[Part I, Section 1] Administration of the Law

IT is now our painful duty to report, that in the greater part of the districts which we have been able to examine, the fund, which the 43d of Elizabeth directed to be employed in setting to work children and persons capable of labour, but using no daily trade, and in the necessary relief of the impotent, is applied to purposes opposed to the letter, and still more to the spirit of that Law, and destructive to the morals of the most numerous class, and to the welfare of all.

The subject may be divided, with respect to the mode of relief, into In-door Relief, or that which is given in the workhouse, and Out-door Relief, or that which is not given in the workhouse; and with respect to the Objects of Relief, into those who are, and those who are not Able-bodied.