The Sun.
London, England, 1837-02-25 00:00:00

ad they were without victuals frqv Tuesday morning to
Wednesday night. Friday is the dr fixed upon for the re-
lieving officer to pay the poor of my parish ; they are to
meet him at two o'clock. On Friday, the llth of November,
they assembled at the usual place of receiving their allowance.
lie did not come before six o'clock. He told them he
Would not pay them that night, and ordered them to meet
him on the Saturday at two o'clock. They went •he did
not attend, but went to another house where he had never
paid them, and loft their allowance. The relieving officer
comes into the parish without knowing the state of the poor,
and pays those only who arc upon his book. I hope you will
endeavour to do away with such men. Why not pay a
salary to the overseer of the parish, who knows their dis-
tresses? Where the system is pursued of not relieving able-
bodied labourers who have large families, they must inevitably
perish. Flour is 2s. 4d. per stone, labour is is. 6d. per day,
and I do assure you our labourers with large families are starv-
ing." There were two other cases in the same communica,
tion, but being unwilling to trespass too far upon the indul-
gence of the House, he should not read them. He wished
now to call attention to the statements lie had received re-
specting the Union of Droxford. The lion. Member then
read a statement respecting the distress of certain poor fami-
lies in that Union, in consequence of the insufficient scale of
parish relief. Another gentleman wrote to him thus from
Berkshire :—" The Commissioners report that allowances
have been easily stopped, and without producing murmurs and
complaints. True; but this is due in a great measure to the
patience and fortitude with which the poor have endured their
privations. A gentleman who has the best means of knowing,
in the Bradfield Union, told me on Saturday that the distress
and sufferings he witnesses are inconceivable. I this morning
procured the particulars of the subsistence of one family in m)
parish ; half an ounce of tea, half a pound of sugar, one pound
of lard, one pound of cheese, besides dry bread, for a man and
his wife and four children. These people endure ; and there-
fore the Commissioners say there is no distress. In the
Bradfield Union the Board advances loans. Brown, whom a

medical person will not pronounce able bodied, is paying
back a small sum given in relief to him when he was ill
in the summer. His wife carried 6d. out of the remaining
Bid. last week, and was told she must without fail bring
the other 21sd. I have spoken with persons connected with
Boards of Guardians in different counties, and have been an-
swered, We go on very well ;' but with the additional ob-
servation, we have no such practices (viz., those of the
Bradfield Union) ; we have been obliged to fight the Com-
missioners a good deal, and resist their orders.' One gentle-
man, from Cambridgeshire, said, ' The success seems to de-
pend on there being a good Board of Guardians, who will
not be driven by the Commissioners.' Now lam writing on
this subject, I cannot help adverting to a letter in the first
Report of the Commissioners, from Mr. Thomas Stevens,
tho new Assistant- Commissioner of Bradfield ; he says, I
have just signed a distress-warrant to seize the goods of J.
Lovegrove, who earns 12s. weekly, and has refused to sup-
port his mother. I hear that the goods have been disposed
of, and there is not sufficient to distress. Upon the con-
stable's return to this effect, we shall commit him to prison
for the full term allowed by law.' This was done. Now,
Lovegrove's case was this. His mother had been allowed
one shilling per week, he doing all the rest for her. He was
setting an excellent example to young men, and had been
some time engaged to a very respectable young woman, but
he put off his marriage in order that he might be able to do
something for his aged mother, and get together something
previous to marriage. There are many observations in that
report very harsh towards the poor, and arguments which ap-
pear to me quite unsupported by facts." [Lovegrove is since
Married, and is not now called upon to make an allowance to
his mother.] " The treatment of the helpless poor in Brad-
field Union is as follows :—" A widow woman, very infirm and
old, half a gallon of bread, one ounce of tea, half a pound of
sugar, and ls. 4d.-2s. 7d. Allowance to a man and wife, the
man being very slowly recovering from influenza, and much
debilitated—these are people of 63, or thereabouts—one gallon
of bread, one ounce of tea, half a pound of sugar, three penny-
worth of oatmeal, one pound of mutton, and Is., making 3s. Bd.
Case of a man and wife with four children, young people, but
the man ruptured and asthmatic, therefore not able-bodied. In
the autumn the man was confined two weeks by sickness ; the
wife the second week applied for assistance, and received bread,
tea, and sugar, to the value of 4s. 80. This money they have
been made to repay during the winter by 6d. at a time. The
Board gives no assistance to widows under 60 out of the
workhouse, so that a poor woman left with four or five chil-
dren is obliged, like the widow Kerridge, to go to prison,
with little or no prospect of release, for six or seven years.
One poor woman, lately bereaved of her husband, has eight
children, two daughters at service, who pay her rent : a third,
aged 17, who can only occasionally get work ; two boys, aged
15 and 13, who earn ss. between them ; and three younger,
who cannot work, get no assistance, and are half starved.
Another widow has four young children, and three grown up ;
her husband had been confined to his bed with a very painful
disease for some years before his death ; upon his decease all
allowance to her was stopped ; she has lately been ill three
weeks ; she was given during one week only two gallons of
bread, one ounce of tea, half a pound of butter, half a pound
of sugar-3s. Bd. She was very ill when I saw her, and al-
lowed to be so by the medical attendant, but there was nothing
for her. I give you the whole weekly consumption of two fa-
milies :-Ist. A man and wife, and four children—five and a
half gallons of bread, half an ounce of tea, half a pound of
sugar, one pound of lard, and one pound of cheese. A man and
wife, and five children—besides bread, one ounce of tea, 11b. of
sugar, one pound of lard, half a pound of butter, and sixpenny
worth of bacon occasionally." A highly-respectable gentleman
at Newbury sent him an account of the growing inquest, held
at Welford, Berks, the beginning of this month, on a poor
woman named Lucy Watts, sixty-two years of age. The Hon.
