II. Allowance.

By the parish allowing to labourers, who are employed by individuals, relief in aid of their wages.

The word allowance is sometimes used as comprehending all parochial relief afforded to those who are employed by individuals at the average wages of the district. But sometimes this term is confined to the relief which a person so employed obtains on account of his children, any relief which he may obtain on his own account being termed "Payment of Wages out of Rates." In the following Report we shall use the word "allowance" in its former or more comprehensive sense.

In some places allowance is given only occasionally, or to meet occasional wants; to buy, for instance, a coat or a pair of shoes, or to pay the rent of a cottage or an apartment. In others it is considered that a certain weekly sum, or more frequently the value of a certain quantity of flour or bread, is to be received by each member of a family.

The latter practice has sometimes been matured into a system, forming the law of a whole district, sanctioned and enforced by the magistrates, and promulgated in the form of local statutes, under the name of Scales.

The following are copies of some of the scales:—

"COUNTY OF CAMBRIDGE.

"The Churchwardens and Overseers of the Poor are requested to regulate the incomes of such persons as may apply to them for relief or employment, according to the price of bread; namely,

"It will be necessary to add to the above income in all cases of sickness or other kind of distress, and particularly of such persons or families who deserve encouragement by their good behaviour, whom parish officers should mark both by commendation and reward.

"By order of the Magistrates assembled at the Shire Hall, Cambridge, December 15th, 1821, Robert Gee,

"TOWN OF CAMBRIDGE.

"The Churchwardens and Overseers of the Poor are requested to regulate the incomes of such persons as may apply to them for relief or employment, according to the price of fine bread; namely,

"It will be necessary to add to the above income in all cases of sickness or other kind of distress; and particularly of such persons or families who deserve encouragement by their good behaviour, whom parish officers should mark both by commendation and reward.

"By order of the Magistrates assembled at the Town Hall, Cambridge, A. Chevell.

"ESSEX.—DIVISION OF CHELMSFORD, 1821.

"At a special meeting of the magistrates acting in and for the said Division, held at the Justice Room, in the Shire Hall, on Friday the 15th day of June, 1821.

"It was resolved,

"That the undermentioned scale of relief, for the assistance of the overseers of the poor within the said division in relieving the necessitous poor, be recommended: That they do provide each person in every family with the means of procuring half a peck of bread flour per week, together with 10d. per head for other necessaries, if the family consist of two only; 8d. per head, if three; 6d. per head, if four; and 5d. per head, if more than four.

"N. B. The above-mentioned sums are exclusive of fuel. " By order of the Magistrates,

HUNDREDS of UTTLESFORD, CLAVERING, and FRESHWELL, in the County of ESSEX.

"Parish officers are desired to regulate allowances according to the price of the fine bread; viz.

"It will be necessary to increase the above allowances in some cases, and the deserving should be particularly encouraged.

"By order of the Magistrates of the Walden Division, 1826.

"ARUNDEL BOROUGH, Nov. 19, 1830.

"At a meeting of the inhabitants, held this day, the masters agreed to give able-bodied men 2s. per day, wet and dry, and an allowance of 1s. 6d., per week for every child (above two) under 14 years of age.

"Lads from 14 to 16, 8d. per day; lads from 16 to 18, 1s. per day; young men from 18 to 21, 1s. 6d. per day, from this time to Lady-day.

It was also agreed that from Lady-day to Michaelmas the able-bodied men should have 14s. per week, wet and dry, with a like allowance of 1s. 6d. per week for every child (above two) under 14 years of age; the boys, from 14 to 16, 9d. per day; from 16 to 18, 1s. 2d. per day; and young men from 18 to 21, 1s. 8d. per day.

"Agreed to by the Magistrates assembled at their meeting this day."

