13s., and it is at that figure now. In one way, and in one way only, have his prophecies of 1875 been fulfilled, and that in a way he did not anticipate. He asserted that outdoor relief "indirectly encouraged early and improvident marriages, and consequent overpopulation." The diminution of population in the Brixworth Union during the Pell-Bury regime was most marked, and is generally regretted, labour being at busy times so scarce. Other causes no doubt contributed, but many of us are convinced that the harsh. Workhouse policy drove not a few from the Brixworth villages. So in that way "over-population" was assuredly checked.

Again, it has been repeated almost ad nauseam that the finest receipt for producing special thrift, and for almost driving labouring folk into Benefit Societies, is the drastic expedient of the Workhouse test. Brixworth is in this particular also a striking object-lesson. For more than twenty years Charity Organisation views were rampant in its parishes; but having taken the widest and most practical interest in Friendly Societies all my life, and having lived in various parts of England-Somersetshire, Derbyshire, Staffordshire, and Yorkshire, as well as Northamptonshire-I can conscientiously say that I have never known a country district so badly off as Brixworth for sound clubs, or in which the leading Friendly Societies were so poorly supported. Several local clubs on utterly bad financial foundations have collapsed recently, and others will probably follow. Some of us who are in favour of discreet out-relief have done our best to remedy this evil during the last three or four years, and have established several branches of the National Deposit Friendly Society.

With regard to the harshness or otherwise of the Workhouse test system, scores of the decent poor have testified to me on the matter. There was festering discontent and bitter animosity to the system

throughout the great majority of the cottage homes of the thirty-six parishes. The hatefulness of the method came out all the stronger, because no one who knows him can possibly have any doubt of the personal kindness and personal generosity of my predecessor in the Brixworth chair, Rev. Canon Bury. If any one could have made the principle acceptable to the poor, it would have been the Rector of Harleston. Yet even in his own parish the great majority of the cottagers detested it. When the Royal Commission on the Aged Poor was sitting-1893-94-Canon Bury gave evidence. His evidence was subsequently directly traversed by Mr Sidney Ward (a working man, and Secretary of the Brixworth Out-Relief Association, to whose faithful persistence the poor of the district will ever be indebted), who gave the fullest particulars with regard to many cases of cruelty and harshness resulting from the system, and withstood a long cross-examination with remarkable ability. His evidence is on pages 841-857 of the Report. A strange and quite unprecedented thing happened with regard to this important evidence as to the dire results of Workhouse test policy. When the evidence was published in a Blue-book in 1895, it was found that Canon Bury had been permitted by the Secretary of the Commission to reply to and to contradict Mr Ward's evidence, without Mr Ward or his friends knowing a word about it. When this was detected, the Commission was dissolved, and nothing in an official way could be done to correct this gross irregularity. However, all the harsh cases that were named by Mr Ward, that were still living, came before the reformed Brixworth Board, and were one and all relieved after careful scrutiny. Moreover, as spokesman of the out-relief party (before I was in the chair) I stated publicly at the Board that we were prepared with affidavits to fully and completely substantiate every one of Mr Sidney Ward's charges made before the Commission. If any one desires to know the opinion

of the poor of Brixworth Union as to the harshness and bitterness of the old regime, he can gain it at first hand by visiting their homes before the evil days are forgotten.

Moreover, the system at Brixworth was an acknowledged failure, even by its authors. Resolved not to admit the necessity of out-relief from a State-provided fund, but finding themselves face to face with a determination in not a few cases to die rather than enter the Workhouse, a scheme was devised for relieving cases privately, to prevent the scandal of their continuous application and continuous rejection before the Brixworth Board. This scheme was known by the appropriate name of "The Private Fund." It was in the control of the late Chairman, who associated with himself two other beneficed clergymen and a local squire. All these gentlemen were men of repute, and much appreciated in their own districts. From this fund pittances were doled out, usually by the local clergyman, to those whom these four private persons thought suitable after private inquiry. The relieving officer of those days used to give early private information to the Chairman of any possible or actual application for relief, and to the Chairman only. Steps were then taken to forestall the application, and the poor were assured that there was no chance of their getting anything from the Board, and that they had better accept a proffered dole. The beginning of the end of the much-vaunted Brixworth system was when I succeeded, by a single vote, in carrying a proposition prohibiting the relieving officer giving this exclusive information to the Chairman, and requiring that he should send a post-card to the Guardian or Guardians of the particular parish whenever application was made.

Much is said pretty continuously by the Pell-Bury and Charity Organisation school as to giving adequate relief, if out-relief is to be given in any shape. It is not

then a little remarkable to be able to say that the Brixworth "Private Fund" was doled out at a lower rate than the most economical Board of the district; it was also given fitfully and irregularly in some cases; and it was, of course, subject to immediate withdrawal on private grounds and on private information. There seems to me no manner of doubt that this private fund (though it did not deprive its recipients of the franchise) was in every way more truly pauperising and degrading than a sum obtained after public inquiry by a public official from a public fund to which all are required to contribute. Some of the selfish well-to-do ratepayers will always be found ready to support a Workhouse test scheme, for it saves them from their share of a common fund. The charitably disposed, on the contrary, will always find plenty of suitable cases for their individual relief after the law has provided the minimum for destitute cases. In the Brixworth district, the poor, directly they had the chance, showed unmistakably their preference for public relief. Even in Harleston, the parish of the late Chairman, those who were on the private relief list displayed at once their anxiety to be relieved by the Board.

The

A very curious error into which the Charity Organisation folk are continually falling, is the idea that because the poor refuse a Workhouse order, therefore they are humbugs. Those who live and genuinely work amongst the poor either in town or country know full well many an instance in which this is not true. innate and natural shrinking from a Workhouse-save in neglected old age-will, I sincerely trust, never die out. The vicious-lived man or woman knows but little and cares less for home associations; but the great majority of the decent poor have as keen an appreciation for these things, and for the occasional companionship of their neighbours, and for the sights on which their eyes have rested from infancy upwards, as any of us in this hall to-day. Some will literally die, and many

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more suffer the greatest privations, rather than be uprooted from their old homes.

The old Brixworth policy completely failed to drive the aged or other applicants into the House. I have lately been looking up the half-yearly official parliamentary returns, and I find that the average number of inmates of the Brixworth Workhouse for seven halfyears before the change of policy and for the seven recorded half-years since the change to out-relief works out at exactly the same figure, namely, 85. The moral of it is that under no conditions will the poor enter the Workhouse if they can possibly help it. Nevertheless, humanity suggests that we should do all we can to promote the comfort of the aged and infirm who are forced to end their days within the Workhouse walls.

Mr Chance, in one of the most recent of his many Conference papers, lays down the rule that "the corollary of restricted out-relief must be a well-conducted House.' Now when I first joined the Brixworth Board, I was pained by the bleakness and lack of comfort in the House. Without particularising, I have no hesitation in saying that it was below the average. Since out-relief has been in the ascendant all this has been changed, and a great number of improvements have been introduced. Only last Board day, Colonel Preston, our Inspector, was present, and said that he "was much struck with the great improvements that had been made in the House during the last two or three years.

Again, it is usually argued that the cutting off of out-relief or its great restriction must be followed by a corresponding reduction of rates. This, however, is by no means a necessary consequence; strange to say the exact opposite is often the case. A remarkable pamphlet was issued by Knight & Co. in 1893, called Plain Words on Out-Relief," wherein it was shown (full details being given in the Appendix), that in 180 there were 149 Unions administered more