend their own places of worship on Sunday. The rules were to be relaxed to allow them to receive visits in the workhouse from their friends. There was to be no distinctive dress. Those of them who were of good conduct, and who had "previously led moral and respectable lives" were to be separated from the rest, who "are likely to cause them discomfort," and were to have the enjoyment of a separate day-room. The whole note of the administration of the old people's wards of the workhouses was, in fact, to be changed, so far as the Central Authority could change it. In the words of the 1834 Report, the old were to "enjoy their indulgences." Four years later another Circular was issued in stronger terms, reiterating the suggestions of privileges that the guardians ought to allow to the deserving inmates over sixty-five--freedom to rise and go to bed and have their meals when they liked, to have their own locked cupboards for their little treasures, in all cases to have their tobacco and dry tea, to be free to go out when they chose, and to be allowed to receive the visits of their friends. They were to be given separate cubicles to sleep in, and special day-rooms, "which might, if thought desirable, be available for members of both sexes ... and in which their meals, other than dinner, might be served at hours fixed by the guardians."[773] "It is hoped that, where there is room, the guardians will not hesitate to take steps to bring about improvements of the kind indicated in the arrangements for the aged deserving poor."[774] Four or five months later the guardians were stirred up by letter, and asked what they had done towards creating the specially privileged class of deserving aged inmates that had been so strongly pressed on them.[775]

[764] It is not clear from the published documents at what date,
or in what unions, the Central Authority had first allowed
tobacco. In 1880, it decided that it could not legally be given to
workhouse inmates (not being sick), if it had not been specially
ordered by the medical officer under arts. 107 and 108 of the
General Consolidated Order of 1847 (_Selections from the
Correspondence of the Local Government Board_, vol. ii. pp. 3,
72). Yet, by 1885, at any rate, the allowance of tobacco or snuff
to non-able-bodied paupers, or to such as were "employed upon work
of a hazardous or specially disagreeable character," with
permission to smoke in such room as the guardians might determine,
had been exceptionally granted in particular cases; _see_, for
instance, Special Order to Carlisle of 22nd June 1885, not
published in the Annual Report.

[765] "It is the invariable practice," said Mr. Ritchie
approvingly, "to provide for the aged paupers a better diet than
that for the other classes" (Mr. Ritchie in House of Commons, 6th
May 1892; _Hansard_, vol. 4, p. 277).

[766] Local Government Board to Bourne Union, August 1892 (_Local
Government Chronicle_, 13th August 1892, p. 678); Local Government
Board to Caistor Union, September 1892 (_Ibid._ 8th October 1892,
p. 859).

[767] General Order of 3rd November 1892: Circular of 9th November
1892; Twenty-second Annual Report, 1892-3, pp. lxxxv, 35-6.

[768] General Order of 8th March 1894; Twenty-fourth Annual
Report, 1894-5, pp. xcix, 4-5.

[769] Special Order to Gateshead, 15th February 1896; _see also_
the "Specimen Order" given in Macmorran and Lushington's _Poor Law
Orders_, second edition, 1905, p. 1061.

[770] Circular on Workhouse Administration of 29th January 1895;
Memorandum on Visiting Committees of June 1895; Circular on
Classification in Workhouses of 31st July 1896; Twenty-fifth
Annual Report, 1895-6, pp. lxxxv, 107-112, 121-3; Twenty-sixth
Annual Report, 1896-7, pp. lxxxviii-lxxxix, 9-10.

[771] Memorandum on the Duties of Visiting Committees, June 1895;
in Twenty-fifth Annual Report, 1895-6, p. 122.

[772] Sunday morning, and one day a month, was held to be not
sufficient outing. "In the case of aged inmates of respectable
character," said Mr. Chaplin "leave of absence might well be
allowed on weekdays more frequently than is now the case" [at Old
Gravel Lane Workhouse] (_Hansard_, 23rd May 1898, vol. lviii, p.
326).

[773] Circular of 4th August 1900, in Thirtieth Annual Report,
1900-1, p. 19.

[774] _Ibid._ p. 20. Nor was this merely a formal expression. We
see, in the next few years, the Central Authority cordially
sanctioning the provision, at no small extra expense in capital
and annual maintenance, of new old people's wards in some unions,
of specialised old men's and old women's homes in others; even to
the extent of permitting (as at Woolwich) the location of the most
respectable and best conducted of the aged in a comfortable
private mansion conducted with the minimum of rules, and without
outward sign of pauperism.