In perhaps a majority of the parishes in which the allowance system prevails, the earnings of the applicant, and, in a few, the earnings of his wife and children, are ascertained, or at least professed or attempted to be ascertained, and only the difference between them and the sum allotted to him by the scale is paid to him by the parish. The following extracts from Mr. Tweedy's Report from Yorkshire, and Mr. Wilson's from Durham, show the mode in which this branch of the allowance system is extending itself over the North of England:—

"In Gisburn, the rule and practice of the town is to inquire into the circumstances of each case, and to make up the wages of a man and his family to 1s. 6d. per head. This rule is adopted, because it is the rule by which the magistrates govern themselves on application to them. The course of the magistrates is to inquire of a weaver (for instance) how many pieces he can weave per week, and how much he gets for it. A man will say, perhaps, he can weave three pieces in a week, and would get 1s. 3d. a piece for weaving them; then if he had a family of a wife and four children, they would allow him 5s. 3d. a week."—"A man had a sickly wife, and was allowed 5s. a week for her and for a woman to attend her. She died, and in about a year he married again; and on the very day of his marriage, said, 'Now I have married again, I'll work Gisburn another round;' and he has been as good as his word, having had three children by the second wife, on account of which he received 2l. 11s. from January to September in last year.

"At Dent, in the same neighbourhood, 'relief to the able-bodied is afforded by payments of a weekly or monthly sum in the name of a pension, the amount of which is regulated according to the number of a man's family, after the rate of two shillings a head per week: poor people, especially those who have become pensioners, marry early, more frequently under twenty years of age than above; they are induced to this, no doubt, from a reliance upon relief from the poor rate. Instances have been numerous in which this had been known to be the case, and in a majority of cases relief is applied for on the birth of the first child: the most profligate and dissolute are amongst this class, and if they get a little extra pay at any time, they spend it in drinking, leaving their families to be maintained by the township.'

"At Kettlewell (in Craven) and the neighbourhood, the same system prevails. 'The rule of the magistrates is to allow so much as will yield one shilling and sixpence a head per week, and the overseers take this rule therefore as their guide. The overseer has sometimes called upon little farmers for their rates, and found that they had no provisions or any kind in the house, nor money to buy any; while on the other hand, he has not unfrequently been obliged to give relief to men who, there is no doubt, could have procured work if they had exerted themselves: they speak of it as a matter of right; and, if what they ask be not granted, they threaten to appeal to the magistrate; and, as he lives fifteen miles off, the overseers are often induced to yield to their demands, on account of the expense of meeting the claim before him.'

"The places above-named are within the jurisdiction of one bench of magistrates.

"At Pateley Bridge many are relieved in degree when the wages they earn are not sufficient. It is reckoned that 1s. 9d. per head for each member of the family is necessary, except for infants, and that rule the overseers act upon. One magistrate, however, allows. 2s. 6d. each for husband and wife, and 1s. 6d. for each child. Relief is demanded as a matter of right, and sometimes with insolence. An instance is mentioned as occurring some years ago, in which a man came and said, 'We have been getting married; can you find us a house?' and another instance occurred two years ago, in which a man came out of Craven, and claimed relief a few weeks after marriage, and was insolent in his demand.

"At Knaresborough the paupers are chiefly weavers of linen and flax dressers; if they are wholly out of work, the rule is to allow a man and his wife 6s. a week, and 9d. for each child: a single man 3s. a week. This rate is allowed, because the magistrates allow it; but in fact, in many cases, it amounts to more than a man, when trade is flourishing, could earn. If a man has partial work, they give him 1s. 6d. or 2s. a week, or as little as they can satisfy him with, knowing that, if he goes before the magistrate, he will allow him such a sum as, with his earnings, will make up the rate above mentioned. Immediately that a man is out of work now, he comes for relief; and, if he be not relieved at once, he goes to a magistrate, who grants a summons, and makes a memorandum upon it, directing the overseer to relieve him in the mean time."

"In Darlington, in the county of Durham," says Mr. Wilson, "allowances to able-bodied labourers are graduated according to the numbers of their families; and whenever the wages of any class of labourers (for example, of the linen weavers, who have latterly been the most distressed) fall below the amount appointed by the scale, the difference is made up as a matter of course by the parish. The scale awards 2s. a head a-week to heads of families, and 1s. 6d. for each of the children under 12 years of age. This is the minimum of allowance paid by the parish in all cases. Suppose a single man to earn 2s. a week, he could put forward no claim to relief. Suppose another, earning the same wages, but possessing besides a wife and six children, then 2s. a head for himself and his wife, and 1s. 6d. a head for each of his children, give a total amount of 13s. weekly. In this second case the family man has a recognized claim on the parish for an allowance for 11s. weekly, making up his earnings of 2s. by the above-mentioned graduated scale.

