In the furnishing of the wards the simplicity of 1868 was equally far removed from that of 1835. Ordinary dormitories contained beds 2 feet 6 inches wide, chairs, bells, and gas where practicable. Day-rooms were to have an open fireplace, benches, cupboards (or open shelves, which were preferred), tables, gas, combs, and hairbrushes. "A proportion of chairs" were to be provided "for the aged and infirm"; and of the benches, likewise, "those for the aged and infirm should have backs, and be of sufficient width for reasonable comfort." In the dining-rooms were to be benches, tables, a minimum of necessary table utensils, and if possible gas and an open fireplace. The sick wards were to be furnished with more care, and with an eye to medical efficiency. It is unnecessary to go into the long and detailed list of the medical appliances which were required. There is even some notice of appearances in a suggestion that "cheerful-looking rugs" should be placed on the beds, and of comfort in the arm and other chairs "for two-thirds of the number of the sick." There were also to be short benches with backs, and (but these only for special cases) even cushions; rocking-chairs for the lying-in wards, and little arm-chairs and rocking-chairs for the children's sick wards.[453] Dr. Smith had further recommended a Bible for each inmate, entertaining illustrated and religious periodicals, tracts and books, games, and a foot valance to the bed to "add to the appearance of comfort,"[454] These suggestions were not specifically taken up by the Central Authority, but Dr. Smith's report was circulated to the guardians, without comment.[455] We have the beginning, too, between 1863 and 1867, of the improvement of the food, which was regulated in each workhouse by a separate Special Order, prescribing a dietary, differing widely from union to union.[456] In 1866 the report of the medical officer in favour of skilled cooking, by a professional cook, instead of by a pauper inmate, really hot meals (even to the use of "hot water dishes"), and efficient service, so as to increase the comfort of the inmates, was circulated to the boards of guardians.[457] After many reports and elaborate inquiries, the Central Authority in 1868 issued a Circular of very authoritative suggestions for a general improvement in the workhouse dietaries. After a protest that no cause had been shown for any fundamental change in the principles which had been hitherto recommended, it was urged that there were various points which the guardians should remember in framing dietaries. The first of these points was the addition of several classes who were to have separate dietaries, viz.:—
(a) The aged and infirm not on the medical officer's book.
(b) Inmates on the medical officer's book for diet only and not on the sick list.
(c) Inmates allowed extra diets on account of employment, and those allowed alcohol for the same reason.
(d) Children aged nine to sixteen, if the guardians thought they should be separately dieted.
(e) Sick diets to be framed by the medical officer as before.
(f) Imbeciles and suckling women to be dieted as the aged, "with or without the substitution of milk porridge and bread at breakfast or supper or at both meals."
Then followed various detailed suggestions, some of which dealt with ingredients and methods of cooking. Soup or broth dinners were not to be given more than twice a week; nor were bread and cheese or suet pudding dinners, except to the able-bodied. Fresh vegetables were to be provided, if possible, five times a week, and boiled rice alone was not to be made a substitute for them. Rice pudding was not to be given as a dinner except to children under nine, and to them not more than twice a week. Children were not to have tea or coffee, except for supper on Sunday, but milk at breakfast and supper, and they were to be given two or three ounces of bread at 10 A.M. It was "suggested that tea, coffee, or cocoa, with milk and sugar, and accompanied by bread and butter or bread and cheese, should be allowed to all the aged and infirm women at breakfast and supper, and the same to aged and infirm men, or milk porridge with bread" might be given at one of those meals. The ordinary rations were—of meat (cooked, without bone), for men four ounces, for women three ounces; of soup, one to one and a half pints (containing three ounces of meat) for an adult; and of bread at breakfast or supper, six ounces for able-bodied men, for the aged, women, and children over nine five ounces, and proportionately less for younger children.[458]
The movement for the improvement of the workhouse thus initiated by the Central Authority in 1865-70 represents a vast departure, not only from the policy of the Poor Law Commissioners of 1835-47, but also from that of the Poor Law Board itself from 1847 to 1865. Unfortunately, in the absence of any embodiment of the new policy in a General Order, it was left to the slow and haphazard discretion of the six hundred boards of guardians how far it was carried into practice.[459] There is, however, evidence that by 1872, at any rate, the Metropolitan workhouses were reported to have become "attractive to paupers," and to contain "many persons ... who could maintain themselves out of doors; and, in short, that the workhouse furnishes no test of destitution."[460] Moreover, though the Central Authority sought to improve the physical conditions of workhouse life, and even to promote the comfort of the classes who now formed the great bulk of the workhouse population, it does not seem to have had any idea of remedying the mental deadness of the workhouse, the starvation of the intellect, the paralysis of the will, and the extinction of all initiative to which such an existence inevitably tended. The only hint that we can find during the whole period of any consciousness that the hundred and fifty thousand workhouse inmates had minds is a statement by Mr. C. P. Villiers in 1860 that "the board had readily consented to establish libraries" for the inmates.[461] We cannot find any order authorising the provision of workhouse libraries, or any circular suggesting them; nor do we discover their existence from such local records as we have been able to consult.
