[390] Twenty-first Annual Report, 1868-9, pp. 16-18; Circular of 30th October 1869; Twenty-second Annual Report, 1869-70, pp. xxxvii-xli.
[391] The "policy of providing workhouses for separate classes of the poor was fully recognised by the Commissioners of Inquiry into the operation of the Poor Law in 1834, who in their Report recommended 'that the Central Board should be empowered to cause any number of parishes to be incorporated for the purpose of workhouse management, and for providing new workhouses where necessary, and to assign to those workhouses separate classes of poor though composed of the poor of distinct parishes.' And in another part of the same Report they say that it appears to them 'that both the requisite classification and the requisite superintendence may be better obtained in separate buildings than under a single roof. Each class then might receive an appropriate treatment; the old might enjoy their indulgences without torment from the boisterous, the children be educated, and the able-bodied subjected to such courses of labour and of discipline as will repel the idle and vicious'" (Twenty-first Annual Report, 1868-9, pp. 16-17).
[392] For a Special Order for such an Infirmary, see that of 27th June 1871.
[393] Twenty-second Annual Report, 1869-70, p. xi.
[394] Ibid. p. x.
[395] See the statistical inquiries summarised in the Twenty-second Annual Report, 1869-70, pp. xxiv-xxviii; House of Commons, No. 312 of 1865; No. 372 of 1866; No. 4 of 1867-8; No. 445 of 1868; House of Lords, No. 216 of 1866.
[396] See the Special Orders of 15th May, 18th June, and 17th July 1867; and 23rd December 1870.
[397] Twenty-second Annual Report of Poor Law Board (G. S. Goschen, president), 1869-70, p. lii. Already in 1846 and again in 1853 the Central Authority had expressed its "decided opinion ... that money judiciously expended ... in the improvement of the sanitary condition of the poorer classes, and in the prevention or removal of causes of disease, has a direct tendency to diminish or prevent future destitution and pauperism; and will thus be found to be most profitably expended, even in reference to the more direct object of the duties of the guardians" (Circular of 21st September 1853; in Sixth Annual Report, 1853, p. 36).
[398] Fifth Annual Report, 1852, pp. 7, 152.
[399] Twelfth Annual Report, 1859-60, p. 17.