[775] _See_, for instance, Local Government Board to Bradford
Union, 10th January 1901, in MS. archives, Bradford Board of
Guardians. There were then, in the Bradford workhouse, twenty aged
paupers of the first class, and seventeen of the second class.
Both these day wards had cushioned armchairs, lockers with keys
for each inmate, carpets on the floor, curtains to the windows,
and were made comfortable with cushions, coloured table-cloths,
pictures, and ornaments. The inmates had special dormitories
(Bradford Union to Local Government Board, 26th January 1901). The
General Consolidated Order of 1847 was still nominally in force.

During these years the dietaries for the aged and infirm were being altered in the direction of liberality, variety, and freedom of choice. Not only were hot meat or fish dinners provided ("with sauce"), but also tea, coffee, cocoa, milk, sugar, butter, seed cake, onions, lettuce, rhubarb or stewed fruit, sago, semolina, and rice pudding. In 1900 "provision is also made for ... the inmates on special infirm diet ... to receive daily, before bedtime, or at such time as the guardians may fix, a small allowance of milk pudding or similar food to break the interval between the usual meals."[776] The Central Authority in 1904 made no objection to a board of guardians subscribing to a lending library, in order to obtain a constant supply of books for the deserving aged workhouse inmates, and held that no special sanction was required.[777] Finally, "it is open to guardians, if they think fit, to incur reasonable expenses in providing a piano, for use at divine service [and therefore, presumably also at other times, once it was installed] held in a workhouse infirmary for old and infirm inmates;"[778] or to provide a harmonium at the cost of the poor rate for the use of the inmates of the workhouse.[779]

[776] Circular of 11th October 1900; Workhouse Regulations
(Dietaries and Accounts) Order, 1900; in Thirtieth Annual Report,
1900-1, pp. 65-6. But the Central Authority struck at afternoon
tea! The St. George's, Hanover Square, Guardians were informed
that it was "not prepared to assent to the proposal of the
guardians for the infirm men, and all men over the age of
sixty-five years to have half a pint of tea daily at 3.30 P.M.,
between the mid-day and evening meals" (Local Government Board to
St. George's, Hanover Square, November 1900; see _Local Government
Chronicle_, 17th November 1900, p. 1147).

[777] _Local Government Chronicle_, 27th August 1904, p. 898;
_Decisions of the Local Government Board_, 1903-4, by W. A.
Casson, 1905, p. 97.

[778] Local Government Board's Decision, _Local Government
Chronicle_, 1st November 1902, p. 1102; _Decisions of the Local
Government Board, 1902-3_, by W. A. Casson, 1904, p. 72.

[779] Local Government Board to St. German's Union, December 1898;
_Local Government Chronicle_, 24th December 1898, p. 1192.

_I._--NON-RESIDENTS

There is no change to record in 1871 in the expressed policy of preventing relief to paupers not resident within the union. Such relief (given in order to avoid the expense and hardship of removal) continued in many cases, but was repeatedly blamed by the inspectors. "Non-resident relief is given in almost all the unions ... sixteen per cent of the outdoor paupers of Glendale Union were non-resident."[780] In 1878 the Central Authority suggested that such relief "might be almost entirely discontinued."[780] There has been no explicit abrogation of this policy down to the present day; even in face of representations that it is "harsh and totally out of keeping with the spirit of the times."[781] But from 1871 onwards we have the force of the maxim weakened by the growth of whole classes of cases which the guardians are allowed, and even encouraged, to send to places outside the union, and maintain there. We need do no more than allude to the boarded-out children. Another growing class is that of paupers who are placed in certified schools or homes, either by way merely of boarding-school (frequently recommended as a method of disposing of Roman Catholic children); or for residence in any industrial or reformatory school; or (irrespective of age) for maintenance in an institution for special treatment (blind, deaf and dumb, crippled, epileptic, idiot, etc.); or merely in an asylum for the aged and infirm;[782] or for curative treatment in a hospital, convalescent home, seaside home, or sanatorium.[783] Even able-bodied aged paupers may, as the Poplar Guardians were informed in 1896, be boarded out in country families, under the guise of non-resident relief. The Central Authority has not objected to the transfer of workhouse inmates, provided these do not actively protest, to country workhouses, there to be maintained as non-resident paupers.[784] In one case, indeed, the Central Authority allowed a union to abolish its workhouse altogether (retaining only a casual ward), and approved "arrangements for the boarding-out of the indoor poor in the workhouses of other unions for a period not exceeding five years."[785] It is, therefore, not easy to determine how much is left of the policy of preventing non-resident relief as such.

