WORKING OF THE NEW POOR LAW.

Om readers must recollect the vehemence with which the new Poor-law was denounced a year ago in several of' the leading

metropolitan newspapers, and by a minority in both Houses of Parliament. Its authors were characterized as ignorant and unfeel- ing ; and its certain consequences were declared to be a vast in- crease in the Poor-rates and a general rising of the peasantry. In the house of Commons, Mr. WALTER and Mr. LAW HODGES shook their heads with 'solemn anxiety, and wished to God that the next winter were well over. Bishop PHILLPOTS and Lord TEYNIIAM in the Lords, talked themselves hoarse with abusing the bill ; the Bishop expressing particular anxiety as to the fate of the offspring of unwedded mothers, and striving, though in vain, to frighten the Peers with prophecies of unlimited in- fanticide.

Now a vast deal of this nonsense was uttered with factious in- tent, and more was the result of mortified vanity. There were some country gentlemen who foresaw that a certain portion of their magisterial authority could not, under the bill, be made available for election purposes—they would no longer be enabled to sport the character of'" poor men's Magistrates" at the expense of their neighbours. There were some political economists who found that their favourite dogmas, their own precious schemes for the diminution and extinction of pauperism, met with no favour from the Leeislature; that they were discarded alike by Lord A LTIIORP and Sir Romar PEEL, by Lord MELBOURNE and the Duke of 1VELLINGTON. Of course all these were the determined and angry, but, fortunately, the powerless opponents of the measure. There were others, who without any selfish feeling, but with the best motives, and simply from want of nerve or ignorance of the subject, dreaded the attempt to enforce the provisions of the now law. To all such it will give real pleasure to find, that after a twelvemonth's trial (and in every experiment of the kind the chief risk of failure is in the outset) the bill has been found to work admirably well in no fewer than :2069 parishes, and many of those previously the worst-managed, and most-deeply involved in the whole country. This fact we learn from the " First Annual Report of the Poor-law Commissioners for England and Wales, which has just been printed by ordet of the House of Commons. We never had any doubt as to the soundness of the principles on which the new law was based; but laws are enforced by men, and of course we could not have equal confidence in the prudence and discretion of the untried Commissioners, whose duty it would be to carry the intentions of the Legislature into effect. Our ap-

prehensions on that head, lesevever, were by no means weighty, and a perusal of the Ren'ort has entirely removed them. The Commissioners appear to have acted with extreme caution as well as resolution. They ha ve sought authentic information in every quarter, have founded alterations only on the knowledge gamed by inspection into tho peculiar circumstances of each parish, and have ahnost invaria'uly acted with the full approbation of a large majority of the rme-payers. The substitution of relief in kind, and in the workhouse, for out-door money payments to paupers, was the grand reform of the system contemplated by the Legislature. The m

Comissioners state that " the recommendation of the substitution of relief in kind has been extensively acted upon, and that the effects in every instance that has been presented to them, heve been, to a greater or less extent, teeny/cid." It appears that in some of the London parishes out-door pauperism has been reduced to the extent of nearly one-third, by the adoption of this system. It was in the small rural parishes that the Commissioners experienced the greatest difficulty, as the expense of engaging persous competent to the task of introducing and maintaining the improved system, frequently exceeded the pecuniary benefit deriN able frotn it to the ratte-pmers. In such cases, the wisdom of that portion of the law which authorize:4 the union id' parishes was; manifested inul the Commissioners used extensively the powers therein conferred on them. In one instance, that of the Wy combe Union, no fewer than t hirty-t lace parishes, extetiling over a dist riet sixty miles in circutokrettee, have been united ; and to the good effects of this praceedino-, the Reverend ell MILES TURNER, Of Wendover, a Cutint v lagistrate, and one of the Board of Guardians, gives his deciled testimony. Ile says- " The paupers of -the several 1;arisbes, finding, that all around them are treated alike, more readily submit to the law than they did umler the Vestry system, where they could make comparisons between tire-it's and other parishes where they received :note. It was a continuo thing to have complaints made to toe that they were ill-treated, because in some adjoining parish more money awl less work were found. 1 also find this consequence, that ft ion the extent of distr ict great experience and knowledge are brought together and concentrated in one operation ; so that if uric parish is in error as to any point of manage- ment or fact, it is corrected by the superior intelligence and information of some other parish. There is much more intelligence in a Board of titurdians than in a Vestry, the Board being composed of the gentry and most respectable inhabitants of this large district, whose attendance is regular, and as close as can be expected."

And again, when asked if there is no inconvenience in his parish being so tar distant front the workhouse, he replies— \o other inconvenience than in sending the pauper to it. To counter- balahce that, 1 think the distance will operate as a superior check upon appli- cation for idled* from this distant part of the Union ; for though a pauper of idle habits may make an experiment and try the workhouse, if in his own parish, he will, I think, have great reluctance to be sent to such a distance. I think, in fact, the very distance will act as an incitement to industry. This is one of the reasons why I prefer the Wycombe Union, although our parish is far iitnrrt filnll the workhouse."