"Some remarkable instances of this occurred on Wednesday, January 9th, at the meeting of the parish committee. One applicant owned he had earned 21s. during the last fortnight; but because he had not applied within the last month to the parish, and his average during that period had not been made up (he had four children), he now applied to have the deficit made up, which was done accordingly.

"Another man was earning 9s. a week; he had six children; 4s. were handed over the table to him immediately.

"A third had seven children, with himself and his wife, making nine in family. He stated that his average earnings were 9s. a week. Last week he had been out of work for a day or two, and consequently had earned only 5s. The parish had found two days' work for him, which made up his earnings to 7s.; 7s. 6d. additional were handed to him over the table.

"I need not report a dozen similar cases, which were dispatched like the foregoing, in my presence. Yet do people in this district talk as glibly as any of the abuses of the Poor Laws in the South."

The abuses of the South are, however, still more striking.

"I was able," says Mr. Villiers, "to examine some parishes in nearly every magisterial division in the county of Warwick, in the three principal hundreds of the county of Worcester, and in the adjoining parts of Gloucestershire; and I communicated personally with the overseers and other officers from the hundreds and principal towns in North Devon.

"In each of these counties the relief is regulated upon the same general principle, namely, to relieve all claimants according to their alleged actual necessities; and in each a separate table of relief, varying with the condition of the pauper and the price of bread, has been drawn up and published by the magistrates for the guidance of overseers.

"Allowance of money to men, regulated by the number of their families, was seldom, if ever, denied. The exceptions are in some few parishes, where, by a better system of management, the labourers have been encouraged to maintain their own children. The system is defended by some persons, and by others it is not considered as a mode of supplying the deficiency in wages from the rates. A magistrate lamented to me that a practice of paying the wages out of the rates did exist in the southern and eastern counties, and was happy to think that it had never been adopted in his division; but he admitted and defended the custom of allowing a sum for the third or fourth child of every labourer. In one parish I asked the overseer if it would be possible for a man and his family to be earning a guinea a week, and receiving allowance for his children; he said, 'Certainly, as we never suppose that a man earns more than the farmers usually give.' Upon asking several other overseers why such inquiry was not made, the reply generally was, that they either had not time, or that it was not usual, and that, should they refuse the allowance applied for, they would be summoned before a magistrate, who would order it."

"The statement of the vestry clerk of Old Swinford was, that men with families were in the habit of being relieved who were known to earn 16s. or 18s. a week, and that unless it were shown that the earnings of the family amounted to 25s. a week, allowance was not refused. This I was hardly able to credit at first, but he stated that, when the trade was good, people were able to earn these wages, and that it had been considered since that time as a standard for allowance. The character of a large portion of these people was described as being reckless and dissolute beyond any others. They were said to be living almost promiscuously, and that large families, legitimate or not, were considered by them as an advantage. Nails are manufactured in their houses, and children, who can be employed early in this trade, become a source of profit to the parents, if the trade is good, and, if it should fail, they are maintained by the parish.

"In these districts the truck system has been practised, and doubtless continues to be so; and consequently the owners of the tommy shops, being the manufacturers, are frequently the persons who are expected to regulate the distribution of relief to their own men."

The following are extracts from the valuable Answers of Mr. Russell, a magistrate residing in Swallowfield, in the counties of Berks and Wilts, to our printed Queries:—

"The parish gives the labourers, out of the poor-rates, what they call sometimes their 'make up,' and sometimes their 'bread money.' The bread money is calculated weekly, at the price of two gallon loaves for the husband, one for the wife, and one for each of the children, be the number what it may; and to whatever extent the earnings of the family may fall short of that sum, the difference is made up in money. This allowance is given in compliance with an order made many years ago by the magistrates of this county (Berks), and, practically, is in all cases enforced by them. I have known a magistrate on an application made by a pauper for his bread money exclaim that no such thing as bread money was recognized by the bench, and then make an order, with the mere omission of the term, for the precise amount demanded.