[780] Third Annual Report, 1873-4, p. 78.

[781] Memorandum relating to the Administration of Out-relief,
February 1878, in Seventh Annual Report, 1877-8, p. 224. "The
suggestion that non-resident relief should be absolutely abolished
is one in which the president is quite disposed to concur, with
perhaps, some reservation regarding existing cases" (Local
Government Board to Chairman of Central Poor Law Conference, 12th
May 1877, in Seventh Annual Report, 1877-8, p. 56).

[782] Bradford Union to Local Government Board, 13th September
1901, forwarding resolution: "That ... the prohibition of
non-residential relief to the widow and children of a person who
may have died in the union of his settlement is harsh and totally
out of keeping with the spirit of the times; and that the
provisions of the Outdoor Relief Prohibitory Order, 1844, and the
Outdoor Relief Regulation Order, 1852, call for urgent revision."
This received only an acknowledgment (Local Government Board to
Bradford Union, 16th September 1901).

[783] _Decisions of the Local Government Board_, 1903-4, by W. A.
Casson, 1905, p. 26.

[784] If guardians wish to make use of the Margate Homes for Sick
Paupers, they may do so (as the Central Authority expressly
informed them in 1874) _by granting non-resident relief_ (Circular
of 1874; _see Local Government Chronicle_, 23rd May 1874, p. 334).

[785] _Local Government Chronicle_, 15th October 1904, p. 1072.

[786] Local Government Board to Woodbridge Union, 26th April 1898;
in _Local Government Chronicle_, 14th May 1898, p. 474.

_J._--THE WORKHOUSE

We left the Central Authority in 1871, fully accepting the view that the workhouse was not merely a "test" which few only might be expected to pass or to endure for long, but a place of permanent or long-continued residence for whole classes of paupers. The workhouse population on 1st January 1871 numbered, in fact, 168,073. The Central Authority, reverting to the proposals of the 1834 Report, had accordingly started out to differentiate the workhouse into separate institutions for particular classes (the children, the sick, and, in the Metropolis, also the imbeciles and idiots); to impose an altogether new standard of expensive structural efficiency on the boards of guardians; to press incessantly for new buildings of approved pattern; to increase the healthiness and comfort of the wards for the sick, the aged, and the children; and to make the dietaries for these classes better adapted to their likings and their needs. "Those who enjoy the advantages of these institutions," had said the Central Authority's own medical officer in 1867, "are almost solely such as may fittingly receive them, viz. the aged and infirm, the destitute sick, and children. Workhouses are now asylums and infirmaries."[787] There was, after 1871, no change and no arrest in this policy.[788] So far as the children, the sick, and the aged and infirm were concerned, we have already described its continuance and its progressive development. The improvement of the institutional provision for the pauper, by removing some of the objections to the indiscriminate general workhouse of 1835-65, fitted in, we may say, with the new crusade of the inspectorate against outdoor relief as such. That crusade was, however, for the first twenty years, pushed without regard to whether or not the particular boards of guardians had accepted the new idea of the specialised institutional treatment for particular classes, or were still wedded to the indiscriminate common workhouse, which aimed at being "deterrent." Mr. Longley realised that the higher standard of comfort that was coming to be allowed to the aged, the sick, and the children in a general workhouse inevitably tended to prevent the necessary strictness and severity being applied to the able-bodied. The inspectorate accordingly strove in London to get specialised institutions for the able-bodied also, the result being the "Poplar test workhouse" that we have already described.

[787] Dr. E. Smith, in Twentieth Annual Report of the Poor Law
Board, 1867-8, p. 43.

[788] We may gain an idea of the energy put into the provision of
improved accommodation for the indoor poor since 1868, by the
total capital expenditure sanctioned for workhouses, etc., by
order or letter of the Central Authority. The total so sanctioned
during the thirty-four years, 1835-1868, including the initial
provision of workhouses after 1834, was £7,079,126 (Twenty-first
Annual Report of the Poor Law Board, 1868-9, pp. 316-17), or no
more than an average of £208,209 annually. For the thirty-seven
years, 1869-1905, the corresponding sum was no less than
£24,609,035 (Thirty-fifth Annual Report of the Local Government
Board, 1905-6, p. 608), or an average of £665,109. To this must be
added the expenditure of the Metropolitan Asylums Boards for Poor
Law purposes only, sick asylums, district schools, etc., which in
the first period of thirty-four years was only £571,401, and in
the second period of thirty-seven years was £6,810,140
(Twenty-first Annual Report of the Poor Law Board, 1868-9, pp.
317-18; Thirty-fifth Annual Report of the Local Government Board,
1905-6, p. 609). The total capital outlay sanctioned by the
Central Authority for Poor Law purposes during the last
thirty-seven years has, therefore, amounted, on an average, to
nearly £1,000,000 annually,--the amount for 1905 being
£789,373--as compared with little over one-fifth of that sum in
the first thirty-four years of the new Poor Law.