Air objection to the union of parishes is the necessity it some- tunes involves of building new workhouses, especially as there must be danger of incurring an unnecessarily large expenditure in providing buildings sufficient to accommodate the existing out- door paupers, whose numbers, it is expected, will be progressively diminished by the operation of the bill. Here, therefore, the Com- missioners moved very carefully. They made inquiries in every

parish containing workhouses, how far those buildings were appli- es cable to the purpose in view; whether if not fit for the reception of

all classes of inmates, they could not be used for one class ; whe- ther by alteration they could not be made useful at a moderate cost; and where there were no workhouses, whether sufficient tenements could not be hired or purchased on advantageous terms : in no case have the parishes been taxed for building new work- houses, except when they were absolutely necessary. That the Commissioners have really proceeded on this principle, is evident from the fact, that in counties where the law has been put exten• sivc1) into operation very few workhouses have been built,.—in W est Sussex only one; in Berkshire three; in Hampshire seven ; le East Kent ten. In upwards of 2,000 parishes, formed into 112 unions, only 37 workhouses are at this time in preparation. The separation of the sexes in woikhuuses is one of the regula- tion, eabireed by the Commissioners. A prodigious clamour has been raised by the pseudo-philanthropists—the cheap-humanity- men—against the law on this account. But the Commissioners state, that previously to the passing of the bill, the system was adopted in all efficient and well-regulated workhouses ; and abun- dant reasons are given for adhering to it. When men and their wives and children are permitted to occupy the same rooms, night and day, the most disgusting indecency and vice is necessarily prevalent; and where separate apartments are given, as is some- times the case, to separate families, they are always unhealthy, on account of extreme filth. The Commissioners observe, that the workhouse is not intended for a permanent domicile, and that ".the temporary separation of married persons is an inconve- meuce which many thousands of the married in every rank of society undergo ;" and they cannot admit that "a separation 'which has ever been endured without complaint of peculiar hard- ship by all who have served in the Army and Navy, can be justly regarded as too great a sacrifice for those who, as paupers, are relieved from the pressure of destitution." The operation of the workhouse system has been to " dispau- perize or nearly so, whole districts. In parishes where the sur- plus population appeared to be one-third, almost every person able to work is now employed. It has been found that farmers Who declared that they were grievously oppressed by being obliged

to employ paupers under the allowance system, have thoueht proper to give them full wages, when they were informed that the men would be taken from them and employed in the work- house; and able-bodied fellows who blubbered piteously for the parish allowance, were well able to earn full wages out of doors when task-work in the poorhouse was °tiered them with a full supply of the necessaries of life.

In some instances, whole families have been removed from over- burdened parishes to Manchester. The first migration was from Bledlow, in Berkshire. The Commissioners ascertained that there was a demand for labour at Ns wages in the North ; and one of them went round to a number ot men who were earning 7s. a week, and offered them 2 IN. per family of four working hands. At first, not a soul would stir : all said they would sooner renounce their " parish pay," which it was known would soon be taken from them under the new law. At length one family accepted the olii't; another soon followed ; and finally, 83 individuals left the parish. The result is- " Nearly the whole of the individu us who have migrated are now in constant employment in Lancashire, and earning collectively as ftmilies three times the 111101111t of wages which they had at ally time earned in the districts which they had quitted. They have been provided with superior cottages, which they have been enabled to furnish ln rio ins of advances of money our their em- ployel., to be repaid by instalments front their sr-ages. They have abundant supplies of fuel, at such low rates as to be enabled to enjoy the luxury of a fire to an extent unknown to the labourers of the southern counties. The head of the Ii 1st family who migrated deelared that not all the horses in Buckingham- shire should draw himself and family back to his parish."

The rates of the parish of Bledlo.v have been reduced one half, mainly in consequence of this migration.

The provision of the bill which authorized parishes to borrow money in order to assist persons desirous of emigrating to the colo- nies or to foreign countries, has been acted on to a small extent. Only 2473/. has been so raised, and only 320 persons have been assisted to emigrate. These have gone principally from Sussex, to Canada.

The operation of the bastardy clauses has been excellent, not- withstanding all the moaning of Bishop Pint.i.pors and the Times. As this is not the most delicate subject in the world, we shall not dwell on it: but refer to the Report for evidence of the decrease of illegitimate children in various parts of the country,— such decrease being the admitted consequence of the obligation now impo:-..ed on unmarried mothers to support their own children. Not only have the illegitimate children been diminished in num- ber, but immorality generally seems to have been checked; at least such is the case in Wales, if the following rather naive statement of a Welsh overseer is correct.

6' One thiug I must observe, and it tells well for the new Poor-law Act, that in our parish we have from fifteen to twenty weddings in the :taw, and it seldom happeued that at the ceremony the bride did not think it decent and requisite-1 are now speaking of the lower order of persons—to conceal her shape under a cloak. Put in tire e eightee marriages which we have had since last August, all the ladies, except one, retained their virgin shape, and appeared without their mantle."

We have by no means exhausted the subject matter of the Report, but have touched on the principal points. Enough has been said and quoted to prove that, notwithstanding the moving Police-reports in the newspapers of the cruel operation of the new system—reports whose incorrectness is frequently proved time day after their appearance—notwithstanding the riots which disape pointed beer and ginsellers ant] little skopkeepers kick up in villages, extensive national benefit has resulted, and may be ex- pected to flow from the wise and comprehensive measure for the reform of the Poor-Laws which, in spite of clamour and unpopu- larity, the Liberal Ministers had the courage and honesty to adopt and carry.