"How long have you been married?" asks
a guardian. "Four year." "How old is your
wife?" "Twenty-one; two year younger than
me." "Number of children?" "Three, and
this 'un to come." "He says he means to run
away and leave the board to take care of them
all," remarks the relieving officer. "He had
better take care how he does that, and how he
treats her, also," says one of the magistrates, as
the offer of the house or nothing is given him.
Applicant withdraws, muttering curses in the
lobby.

The visiting committee make their report; all
holidays allowed are marked on the slate;
applications refused are rubbed out. We then sign
our names to the report, the answers being
inscribed yes and no, as usual, from week to week;
and thus the business of the day is brought to
an end.

Our Union comprises five-and-twenty parishes,
or places maintaining their own poor, which return
altogether twenty-eight elected guardians.
These elections of guardians occasionally furnish
a good opportunity for a party struggle.
Any ratepayer not in arrear with his poor-rate
may nominate himself or another person to serve.
When, therefore, two or more nominations are
sent in to the clerk, an election must follow,
unless one of the nominees refuse to stand, and
the battle is then fought out with all the excitement
and bill-sticking of a perverse generation.
Village Hampdens are unearthed for the occasion,
and such wit as may be had in Union
parishes is made the best of. The successful
candidate takes his seat at the board, with the
qualified satisfaction, if he really means to work,
that he will probably be turned out at the twelve-
month's end, when he has gained a tolerable
familiarity with his duties, and may become a
useful instead of an obstructive member of the
body. Generally, however, there is no opposition,
and parochial arrangements are made peaceably.

The annual amount of rate passing through
our hands is thirteen thousand pounds, of which
a portion goes to county and highways, both
being collected on the same platform to save
trouble and expense. In round numbers our
poor absorb ten thousand a year. The population,
chiefly agricultural, is below twenty
thousand.

In addition to in-door relief, and casual out-
door relief, persons who are in a position to
claim, and do not "come into the house," receive
half-a-crown a week in money, and flour,
with or without medical attendance.

Such is the refuge and help secured to our
destitute and sick poor by a board of guardians
which, when in error, erring on the side of
mercy, really works the poor-law to the best of
its ability. But the question of poor-law provision
does not turn on the humanity and
efficiency of any board of guardians. If there
be defects in its principles, no method of working
can be satisfactory until a radical change has
been made in the system.

On what grounds are the following regulations
enforced in our Union? Husband and
wife separated. Exception: "Any married
couple being paupers of the first and fourth
classes respectively, provided the guardians shall
set apart for the exclusive use of every such
couple a sleeping apartment separate from that
of other paupers."In the first class are men,
and in the fourth class are women, infirm through
age or any other cause.

But separate sleeping apartments are not
provided for infirm married couples; separation,
therefore, does ensue, and must have been
contemplated by the very provision above quoted.
For able-bodied married paupers there is no
help. Parted they must be from each other,
and, as will be seen immediately, from their
children. They heard it said to them, on the
greatest public occasion of their lives, in a sacred
building, with religious rite and ceremony,
"What God hath joined together, let not man
put asunder." Why was it not added—until
they have nothing but each other left to lose?

Another rule has it that "the master (subject
to any directions given or regulations made by
the guardians) shall allow the father and mother
of any child in the same workhouse, who may be
desirous of seeing such child, (!) to have an interview
with such child at some one time in each
day, in a room in the said workhouse to be
appointed for that purpose. And the guardians
shall make arrangements for permitting the
members of the same family who may be in
different workhouses of the same parish to have
occasional interviews with each other, at such
times, and in such manner, as may best suit the
discipline of the several workhouses."

It is possible, I am so hardy as to suppose, that
there still lingers, even in paupers' bosoms, some
remnant of the affection for their young implanted
in animals. It is possible that the mother
can better tend her offspring than the paid or
unpaid substitutes to whom poor-law entrusts
them. It is possible that the young pine for
want of mother's care, and die sometimes. All
this may be possible, even true, but to maintain
existing regulations, it is necessary to repress
all such irregularities of pauperism. How can
order and decency be secured if we permit
husband, and wife, and children, to live together?
Admitting that feeble old couples might not
cause serious embarrassment to our system, and
that a separate apartment might, without great
cost or difficulty, be secured to each, how are
we to reconcile the inconsistency of suffering the
common order of life out of doors to embarrass
the neat system of our Union in the case of able-
bodied men and women? Admitting the impossibility
of reconciling natural law with poor-law,
the question still remains to be settled.
Meanwhile, is it really so wise and safe, as the
filers and docketers of poor men's destinies
believe it is, to tamper with social and moral
principles which have stood the test of practical
experience? Are not some results of this incessant
outrage upon natural laws possibly to be seen
in the brutality of husbands of the very poor towards
their wives and families— in the unnatural