"At this meeting Mary May, Eliz. Flindall and Mary Lucas, spinsters, appeared before the Committee and promised to do the work now set them by Mr. Searle, and promised to behave well, and in future not to swear, or sing any improper songs, which if they do, Mr. Searle is desired to have them put in the Cage and kept with Bread and Water until the Visitors or Committee release them, which is not to be done until the paupers are convinced that they are not to be wholly Mrs. of the Workhouse"!
The manner of giving out-relief was pretty much of a piece with that in the Workhouse, though had it been administered by efficient and independent officers it would have been both humane and sensible, as based upon the principle of helping those who helped themselves. But, unfortunately, the weaker side of human nature was too strong, and the system pauperised scores of people in order to prevent their becoming paupers, if I may be excused a couple of paradoxes. The object of out-relief seems to have been to help all sorts of people in all sorts of ways to tide over a temporary difficulty, but unfortunately these temporary difficulties multiplied so fast on the hands of the parish Overseer as to become chronic, and that officer became the father of the parish, and the dispenser of all sorts of things from out of the parish cupboard.
The claims upon the Parish Overseer were constant and of the most varied character. Were Joe Thompson's children ailing? Then the Overseer sent in the parish doctor to bleed the poor little mites, though they might ill spare the vital fluid, and the cost of the process to the parish, when a quantity were operated upon, was 6d. apiece, as appears by the Therfield parish accounts, though individual cases of "letting blood" were usually charged a shilling each.—Was "Nat Simmons' gal" short of a petticoat? Then, the Overseer provided the needed article.—Had widow Jones broken her spinning wheel or her patten ring? Then the cooper and the blacksmith were called in by the Overseer to repair the mischief.—Was "Old Nib"—they had a curious habit of calling nicknames in the parish books of last century!—was "Old Nib" short of capital for carrying on his business of buying doctors' bottles? If so, a small instalment was forthcoming from the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Had even the respectable journeyman carpenter cut his finger? Then he too got a grant upon signing a promissory note. In this way the casual disbursements of the Overseer amounted to a considerable sum, and covered the greatest variety of claims for help—from paying a person's rent, or taking clothes out of pawn, to mending leather breeches or supplying cabbage plants for the paupers' gardens!
The comparative isolation of the rural folk was aggravated by the old laws of settlement. To nine men and women out of ten, and to ninety-nine children out of a hundred, the world was bounded almost by the parish, and the parish a man belonged to was an important consideration in those days. Indeed, Sir Mordaunt Martin, a kind of Canon Blackley of the last century, proposed a scheme for fining a farmer a half-penny a day for every man he employed not belonging to the parish! also that all males above 18 in default of paying 2d., and females 3/4d. or 1d. a week for a rainy day, should be committed to prison. Then, a man could not leave his parish and go to live, or even lodge while at work, in another parish without a licence; that is to say a certificate setting forth the parish to which he legally belonged. If he did he was liable to be taken before a magistrate by the Overseers and Churchwardens, and if a man "intruded" (that is the word used in the old informations) in this way into a parish not his own, he was liable to be taken back again, not because he was a pauper, but simply on the ground that he was "likely to become chargeable." Not half a bad way of keeping out objectionable characters!
Cases are entered in the Royston Parish books of young men working at Cambridge having to come to the parish officers at Royston for their certificates before they could remain and lodge in Cambridge! A common resolution by parish vestries was one directing the Overseers to inquire if there were any persons in the parish not belonging to such parish and without certificates. In many parishes, as at Barkway, old lists are still preserved of persons licensed, so to speak, to come into or go out of the parish to live. In this way the old parish authorities always had a hold upon a man or woman instead of waiting, as in the present day, until it becomes necessary to hunt up their settlement, and with no machinery for getting at them when once they get away. It may seem strange that a Royston man or woman could not cross over the road, say in Melbourn or Baldock Street, and change houses without a parish licence, and yet this was the legal effect of this old restraint.
Here is a specimen of such a removal over the road:—
"These are therefore in His Majesty's name, to require you, the said Churchwardens and Overseers of the poor of the said parish of Royston, in the county of Hertford, to remove and convey the said E—— H—— from out of your said parish of Royston, in the county of Hertford, to the said parish of Royston, in the county of Cambridge, and her deliver to the Churchwardens and Overseers there, &c."
We have seen that the poor of Royston, Herts. and Cambs., were treated as of one parish at the end of last century, but in the beginning of the present century there was a hitch in the arrangement, and the machinery for conveying the paupers "over the road" came into force again, with this difference, that instead of the removal of an individual pauper there was a whole exodus to be provided for, which is thus recorded:—
"Ordered that the paupers in the Workhouse belonging to Royston, Cambridgeshire, should be taken to-morrow (Nov. 4) to their own parish and presented to the Overseers of the Poor, and if they refuse to receive them to take the sense of the parish upon it on Monday at Church."