W. Budd, Deputy Clerk of the Peace.[375]
[374] Reading Mercury, May 4, contained an advertisement of a general meeting of justices "to limit, direct, and appoint the wages of day labourers."
[375] Simultaneously the Magistrates published a recommendation to overseers to grow potatoes, setting poor people to work and offering them one-third or one-fourth of the crop, and to sell at 1s. a bushel; also to get in a stock of peat, faggots, furze, etc., in the summer and to sell at a loss in the winter.
6. The Workhouse System [Eden, The State of the Poor, 1797, Vol. II, pp. 168-9], 1797.
Stanhope (Durham).
The poor have been farmed for many years: about fifteen years ago they were farmed for 250l.; but the expense has gradually increased since that period: the year before last, the expense was 495l., and last year 494l.; and the Contractor says that he shall lose 100l. by his last bargain, and will not take the poor this year under 700l. Twenty-two poor people are at present in the house, and 100 families receive weekly relief out of it: these out-poor, the Contractor says, will cost him 450l. for the year ending at May-day next. The Poor-house was built about fifteen years ago; it is, like most others in the hands of contractors, in a dirty state.
Preston (Lancashire)[376].
The number of poor in the workhouse a few weeks ago, was as follows:—
| Men | 26 |
| Women | 39 |
| Boys | 47 |
| Girls | 40 |
| — | |
| Total | 152 |
| — |
At present there are 158 or 159 in the house. The number of out-poor at present is 70; they cost about 10l. a week.