February of the same year. The full report of the Committee can be read in the Second Annual Report of the Local Government Board (App., pp. 68-75). They found that while in England and Wales the total expenditure on poor relief in 1871 amounted to a charge of 6s. 11d. per head of population, in Brixworth Union it amounted to 12s. 1d.; that while in England and Wales the number of outdoor paupers was to the number of indoor paupers in the proportion of 5 to 1, in the Brixworth Union the proportion was 17 to 1, and that while in England and Wales the proportion of the population to the number of paupers was 23 to I, in Brixworth the proportion was as 12 to I. Having described the character of the Union and its administration, they recommended that outdoor relief should only be given in exceptional cases, and not at all to the following classes, viz.:

I. To non-residents.

2. To wives deserted by their husbands. 3. To wives or families of convicted prisoners. 4. To single women with illegitimate children. 5. To able-bodied widows with one child only. 6. To wives or families of militiamen during duty. 7. To persons having relatives capable of maintaining them.

8. To persons living in cottages or premises reported by the sanitary officer as unfavourable to health.

The report then went on to deal with the general principles which should govern the administration of relief, and is on this account a valuable document for all time.

The report of the committee was Board, and at once put into force.

adopted by the
Its effect was

described in a report drawn up by the Rev. W. Bury
in March 1874. This report will be found printed in
extenso in the Third Annual Report of the Local
Government Board (App., pp. 117-124).. On the
statistical side the number of paupers on the outdoor
relief list had been reduced in one year only from 917
to 542, while the number of indoor paupers had fallen
from 73 to 67. The annual expenditure on relief had
also fallen from £5,704 to £4.425. On the moral side
the report shows that the change was effected with the
least possible amount of suffering to the poor. The
policy of the gradual extinction of outdoor relief was
steadily pursued, and on the 1st January 1894 there were
only 18 ordinary outdoor paupers on the relief list, while
the total number of paupers had been reduced from 1
in 12 of population to 1 in 109. The recent history of
the Union, showing a strong reaction from the old
policy in spite of the strenuous exertions of Mr Pell
and Mr Bury, has still to be written, but that both the
pauperism and expenditure on relief in the Union are
steadily rising, are facts which are patent to every
observer.

Numbers of Paupers Relieved in the Brixworth Union on the
Undermentioned Dates.

Mr Pell's work as a Poor Law Guardian has not been limited to Brixworth, for he had from 1876 to 1889 a seat as a nominated Guardian on the St George's in the East Board, in which parish he possessed property. Here he co-operated with Mr A. G. Crowder, still a Guardian of the parish, and well known for his beneficence and untiring services in the cause of the poor. It is scarcely necessary to say that he joined heartily in the work of the abolition of outdoor relief there, and in the improvement of the poor in the Workhouse and Infirmary. Together they visited many of the dwellings of the poor in that populous area, reporting to the Vestry the miserable sanitary neglect in matters under its control. That body did not, however, pass them a vote of thanks for this voluntary work, but rather the reverse; although they received every support from the Medical Officer of Health. But good came of their efforts, even to the closing of a whole court belonging to Mr Pell himself as freeholder, who thereupon had the whole court pulled down, together with four other houses of his in front of it, and replaced them with very good buildings. It is well to mention this fact, as it illustrates the practical interest which he has always taken in the welfare of the poor.

In 1876-77 he was associated with Mr Crowder

and others in founding the Tower Hamlets Pensions Committee to assist the poor in the three parishes of Whitechapel, Stepney, and St George's East, in cases where the abolition of outdoor relief might press hardly on those whose poverty was in no way the result of their own improvidence or fault. Mr Pell and those who think with him on the question of poor relief have always held that, if outdoor relief is abolished in any parish or Union, private charity will be quickened in a perfectly spontaneous manner. large centres of population, however, he was willing to admit the advantage to be derived from a wise administration of public charity. The Tower Hamlets Pensions Committee, of which Mr Pell has been Chairman and Mr Crowder Hon. Treasurer since its foundation, undertakes a large responsibility in respect of the aged in the three parishes.

In

As before stated, Mr Pell added to his Poor Law work by becoming a nominated member of the Metropolitan Asylums Board in 1875, remaining a member of that body until his resignation in 1888.

It was not likely that during his seventeen years of Parliamentary life he would not make himself heard on questions affecting the administration of the Poor Law in the House of Commons. On such questions he soon came to be regarded as a first authority, and he was always listened to in the House with the respect which his complete knowledge of the subject inspired, if his unpopular views on the question of poor relief could not always keep the House together. Thus, on 18th July 1876 he called attention to the administration of the Poor Law in England, and moved "that it is desirable to take steps to check the irregular bestowal of outdoor relief with a view to the gradual diminution of such an encouragement to pauperism and improvidence." The small importance which a democratic assembly attaches to such a question was illustrated by

the House being counted out (Hansard, vol. ccxxx., p. 1551).

In the same year, however, he was successful in carrying an important amendment to the Divided Parishes Bill. În order to remove an old grievance this Bill provided that a person born in Ireland should become irremovable after a three years' residence in any parish. Mr Pell moved that the words "born in Ireland" be struck out, so as to make the law the same for every person, of whatever nationality. He was strongly opposed by the Government-his own party -but by the aid of the Irish vote, and by persistent effort, he obliged them to give way (Hansard, vol. ccxxix., p. 1765). Mr Pell has always put principle before party.

As a step towards obtaining the entire abolition of the law of removal, he gave his support on the 2nd July 1878 to a resolution moved by Mr M'Carthy Downing to the effect that after a twelve months' industrial residence no pauper should be removable. On 17th May 1882, and with the same view, he supported Sir Hervey Bruce's Bill for abolishing the legal powers of returning Irish workmen from England to Ireland when past work, but the Bill was lost (Hansard, vol. cclxix., pp. 897, 924).

In 1882 he introduced a Vagrancy Bill into the House of Commons (Hansard, vol. cclxx., p. 358), which provided for the detention of vagrants in the same way as other classes of paupers, but the Government would not accept the Bill in this form, and it emerged from Parliament as the well-known Casual Poor Act of 1882.

In 1883 he brought in and carried the Poor Law Conferences Act, which authorised Unions to pay out of their common funds the expenses of Guardians and Clerks attending such Conferences, and to buy reports of their proceedings.

In 1884 he carried against the Government (208