G.—The Aged and Impotent (or Infirm)
An almost similar absence of proposals is to be noted with regard to the aged and impotent. The current practice was to deal with these cases, as a rule, by outdoor relief. On this the Commissioners observe merely that "the outdoor relief to the impotent (using that word as comprehending all except the able-bodied and their families) is subject to less abuse.... No use can be made of the labour of the aged and sick, and there is little room for jobbing if their pensions are paid in money. Accordingly, we find that even in places distinguished in general by the most wanton parochial profusion, the allowances to the aged and infirm are moderate." [32] The Commissioners made no proposal that outdoor relief to the aged or impotent (or infirm) should be abolished, or even curtailed.
Such "aged and really impotent" persons as were accommodated in the workhouse were to have a separate building to themselves, under a separate superintendent; expressly in order that "the old might enjoy their indulgences." [33]
Passing now to those proposals of the Report which affected paupers generally, these concern the organisation of the workhouse, emigration and relief on loan.
With regard to the workhouse, the whole emphasis of the Report is upon classification of the inmates according to their needs; and classification, not in separate parts of one building, but by the allocation to separate classes of entirely distinct buildings in order that there might be separate and differing treatment under distinct management.
The Commissioners state that "at least four classes are necessary:—
1. The aged and really impotent.
2. The children.
3. The able-bodied females.
4. The able-bodied males."
"Of whom we trust the two latter will be the least numerous classes. It appears to us that both the requisite classification and the requisite superintendence may be better obtained in separate buildings than under a single roof." [34] The Commissioners were insistent that the treatment measured out to each class should differ according to its requirements, and "each class might thus 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 discipline as will repel the indolent and vicious." [35] The need for separate buildings, under entirely different kinds of officers, with different qualifications, at different rates of payments—in contradistinction to one large building under a single officer—is emphasised again and again at different parts of the Report.[36] It was, indeed, largely in order to provide these specialised institutions that the Commissioners recommended the formation of unions, it being made a cardinal principle that the Central Authority should "assign" to the various existing workhouses thus coming under one board of guardians "separate classes of poor." [37]
It is interesting to notice that, apart from this cardinal principle of classification by separate and specialised buildings, practically the only recommendations relating to the organisation of the workhouse, which are to be found in the Report, relate either to the character of the employment to be provided in the buildings set aside for the able-bodied—which, as we have seen, was expressly to be of a normal productive character, free from repellent characteristics—or to the enactment of a maximum diet (and no minimum). "The Commissioners should be empowered to fix a maximum of the consumption per head within the workhouses, leaving to the local officers the liberty of reducing it below the maximum if they can safely do so." [38]