- 1. To what extent and under what regulations are there establishments for their reception?
- 2. To what extent and under what regulations are they billeted or quartered on householders?
- 3. To what extent and under what regulations are they boarded with individuals?
- 4. To what extent and under what regulations, and to what degree of relationship, are their relatives compelled to support them?
Idiots and Lunatics.
- 1. To what extent and under what regulations are there establishments for their reception?
- 2. To what extent and under what regulations are they billeted or quartered on householders?
- 3. To what extent and under what regulations are they boarded with individuals?
- 4. To what extent and under what regulations, and to what degree of relationship, are their relatives compelled to support them?
Effects of the foregoing Institutions.
You are requested to state whether the receipt, or the expectation of relief, appears to produce any and what effect,
- 1st. On the industry of the labourers?
- 2nd. On their frugality?
- 3rd. On the age at which they marry?
- 4th. On the mutual dependence and affection of parents, children and other relatives?
- 5th. What, on the whole, is the condition of the able-bodied and self-supporting labourer of the lowest class, as compared with the condition of the person subsisting on alms or public charity. Is the condition of the latter, as to food and freedom from labour more or less eligible? See p. 261 and 335 of the Poor Law Extracts.
You are also requested to read the accompanying volume[1], published by the English Poor Law Commissioners, and to state the existence of any similar mal-administration of the charitable funds of the country in which you reside, and what are its effects?
You are also requested to forward all the dietaries which you can procure of prisons, workhouses, almshouses and other institutions, with translations expressing the amounts and quantities in English money, weights and measures, and to state what changes (if any) are proposed in the laws or institutions respecting relief in the country in which you reside, and on what grounds?
In reply to the following Questions respecting Labourers, you are requested to distinguish Agriculturists from Artisans, and the Skilled from the Unskilled.
- 1. What is the general amount of wages of an able-bodied male labourer, by the day, the week, the month or the year, with and without provisions, in summer and in winter?
- 2. Is piece-work general?
- 3. What, in the whole, might an average labourer, obtaining an average amount of employment, both in day-work and in piece-work, expect to earn in a year, including harvest-work, and the value of all his advantages and means of living?
- 4. State, as nearly as you can, the average annual expenditure of labourers of different descriptions, specifying schooling for children, religious teachers, &c.
- 5. Is there any, and what employment for women and children?
- 6. What can women, and children under 16, earn per week, in summer, in winter and harvest, and how employed?
- 7. What, in the whole, might a labourer’s wife and four children, aged 14, 11, 8 and 5 years respectively (the eldest a boy), expect to earn in a year, obtaining, as in the former case, an average amount of employment?
- 8. Could such a family subsist on the aggregate earnings of the father, mother and children, and if so, on what food?
- 9. Could it lay by anything, and how much?
- 10. The average quantity of land annexed to a labourer’s habitation?
- 11. What class of persons are the usual owners of labourers’ habitations?
- 12. The rent of labourers’ habitations, and price on sale?
- 13. Whether any lands let to labourers; if so, the quantity to each, and at what rent?
- 14. The proportion of annual deaths to the whole population?
- 15. The proportion of annual births to the whole population?
- 16. The proportion of annual marriages to the whole population?
- 17. The average number of children to a marriage?
- 18. Proportion of legitimate to illegitimate births?
- 19. The proportion of children that die before the end of their first year?
- 20. Proportion of children that die before the end of their tenth year?
- 21. Proportion of children that die before the end of their eighteenth year.
- 22. Average age of marriage, distinguishing males from females?
- 23. Causes by which marriages are delayed?
- 24. Extent to which, 1st, the unmarried; 2nd, the married, save?
- 25. Mode in which they invest their savings?