The Sun.
London, England, 1865-01-02 00:00:00

The Poor-law Board have just offered a sort of
explanation to the public of the manner in which
Mr. Villiers's Metropolitan Houseless Poor Act of
last session is now working. This explanation, or
rather statement, for very little is really explained,
is, we presume, offered as a reply to the appeals
with which our columns are now crowded for aid
from the benevolent to shelter the starving and
bouseless. That such a statement was necessary,
and should perhaps have been given even earlier and
in'a more extended form, will, we think, be ad-
mitted. Late, however, as it has come, and small
as is the amount of information which it affords,
there is nothing whatever in Mr. Fa.rnall's paper
which does not tend to confirm all we have urged in
connexion with this subject on the general ineffi-
ciency, want of regular system, and often total mis-
management of the wards for the relief of our casual
poor. We contend that the Refuges for the desti-
tute are now doing poorly and irregularly what,
ought to be done well and syStematically by the
workhouses. Our complaint has been that the
workhouses could do this duty and ought to do it,
but that they did not, and left to charity and public
benevolence the discharge of one of their first duties.
We carefully pointed out how with the withdrawal
of sufficient accommodation at casual wards come a
proportionate increase of Refuges for the destitute ;
how a few years ago there were only three small
Refuges in London. and how there are now twelve
large ones, and how, above all, it was becoming a
most Jemsnus -ipestion for the public to consider
the support of this mass of destitution
should be left to their private and uncertain charity,
or be, relieved by the proper carrying out of
established laws especially framed to meet the
necessity. That these statements regarding the
workhouses, at least, were true Mr Farnall him-
self proves when he says that the result of the
inquiry made by tlif# Poor-law Board last year.
showed that in some' London. Unions the provi-
sion made for casual poor and wanderers was
manifestly inadequate," and that "the attention
of the Poor-law Board has on several occasions
been previously directed to the same subject, and
the Board had frequently referred to the defects in.
the mode of administering relief to vagrants and
houseless poor in the metropolitan district, and had
endeavoured to induce Boards of Guardians to dis-
charge the obligation which rested on them in
regard to thiS class of poor."
Mr. Farnall, however, seems now to think that
all these evils are either remedied or about to be so
shortly. That he may be justified in the latter
belief is earnestly to be hoped, though scarcely to
be expected till the calculations as to the number of
destitute nightly in the metropolis and the.conse-
quent estimate of provision to be 'made for their
relief are based upon the real facts of the case. In
their estimate of the 1,400 persons homeless and
destitute every night in the metropolis the Poor-law
Board exclude those provided for by the Refuges,
which, at the lowest calculation, amount in number
to at least 1,000 more. Here, then, we have 2,400
destitute casual poor, for the shelter of whom the
aggregate accommodation of all the metropolitan
workhouses would-only admit at the beginning of
last autumn -of 997 persons being relieved. Is it
to be wondered if tinder such a state of things
Refuges for the destitute increased, and their cry for
. aid, with 1,400 people thrown upon &them every
night for food and shelter, Was incessant and alarm-
ing in its urgency? At present, Mr. Farnall says,
almost all the metropolitan Boards of Guardians
have heartily co-operated in carrying out the pro-
visions of Mr. Villiers' recent Act, and of the 39
Unions or parishes forming the metropolitan district
:;o have proper and sufficient casual wards, seven
have wards which are still inadequate, and the total
accommodation now provided will shelter 1;490
persons. But nothing is said of the surplus
1,000 destitute who must still go to the Refuges,
just as nothing is said of the two workhouses
which will not be troubled with casual poor. ; and,
therefore, in cool defiance of the act, decline to
have casual wards at all. Even, however, this great
extension of the casual wards will be worthless
unless the poor are permitted-toavail themselves of
them. It is of nort::;e that the Poor Law Board
ltisovides the..--legal accommodation of the various
si.:Oikhouses throw harassing difficulties in the 'way
of the poor-getting at. it. TLC PC,Or 1,-;11" 130tIrd Cate
build casual words, but they cannot be at the elbow
of every relieving officer to see that they are per-
mitted to be filled with proper applicants. Mr.
Farnall'S own figures will best illustrate our mean-
ing. There was shelter for 997 destitute provided'
by the united metropolitan Unions at the beginning
of last summer, and this amount of accommodation
the Poor Board knew to .be insufficient, and have
insisted on its extension till as now the workhouses
can take in 1,400. Yet Mr. Farnall says the largest
number of destitute permitted in one night to use
these wards was last month, when 712 beds were
allowed to be occupied ; the lowest number admitted
was 607, the average was about 650. Yet still Mr.
Farnall and the Poor Law Board are calling for
more and more accommodation in the face of these
figures, which prove that the permission given to the
poor to avail themselves of it is still as limited as
ever, and the old 997 beds would have been suffi-
cent and to spare. The Poor Law Board, as we
have said, can build the wards, but cannot make the
relieving officer fill'them as they would wish, for it
is needless to say that if the Poor Law Board
directions were carried out we should hear no more
of these fearful cases of destitution or death from
starvation.
A very common error is committed by supposing
that the accommodation offered by a Refuge is
superior to the accommodation offered by a casual
ward: The very reverse of this is the fact, except
in so far as regards the diet, which is mostly alike
in both cases, generally a mere meal of dry bread.
In warmth and in ventilation the casual wards are
superior to the Refuges, while the beds at the
former places are couches of luxury compared with
the hard, plain boards and thin rugs provided at
the latter. At all the Refuges the dietary is the
same. It is not so at the casual wards, almost
every -one of which is managed on different prin-
ciples. -Some have labour tests--that is, a task of
work exacted in return for the night's shelter, and
some have none whatever. Even those which have,
however, differ as much as they possibly can. In
--seam the labour is so excessively severe as almost
to amount to a, refusal of relief when exacted in
return for it ; in some it is not so heavy as painful,
as when poor needlewomen and others are made to
pick enough oaktun to keep their fingers raw for a
week ; in some it is so slight as to be almost nomi-
nal, and as a labour test literally so. It is this
want Ist uniformity the vstem of casual relief
which is ire root Ot.thii whOle ea—The Board of
Guardians who are so kind and considerate in their
treatment of the casual poor have to expiate under
a costly load of vagrants the faults of those who
elsewhere rule their homeless wards with merciless
severity. It may, however, be taken as a safe ge-
neral rule that the pauper who passes the searching
cross-examination of the relieving officer before he
is granted his one night's shelter, for he must not
come again, must be a very faultless pauper indeed,
and if once the final words are uttered, as uttered
they often are before the applicant has half told his
tale—" No ; it's nd use. You must have got some
work to-day. You Must be off," they are never
rescinded. . It is this excessive strictness, the late
hour at which the casual wards are opened as corn-
pared with the Refuges, the distance at which
they are often situated from the places where only
the tickets for admission are to obtained which
combine to account for the smallness of the num-
bers that try to gain their shelter, and the still more
extraordinary smallness of the numbcr3 of those
that succeed hi doing so. Here, then, are the facts
of the casse;:—According to the figures of the Poor
Law Board and the Refuges there are 2,400 casual
poor destitute and honieless every night in London.
The Poor Law Board has provided shelter for 1,400,
and still calls for' more -accommodation, yet the
largest number of poor permitted to avail then/gels-es:
of this shelter any one night during this winter was,
according to Mr. Farnall, 712 ! Whether it Was,
therefore, that the Poor Law Board are providing
very much more accommodation than there is any