Tltc ITelborn Board of Guardians have returned a very able
reply to Mr. Goschen's minute. Either they must give fall relief, thus causing an enormous augmentation of rates, or their clients must be helped by the Charities,— a confusion which it is the object of the minute to avoid. For example, 130 labourers are sick, and 220 souls need relief. The Board gives them ls. a week and a kid each, which will not keep them alive with- out other aid. Is the Board to give adequate relief, that is, maintain them altogether, or is it to refuse relief, and so risk their starving? Again, relief in aid of wages is illegal, except in the case of widows ; but, say the Guardians, that exception in Lon- don is so large as to swallow up the rule. There are 20,000 widows and 60,000 children receiving relief in the metropolis. Again, more than half the adult paupers in London are persons in the precise position of widows, that is, permanently, though par- tially, unable to earn sufficient wages from ill-health, accident, or age. Are the Boards to maintain them wholly, or abandon them wholly, or do as they do now, allow a little, and leave the Chari- ties to do the remainder ? One reads such statements with a sort of sigh of despair, a feeling that unless very terrible alternatives are adopted pauperism will beat us yet. The very guardians who thus plead and prove that illegal relief is inevitable, admit that it demoralizes.
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