In 1874 the Central Authority expressed its regret at the slow progress "towards the permanent classification in separate establishments of the various classes of indoor paupers, other than the sick.... We attach the utmost importance to this improvement of the classification of indoor paupers, which we believe to be a necessary condition of the maintenance of that discipline which lies at the root of an effective administration of indoor relief. This improvement, however, cannot be effected, except at an enormous and almost prohibitory cost, otherwise than by the combination of several boards of guardians for this purpose. Their existing workhouses would, in that event, become available for the separate accommodation of various classes of indoor paupers chargeable to the several combined areas. We are advised that in the existing state of the law it is doubtful whether such a combination can be effected otherwise than by the voluntary action of boards of guardians, which we trust may still take place, and the desirableness of which we shall continue to press upon the guardians."[789] No such combinations took place, and the Central Authority, baffled by the expense and apparently not prepared to adopt the heroic expedient of issuing orders merging several unions in one, abandoned the attempt to get classification by institutions, except with regard to the children and the sick. The able-bodied had to be dealt with in a general workhouse; and we must note, for twenty years after 1871, battling with the ameliorative efforts of the departmental architect, the departmental medical officer, and the departmental educational experts, on behalf of particular classes of inmates, an attempt to make the workhouse more "deterrent" to other classes of paupers.

[789] Third Annual Report, 1873-4, pp. xxv-xxvi.

The most marked increase of severity was directed against the class of "ins and outs," called in America "revolvers," and it took the form of enlarged powers of detention. By an Act of 1871 the guardians were enabled to detain a pauper (other than a vagrant) who gave notice to quit, in any case for twenty-four hours; if he had already discharged himself once or oftener within a month before giving the notice, for forty-eight hours; and if he had so discharged himself more than twice within two months, for seventy-two hours.[790] Under the Act of 1899[791] a pauper may even be compulsorily detained for 168 hours (one week) "if he has, in the opinion of the guardians, discharged himself frequently without sufficient reason."

[790] Pauper Inmates Discharge and Regulation Act 1871, 34 & 35
Vic. c. 108, sec. 4.

[791] Poor Law Act, 62 & 63 Vic. c. 37, sec. 4. The guardians are
not obliged to adopt these periods of detention, and if they do
so, provision is made for cases of hardship by allowing them, or
in the intervals between their meetings the visiting committee, to
"exempt, either wholly or partially, any pauper from the operation
of this section." The master of the workhouse, too, "may, if the
board of guardians be not sitting or the visiting committee be not
in attendance, discharge any pauper to whom this section shall
apply before the expiration of any such period as aforesaid, if
any circumstances shall, in his opinion, require this to be done."

If a pauper escapes from the workhouse during his detention, or
while an inmate refuses or neglects to work or to observe the
rules, he may be prosecuted as idle and disorderly under the
Vagrancy Act of 1824 (5 Geo. IV. c. 83, sec. 3); for a repetition
of the offence, or for destroying or damaging his own clothes or
any property of the guardians, he becomes liable to the heavier
penalty of the rogue and vagabond. The same penalties attach to
the wilfully giving a false name or making a false statement for
the purpose of obtaining relief, and this clause has been twice
revised, so that since 1876 (Divided Parishes and Poor Law
Amendment Act, 39 & 40 Vic. c. 61, sec. 44) any person who so
obtained relief may be proceeded against at any time while he
continues to receive it, and since 1882 (Casual Poor Act, 45 & 46
Vic. c. 36, sec. 5) the provision applies equally, whether the
person attempts so to obtain relief for himself or for any one
else. If a pauper escapes from a workhouse or asylum while
suffering from bodily disease of an infectious or contagious
nature, the justice convicting him of the offence may order that
he be taken back to the workhouse or asylum and kept there till
cured, or otherwise lawfully discharged, and that the warrant of
commitment then be put in execution.