[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.
[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.
[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).