There is no change to record in 1871 in the expressed policy of preventing relief to paupers not resident within the union. Such relief (given in order to avoid the expense and hardship of removal) continued in many cases, but was repeatedly blamed by the inspectors. "Non-resident relief is given in almost all the unions ... sixteen per cent of the outdoor paupers of Glendale Union were non-resident."[780] In 1878 the Central Authority suggested that such relief "might be almost entirely discontinued."[781] There has been no explicit abrogation of this policy down to the present day; even in face of representations that it is "harsh and totally out of keeping with the spirit of the times."[782] But from 1871 onwards we have the force of the maxim weakened by the growth of whole classes of cases which the guardians are allowed, and even encouraged, to send to places outside the union, and maintain there. We need do no more than allude to the boarded-out children. Another growing class is that of paupers who are placed in certified schools or homes, either by way merely of boarding-school (frequently recommended as a method of disposing of Roman Catholic children); or for residence in any industrial or reformatory school; or (irrespective of age) for maintenance in an institution for special treatment (blind, deaf and dumb, crippled, epileptic, idiot, etc.); or merely in an asylum for the aged and infirm;[783] or for curative treatment in a hospital, convalescent home, seaside home, or sanatorium.[784] Even able-bodied aged paupers may, as the Poplar Guardians were informed in 1896, be boarded out in country families, under the guise of non-resident relief. The Central Authority has not objected to the transfer of workhouse inmates, provided these do not actively protest, to country workhouses, there to be maintained as non-resident paupers.[785] In one case, indeed, the Central Authority allowed a union to abolish its workhouse altogether (retaining only a casual ward), and approved "arrangements for the boarding-out of the indoor poor in the workhouses of other unions for a period not exceeding five years."[786] It is, therefore, not easy to determine how much is left of the policy of preventing non-resident relief as such.
We left the Central Authority in 1871, fully accepting the view that the workhouse was not merely a "test" which few only might be expected to pass or to endure for long, but a place of permanent or long-continued residence for whole classes of paupers. The workhouse population on 1st January 1871 numbered, in fact, 168,073. The Central Authority, reverting to the proposals of the 1834 Report, had accordingly started out to differentiate the workhouse into separate institutions for particular classes (the children, the sick, and, in the Metropolis, also the imbeciles and idiots); to impose an altogether new standard of expensive structural efficiency on the boards of guardians; to press incessantly for new buildings of approved pattern; to increase the healthiness and comfort of the wards for the sick, the aged, and the children; and to make the dietaries for these classes better adapted to their likings and their needs. "Those who enjoy the advantages of these institutions," had said the Central Authority's own medical officer in 1867, "are almost solely such as may fittingly receive them, viz. the aged and infirm, the destitute sick, and children. Workhouses are now asylums and infirmaries."[787] There was, after 1871, no change and no arrest in this policy.[788] So far as the children, the sick, and the aged and infirm were concerned, we have already described its continuance and its progressive development. The improvement of the institutional provision for the pauper, by removing some of the objections to the indiscriminate general workhouse of 1835-65, fitted in, we may say, with the new crusade of the inspectorate against outdoor relief as such. That crusade was, however, for the first twenty years, pushed without regard to whether or not the particular boards of guardians had accepted the new idea of the specialised institutional treatment for particular classes, or were still wedded to the indiscriminate common workhouse, which aimed at being "deterrent." Mr. Longley realised that the higher standard of comfort that was coming to be allowed to the aged, the sick, and the children in a general workhouse inevitably tended to prevent the necessary strictness and severity being applied to the able-bodied. The inspectorate accordingly strove in London to get specialised institutions for the able-bodied also, the result being the "Poplar test workhouse" that we have already described.
