The Sun.
London, England, 1863-02-12 00:00:00

PAUPERISM IN SCOTLAND.

The report of the Scottish Board of Supervision
for the year ending on the 14th of May, 1862, has
been presented to Parliament. On that day—a
period of the year chosen, we believe, as furnishing
a fair average pauper census—the number of regis-
tered poor, with their dependents, was 118,928; in
1861 it had been 117,369. The number of casual
unregistered poor receiving relief was 7,391, and
the number of pauper lunatics, 5,204. The expen-
diture of the year 1861.62 was considerably greater
than in the previous year, and amounted to £765,135,
being 4s 11id per head of the population; the in-
crease over the preceding year being no less than
£81,233, or 611. per,head of the population. The
commissioners state that the increase was general
over the country, and that it arose, not from in-
crease in the number of persons receiving relief,
although there was some little augmentation of that
number, but rather from an increased average rate
of expenditure on each pauper. The average allow-
ance to each registered pauper rose from £5 9a 14cl
in 1860-61 to £5 17s 5d in 1861-62. There has also
been en increase in the cost of management, which
is partly attributed to an enhanced sale of remune-
ration demanded for services of all descriptions in
Scotland. The rate per cent. of the pcor law ex-
penditure on the annual value of real property, as
returned in 1856, was in 1860-6.1 £5 168 103-,d, and
in 1861-62, £6 108 91d. ; on the value as estimated,
for 1859 it would be £5 18s 81d, or lls 2d per cent.
greater than in 1856, when similar returns were
available. In Scotland outdoor relief is still
the rule, and relief in the poorhouse the excep-
tion ; for although many poorhouses are in pro-
gress, and the sum of £31,617 was expended upon
building in the course of the year, yet the returns
state that the number of inmates in workhouses on

the 30th of June last was only 7,465. In giving
evidence before a Parliamentary committee in
1861, the general superintendent of poor said of
this system of extensive outdoor relief, that it had
considerably deteriorated the character of the people;
" the state of things in the Highlands of Scotland,"
he said, "is perfectly deplorable." The present re-
port shows that in the county of Caithness one per-
son in every 19 (reckoning on the population found
there at the census of 1861) is either regularly nr
occasionally a pauper on tae rates, and in the county
of Argyle one in every 16. The report contains a
remarkable account of a system of sending diseased
and weakly pauper children frornGlasgow,Greenock
and other places to board with the crofters, or small
farmers, of the healthy island of Arran, two or
three at a house. The children are not a little
pleased at exchanging town life, and the restraint
of a poorhouse, for the free run of the farm and the j
sea-beach. The visiting officer reports that they
are well treated, but he is afraid the scheme may
grow too great. At present only about 130 children
have been sent, but if the number should be in-
creased he fears the effect upon the islanders of the
forced introduction of unhealthy elements in the
population, for many of these children will settle
in Arran and become component parts of its popu-
lation. But the farmers find it answer; the addi-
tion to their expenses is very slight, they gec some
of their work done without wages, and the 10s. or
12s. a month received for each child helps to pay
rent.