Gentleman then read the account, which stated that she died
sooner than obtain relief in a work-house. The gentleman
who sent him this account says :—" Dying they are in great
numbers, and die they will, sooner than go into the
bastile, as they call it, as did the poor woman herein
mentioned." A Magistrate wrote from Dolgelly, and
Said An Assistant Commissioner has been here,
and having had his Board of Guardians appointed
(which was obtained by interested persons, who wanted
the lucrative offices), he has ordered an union of twelve pa.
rishes, one and all of which are against it, believing that it will
add greatly to their expense, and in the same degree decrease
the comfort of the poor people. They are, to be sure, nume-
rous, owing to their longevity, but fm thei former poverty
°living easily kept. In this parish r which contains nearly
4-19ths of the 12 of the union, there are 530 out of much
more than four thousand inhabitants who receive relief, but
they receive only 1,3481, being not quite 21. 11s. a-head
Per
year, or not ls. a-head per week, and not nearly 2s.
the pound on the rack rent. Upon inquiry, lam sure
it Will appear that the other parishes are not in a
Zrso position, but some of them better. Can any altera-
n mend this ? Nothing but starvation can ; and lam
satisfied that most of our poor would starve rather than enter
the workhouse. It is on the score of humanity that I appeal
to you to save the hearts of my poor old neighbours from
:)elag broken. I really heard from good authority this morn-
14g that a poor woman near me had become deranged
through fear of the workhouse." He would next read a
letter vhich he had received from the Mayor of Morpeth.
the
In that part of the country where I reside, in Morpeth, in
e County of Northumberland, there has lately. been a Union
formed for that town, called the Morpeth Union,' embracing
6 or 70 neighbouring townships. I was appointed a Guar-
I am fully
nn, and from what I have seen of the working of the measure,
convinced that a more cruel and unjust Bill never
Passed the House of Commons. I have seen the feelings of
the aged and infirm wounded in the most brutal manlier, and
their pressing wants ridiculed and neglected. I can only in
this brief note allude to the general working of the Bill; but
shall mention that there have been very recently two
suicides in this Union by labourin men from Poor-law op-
pressions. The Board of Guardians for this same Union
ave only a few days ago resolved that the common decencies
o_
Christian burial' shall not be observed, as heretofore,
towards deceased paupers. This has created, both in town
and neighbourhood a strong and unmingled feeling of in-
(lignation and disgust ; but whether this public expression
will effect the rescinding of the order I cannot say. I could
pention individual cases of great hardship, but as you will
have a greater number of similar ones from other districts, I
shall not trouble you with matters of detail. The whole
of this legislative measure is, in my humble opinion, preg-
nant with cruelty and violence; makes war upon the most
defenceless class of society, and tends to tear asunder all those
tender feelings and sympathies between the middling and lower
ranks
of life which are so necessary towards maintaining the
val happiness and strength of a State." Some of the most
interesting and affecting °cases which he had received in illus-
!tration of the privation, hardship, and oppression inflicted on
the poor by the present system of Poor-laws had been fur-
xat ished hire by Mr. Lewin, a very respectable' of land
ickham-market, in the county of Suffolk. He should
arid hardship which had lately come to his knowledge arising
;_lit of this Bill. They had had petitions presented to them
rem thousands of persons, including clerglymen, magistrates,
ardians of the poor, and others, the best judges, praying for
1.18 amendment. He knew of some guardians, one the Chair.
of a Board, who, from humane feelings,
were induced
thet'th great difficulty to retain their ituat' s With t
slast report of the Central Board, son wilioilCh. doubtlreessgreat
iieryeess would be laid, he should only say that he had reason to be-
many of the statements would be disproved. To a certain
extent he had the means of doing
;tert of their duty to support that system which supported
safarmies lt
amounting
be very odd if 25 Commissioners, receiving
to 39,0001. per annum. could not get up a
Work laudatory. of their own exertions. That, however, was a
matter for the consideration of a Committee with unrestrained
bPowaers, Which the Noble Lord would not grant. The coun-
e4 a been told by Lord Althorp that out-door relief would
Brougham
by the Bill rather than otherwise, while Lord
en,ghaid went so far as to say, that he doubted whether any
;nil!`4 wife,
ever even dreamt of any separation between husband
teen , and parent and child. How had these promises
e.
sai
pt 7 The House had also been told that the Chief
reoe'tual
double
were to have only 1,500/. a-year, whereas they
that sum. The Assistant-Commissioners were
toe oni
are b
now 3;2mgfht or ten in number, with 800/. a-year ; there
Ought not them, with 1,500/. a-year.--( Hear, hear, hear. )
into the cause of their costly charges to be inquired
the cause
their own hear.) The Commissioners bad increased
crease but they had made a corresponding de. to
S2aornent hariful allowance to too poor ?—( Hear.) At that
from a Board
tshaelia
ofin his pocket a py of ?a
humble petition
Praying to be Guardians to the mighty Commissioners,
allowance of swallowed I"ed
to give the aged poor an additional
:nee 'tut a
__po ounces of bread per day. They had already
xpected froth rein
asal. This was the last thing he should have
trona Ministr
page. not to . Y which was pledged to diminish pa-
dto confer originate fresh fountains of itwhich •
. was
r. nes ou the poople, not to diminish the