In 1874 the Central Authority expressed its regret at the slow progress "towards the permanent classification in separate establishments of the various classes of indoor paupers, other than the sick.... We attach the utmost importance to this improvement of the classification of indoor paupers, which we believe to be a necessary condition of the maintenance of that discipline which lies at the root of an effective administration of indoor relief. This improvement, however, cannot be effected, except at an enormous and almost prohibitory cost, otherwise than by the combination of several boards of guardians for this purpose. Their existing workhouses would, in that event, become available for the separate accommodation of various classes of indoor paupers chargeable to the several combined areas. We are advised that in the existing state of the law it is doubtful whether such a combination can be effected otherwise than by the voluntary action of boards of guardians, which we trust may still take place, and the desirableness of which we shall continue to press upon the guardians."[789] No such combinations took place, and the Central Authority, baffled by the expense and apparently not prepared to adopt the heroic expedient of issuing orders merging several unions in one, abandoned the attempt to get classification by institutions, except with regard to the children and the sick. The able-bodied had to be dealt with in a general workhouse; and we must note, for twenty years after 1871, battling with the ameliorative efforts of the departmental architect, the departmental medical officer, and the departmental educational experts, on behalf of particular classes of inmates, an attempt to make the workhouse more "deterrent" to other classes of paupers.
The most marked increase of severity was directed against the class of "ins and outs," called in America "revolvers," and it took the form of enlarged powers of detention. By an Act of 1871 the guardians were enabled to detain a pauper (other than a vagrant) who gave notice to quit, in any case for twenty-four hours; if he had already discharged himself once or oftener within a month before giving the notice, for forty-eight hours; and if he had so discharged himself more than twice within two months, for seventy-two hours.[790] Under the Act of 1899[791] a pauper may even be compulsorily detained for 168 hours (one week) "if he has, in the opinion of the guardians, discharged himself frequently without sufficient reason."
With regard to the able-bodied pauper, at any rate for the first fifteen years after 1871, there was to be no leniency. The spirit of the administration, whether of the workhouse or of the casual ward, was that subsequently expressed by Mr. Walter Long. "I would treat the wastrel and the vagabond, and the man who makes his wife and children paupers because of his own degraded habits, in a severe way, and I would make life a burden to him while he remains in the workhouse. I try to insist upon it that in the administration of our workhouses we should make such men realise that if we are compelled to keep them out of the rates we will do it at some discomfort to them."[792] But it was not, in fact, found practicable to avoid improving the accommodation, even for the able-bodied. For them, as for all other inmates, the Central Authority insisted on a sufficient supply of blankets, sheets, bedroom furniture and conveniences. For them, too, the Central Authority insisted on such comforts as knives and forks to eat their meals with—in one case having a long tussle with a recalcitrant board of guardians on this point.[793] The able-bodied shared, too, in the improvement of the cooking which took place, particularly after the general investigation which led to the new Dietaries Order of 1900. "This Order," said an inspector, "has certainly had two good incidental results. It has induced many boards of guardians to engage paid cooks, instead of employing chance inmates knowing nothing about the work ... and the cooking appliances have in many cases been overhauled and improved. In some places they have been of the most rudimentary character."[794] The able-bodied may even get special privileges. Inmates employed on specially heavy work are permitted to receive an extra meal, as lunch. The discretion in this matter at first belonged to the medical officer, but now the guardians have power to order lunch as they think fit. In no case can any inmate claim it as a right, and it is not to be given merely on account of household work. Lunch, when allowed, is very plain, and may not include alcohol. The medical officer is to advise as to the degree of employment necessitating lunch, but the Central Authority suggests that "heavy work," earning lunch for able-bodied men and women, should be taken to mean "an average day's work with sustained exertion, e.g. corn-grinding, pumping, stone-breaking or crushing, shifting heavy goods, digging, scrubbing, washing, ironing, etc.," while heavy work for the aged and infirm (or light work for the able-bodied) is "employment without sustained exertion, e.g. wood-chopping and wood-bundling, hoeing or weeding, sorting light articles, sewing, etc."[795] Beer was particularly objected to. In 1877 the Hackney Board of Guardians, who wanted to give beer to two paupers who assisted the coachman, were told that they were "legally empowered to require from inmates such labour as might be required without having recourse to exceptional indulgences"—in this case the giving of beer—"which would only, in effect, vitiate the principle of the workhouse being a pauper test."