Emigration was not made the subject, during this period, of statute, order, or circular. At first we find the Central Authority continuing the favour to it which had been expressed in the 1834 Report and in the documents and action of the Poor Law Commissioners. In 1849 the Central Authority got a Bill through Parliament increasing the powers of promoting and assisting emigration,[462] in support of which the Manchester Board of Guardians petitioned in characteristic phraseology.[463] In the same year the Central Authority even approved the sending out of a convict's family to join him; "the transportation of the convict is not a voluntary desertion of the family, and when the Government promotes the sending out of the family ... the expenditure of the poor rate in furtherance of that object may properly be sanctioned."[464] By 1852 the number of persons emigrated at the expense of the poor rate had risen to 3271 in a single year, four-fifths going to the Australian Colonies.[465] By this time the total number of persons assisted to emigrate at the expense of the poor rates, between 1834 and 1853, had mounted up to nearly 24,000.[466] The policy then changes. The number of persons emigrated at the expense of the poor rate suddenly declines, falling from 3271 in 1852 to 488 in 1853.[467] In 1854 it is recorded that the Central Authority had "declined during the past year to sanction any expenditure from the poor rate in aid of emigration to the Australian Colonies (except in ... special circumstances), on the ground that the condition of those colonies [appeared] to be such as of itself to attract largely voluntary and independent emigration"[468]—a reason, we may observe, which does not seem relevant to a discussion of the advantage or disadvantage of emigration as a means of reducing pauperism at home. It does not appear that the change of policy was due, as it might have been, to a conviction that a colony in a period of excitement over "gold rushes" was not a suitable place to which to send a young person in whose welfare one took a personal interest. It may be that the real reason was a political one, viz. objections expressed by the Australian colonies themselves. Whatever the motive, however, rate-aided emigration remained in disfavour. "We must consider," said the Poor Law Board in 1860, "that at present emigration cannot be considered as any practical remedial measure for the repression of pauperism."[469] In 1863, Mr. Villiers, speaking as President of the Poor Law Board, gave a new reason for the disfavour into which emigration had fallen. "I do not mean to say," he protested, on a discussion about the distress caused by the Lancashire Cotton Famine, "that the Government should discourage emigration.... [But] when we know the large amount of capital in the country, and the great increase of it, and are also cognisant of the demand for labour a few years since, I do not think it would be wise of the Government to expend public money in the promotion of emigration."[470] For the next seven years emigration at the expense of the poor rate practically ceases, the number of persons so assisted falling in 1866-7 to eighteen.[471] In the following year, 277 persons were sent from Poplar, then exceptionally distressed,[472] but there was no general resumption of the policy, so far as adults were concerned. In 1869 the Central Authority, whilst disavowing any intention of reviving the policy, tried to simplify the procedure with regard to emigration, but found the representatives of the colonies adverse.[473] In 1870 there was, however, a slight revival, accompanied by the new feature of the emigration to Canada of orphan or deserted children (Miss Rye's scheme),[474] destined to become thenceforth a constant feature, though not in any one year attaining any considerable magnitude. The total number of persons emigrated at the expense of the poor rate in the seventeen years between 1853 and 1870 was between three and four thousand, as contrasted with nearly 24,000 in the preceding nineteen years.[475]
We may note that the Central Authority did not advise making use of the statutory power to grant relief in the form of a loan, as a means of discouraging applicants, but regarded it solely as a way of saving the rates. Such relief was to be granted with due consideration and the bona fide intention of recovering.[476] Relief could not be given on loan if it would be contrary to Order to grant it not on loan.[477] In fact, what might not lawfully be given, was not to be lent.[478] Whatever was granted on loan should always be strictly recovered in due time. "The power of lending is only to be exercised where the guardians think fit to do something less than absolutely give the relief applied for in cases where the application is lawful."[479] As examples of occasions suitable for relief on loan, the Central Authority adduced that of a mentally defective person having a regular and sufficient income, but yet occasionally destitute from incapacity to manage his expenditure.[480] Other cases are those of wives or children found destitute, when the relief may be made on loan to the husbands or parents.[481] A further instance is supplied by relief applied for by the mother of an illegitimate child who is entitled to periodical payments from the putative father. The putative father may be asked to make his payments in such a way as to facilitate the recovery of the loan from the mother.[482] We find no revival of the idea mooted in 1840 of granting medical relief on loan.