Out-door relief now constitutes the exception, being only granted to those actually unable to work. Parents are also allowed out-door relief in order to get their children received in pauper schools.

Several district unions may now form a larger poor-school union, at the head of which is placed a board of management and trustees, chosen by the respective board of guardians. The trustees place over the institution, with consent of the bishop and clergy, the schoolmasters and other functionaries. In 1858 there were 37,240 children receiving instruction in this way. Of recent years special schoolhouses have been erected for the children of paupers living in the workhouse.*

By the old poor-law, justices of the peace might compel the children of persons receiving public relief to be apprenticed, or to go into service; this latter power still continues, but the obligation to receive such pauper children as apprentices, or into service, in consideration of a small premium, has been abolished by 7 and 8 Vict. c. 101. Girls, up to the age of twenty-one, and boys, to the age of twenty, may thus be disposed of without their wishes being consulted.† The indentures for apprentices and those

troops scattering themselves by day to beg, and re-assembling at night in the nearest union workhouse. Many of them behaved riotously and with violence, smashing the windows, etc., and had to be reduced to reason or turned out by the police; they usually arrived late in the evening, so as to avoid work; any one arriving in the daytime having to render assistance in the workhouse. The demoralization had thereby spread from county to county, not a few bringing with them real maladies, fevers, and eruptions."

Gneist, ii., 711.

"Peter had heard there were in London then

Still have they being-workhouseclearing men;

Who, undisturbed by feeling, just or kind,

Would parish boys to needy tradesmen bind;

They, in their want, a trifling sum

would take,

entering into service, were formerly determined by justices of the peace; the guardians of the poor now make the arrangement.

All the charges of the poor administration are paid out of the poor-rate; other requirements connected with the poor administration are also met from the proceeds of the same rate. The collection of the poor-rate serves as a guiding-line for the collection of other municipal rates.* The poor's-rate varies greatly according to the locality.

Many wealthy parishes, in which there are but few poor, contribute but little, whereas poorer parishes, especially in London, are rated very high. In the hop districts of Kent the poor-rate is very burdensome, and can with difficulty be collected. The average amount of poor-rate per head of the population of England and Wales in 1846-7, was 6s. 1 d., in 1848-9, 7s. 10d. (in 1811, 13s. 1d.), in the pound.†

According to a statement made by Sir G. C. Lewis, in the House of Commons, 15th March, 1849, in the years 1839 up to 1842, the following parishes paid in the pound

The payment of the salaried officials in 1847 absorbed 6 per cent. of the rate.‡ By 3 and 4 Will. IV. c. 90, unions may be formed out of several parishes, for the purpose of lighting and watching; the expenses for the lighting being leviable by a separate rate on the property of those who are subject to the poor-rate.

The poor-rate, as well as every other municipal rate, is computed by the churchwardens and overseers of the poor, at a fair and equal pound rate. The levy is made proportionately to the requirements of an interval of time, ranging from one month to a year. When a parish is too poor to allow of a rate being levied, another parish in the hundred is conjoined at quarter sessions, on two justices of the peace signifying their approval. The poor-rate

* Gneist, ii., 93.
+ Meidinger, 579.

Meidinger, 881.

list is to be fixed, by the Sunday next ensuing, to the churchdoors of the parish. On the ground of the poverty of any person rated, two justices of the peace, with consent of the overseers of the poor, may, by an order, abate the rate. The rate is due as soon as imposed. If neither appeal nor payment be made, two justices of the peace, after a summary hearing, may direct an execution; appeals for amendment of the rate, since 6 and 7 Will. IV. c. 96, are heard at special sessions, or, as formerly, directly at the quarter sessions. The Queen's Bench may, in urgent cases, bring the matter before it by a writ of certiorari. All functionaries charged with the administration of the rate have to produce their accounts at a public sitting.*

The number of persons receiving relief in England does not afford any standard whereby to compute the number of the needy. In England one in twelve receives relief; in France, one in five; in Belgium, one in six. It should be borne in mind, however, that in Catholic countries the body of the clergy and the monasteries, as a matter of pure obligation and duty, are more or less openhanded in affording assistance to the poor, whereas, in the case of the workhouses in England, the terrorizing system is in the ascendant. The English pauper is oftentimes reduced to the last extremity before he enters an establishment, on crossing whose threshold the ties of family are rent in twain. The number of persons in England seeking relief is, on this account, less than elsewhere; this does not, however, demonstrate that the new poor law of 1834 is a triumphant success.

In Scotland, up to the year 1845, the old system of voluntary donations for the relief of the poor continued in force; the supervision of the poor having been assigned to the schoolmasters, who were generally more fully acquainted with the condition of the poor in their district than guardians and overseers elsewhere. By the new Scotch poor-law (4th August, 1845) the poor laws previously obtaining were abolished, and a " Board of Supervision for the Relief of the Poor in Scotland" was appointed, consisting of the lord provosts of Edinburgh and Glasgow, the solicitor-general for Scotland, the sheriffs, and three members nominated by the government. These latter, receiving a special salary, hold two general assemblies annually, and send in to Government a statement of accounts.

* Gneist, ii., 93.

For every poor district in Scotland there is a board of guardians, chosen by the vestries, which levies the poor-rate under control of the board of supervision. This rate serves for the relief of the poor, the erection of poor-houses and infirmaries, and for the payment of the overseers, who exercise the powers formerly discharged by the schoolmasters, being indeed frequently chosen from their number.*

*Meidinger, 570.

CHAPTER IV.

OTHER MUNICIPAL BOARDS FOR PURPOSES OF PUBLIC HEALTH.

Defective Supervision in Regard to the General Health.-Commission of Sewers.Towns Improvement Commissions.—Sanitary Boards.- Local Government Act.— Independence of the Several Boards.

sures.

NEITHER municipal corporations nor justices of peace have anything to do with the general provisions relating to the public wellbeing, excepting that justices of peace have occasional powers in regard to the poor administration. So long as the public spirit was swayed by the principle of the older communal liberty, proceedings by way of indictment and interference on the part of the parish authorities sufficed for the maintenance of sanitary meaOn the decline of municipal life these expedients proved inefficient; the ruling gentry were compelled to avow an interdependence with the poorer classes of the population, when burdensome poor-rates, wide-spread epidemics, and criminal statistics had forced the fact home; the legislature saw itself compelled to interfere, and thereby gave extended impulse, as it must be owned, to bureaucratic centralization.* In the year 1848 a number of Consolidation acts were issued, the clauses of special local acts for sanitary purposes being thereby generalized.

Many enactments were passed for the laying out of buryingplacest and the closing of those in use; for the erection of gasworks, baths, and wash-houses, to be built either by the boroughs or

The government inspectors in 1833 visited in the lower part of Manchester 687 streets and lanes, 352 whereof, over one-half, were reeking with puddles, dirt, and filth of every kind. The houses were, for the most part, damp, dirty, neglected, and without ventilation; 2221 were without a convenience! In Parliament-street and passage, for 380 inhabitants there was but one convenience, situated in a very narrow alley, the odour and exhalation from which must have been a source of infection.

The Home Secretary may order cemeteries to be closed. In London especially the churchyards are removed

from the town. Relative to the overcrowding and horrible condition of the latter in London, the "Report on a general scheme for an extramural sepulture, presented to both houses of parliament in 1850" gives detailed information. According to this Report from six to eight, and sometimes twelve bodies were placed one above the other, although the law required an intervening space of two feet, and the wells in the neighbourhood were found troubled and unsavoury. In summer, especially, the exhalations were so overpowering that the inhabitants of the neighbouring houses were obliged to close their windows.