[796] On the other hand, it appears that beer is habitually allowed to the able-bodied inmates of certain workhouses at certain times, in return for work. A number of boards of guardians, having land to cultivate, have been permitted by Special Orders to "make to paupers employed in harvest work on land belonging to the guardians such allowance of food and fermented liquor as may be necessary," without any direction of the medical officer.[797] And when in 1903 an auditor surcharged a workhouse master for beer allowed to certain inmates for work done, it was explained "that if such allowance was withheld, some of the paupers would leave the workhouse"—surely a strange threat to make to a Poor Law authority—and with others "difficulties would arise to get them to work." On this explanation the Central Authority (whilst upholding the auditor's decision in point of law) remitted the surcharge.[798] Finally, it may be observed that the shelter of the workhouse was not to be denied to the able-bodied, even for bad conduct. The master must admit all persons who present the proper order, at whatever hour of the day or night. He may not refuse admission even to a man in a state of drunkenness.[799] Nor could a man be punished for being admitted whilst suffering from delirium tremens.[800]
There is, thus, a marked change of tone after 1885 in workhouse administration, as in other branches of policy. This change of tone becomes specially marked in the Circular of January and the Memorandum of June 1895, in which the newly elected boards of guardians, chosen for the first time on a democratic franchise and without any high rating qualification, were specially instructed as to their administrative duties. These authoritative documents breathe a spirit of humane consideration for the pauper inmates, without excepting the able-bodied, which Mr. Longley would, we think, not have regarded as "deterrent." The medical officer, rather than the master, was to advise the guardians on practically all the points on which the general regimen of the institution depended. The visiting committees were to take care that all the arrangements were in order; they "should satisfy themselves whether there is any structural defect in any part of the house; whether painting or lime-washing is required; whether the wards are clean and provided with such conveniences as lockers or shelves, so that they may be kept in proper order; whether there is any defect in the construction of the sanitary arrangements or in the general sewerage of the house; whether the yards are defective as airing courts or places of recreation. The attention of the visiting committee should be carefully directed to the subject of ventilation, which should be effected by special means, apart from the usual means of doors, windows, and fire-places, and should be so arranged that each ward may be brought into uninterrupted communication with the open air."[801] The classes of inmates are to be subdivided "with reference to their moral character or behaviour, or to their previous habits."[802] The employment to be provided is to be "unobjectionable in its character."[803] The clothing of inmates when absent on leave from the workhouse "should not be in any way distinctive or conspicuous in character."[804] The visiting committees are to see that there is always enough underclothing in stock to allow all the inmates the requisite changes; that "sufficient means for ensuring personal cleanliness are provided; that a convenient lavatory, as well as baths,[805] with water laid on, and supplied with towels, soap, and combs, are accessible to each class."[806] "A piece of cocoa fibre matting or other material, or a mattress, should be placed between the bedstead and the bed. A sufficient supply of blankets, sheets, bedroom furniture and conveniences should be provided."[807]
It remains only to mention the great improvement in the workhouse dietary carried out, after prolonged inquiries, in the General Order of 1900.[808] During the preceding twenty years there had been but little attention paid to the subject. The Central Authority had, in 1871, sanctioned the use of Australian tinned meat.[809] It had also authorised in over a hundred unions fish dinners once a week.[810] In 1892 it had drawn attention to the great variation among unions in the amount of alcoholic drink consumed.[811] In 1896 it had engaged in a prolonged struggle with the Chorlton Board of Guardians, and others elsewhere, who objected to the waste involved in supplying each inmate with a fixed and weighed-out allowance of bread, and who found by experiment that much less was used (and very much less thrown into the pig-trough) if the paupers were allowed to help themselves at meals without stint. The Central Authority long resisted this subversive proposal, and insisted on the General Consolidated Order of 1847 being obeyed. When the rebellious boards persisted, the Central Authority gave way—not, however, amending its Orders, but permitting, by letter, the breach of them.[812] An official Departmental Committee appointed to consider the matter advised the president that the injunction of the Order to weigh out a fixed ration to each pauper might with advantage be abandoned in the case of bread.[813] But when, in 1901, the Association of Poor Law Unions asked that the same principle should be applied to vegetables, the Central Authority consented only to bear the suggestion in mind.[814]