"No attention is paid to either the character of the applicant or the causes of his distress. In fact, he is considered entitled to it without pleading any distress.

"The bread money is hardly looked upon by the labourers in the light of parish relief. They consider it as much their right as the wages they receive from their employers, and in their own minds, make a wide distinction between 'taking their bread money' and 'going on the parish.' "

In other parishes the labourer is not supposed to earn more than a given sum. If that sum be less than the sum to which the size of his family entitles him, he receives the difference from the parish.

At Thaxted, Essex, the overseer states:—

"That allowance is regulated by the price of flour: that the magistrates direct half a peck of flour for each individual of the family, besides 6d. each for the father and mother, and 4d. for each child. If wages do not amount to this, they are to be made up out of the poor-rate. A man's weekly earnings are reckoned at 8s. If he makes more, still he receives his allowance, in order that industry may not be discouraged."

In the Answers to which we have referred, Mr. Russell states that,

"In the Berks portion of Swallowfield, the invariable usage, both in winter and in summer, was to make up the bread money from the actual earnings of the whole family. In the Wiltshire portion they take the man's earnings, let them have been as high as they may, at the fixed rate of day work only, allowing him the benefit of the difference; and under the influence of the panic struck by the fires, our portion has so far yielded to the importunity of the farmers as to adopt this practice during the winter months. For instance, if a family consist of a man, his wife and six children, their bread money for nine loaves at 1s. 6d. a loaf is 13s. 6d. a week. Suppose, as often happens in the winter, that the man has earned 12s. in the week, and the wife and children nothing, then, according to the rate which used to prevail with us all the year round, and which still prevails in summer, the family will receive a make up of 1s. 6d.; but according to the practice which we now follow in the winter, the man's earnings, though really 12s., will be taken at the ordinary rate of only 9s., and he will receive 4s. 6d. in money. Whatever the wife and any of the children may earn, whether in summer or in winter, their real earnings are taken as a set-off against their loaf."

It is to be observed that even in those parishes in which the amount of allowance is supposed to depend on that of the applicant's earnings, the inquiry as to the amount of those earnings is never carried back further than the current or the previous week or fortnight. The consequence is, that many of those who at particular periods of the year receive wages far exceeding the average amount of the earnings of the most industrious labourer, receive also large allowances from the parish. Mr. Cowell and Mr. Bishop found a parish in the Bedford Level, in which a recently drained tract of fertile land requires more labour than the settled inhabitants can provide; and the average yearly earnings of a labourer's family are from 60l. to 70l.; but during a frost, and generally from November to March, almost every labourer comes on the parish. When they commented on these facts in their conversation with a resident magistrate, his answer was, "Why, what are we to do? They spend it all, and then come and say they are starving; and you must relieve them." "In our vestry," says Mr. Russell, "which meets every Monday, the calculation is confined to the earnings of the past fortnight. No further retrospect is ever taken either for or against the claimant. In some parishes I believe the account is settled once a week instead of once a fortnight."

Sometimes the inquiry does not go back even to the beginning of the week at the end of which the claim is made.

"A case was mentioned to me," says Mr. Stuart, "of nine men who had been able to earn 15s. each by task work, in three days, and who came to the parish for the other three days of the week, during which they had no employment. The overseer, aware of the profitable work in which they had been engaged, offered 1s. a day for the lost days instead of 1s. 6d. a day, which would have been their allowance according to the scale. This the men rejected; left the work which they then had, and went to a magistrate to complain. The magistrate sent an open note by the complainants, appealing to the humanity of the overseer. The men, aware of the contents of the note, backed the recommendation of the magistrate by threats, which induced the overseer to comply."

Again, there are other parishes in which no inquiry whatever is made respecting earnings, but the birth of a child endows the parent with an allowance, whatever be his income.

At Laughton, Sussex, says Mr. Majendie,—

"I attended the vestry with one of the principal farmers. One of his labourers, who was in constant employ at 17s. per week, came for his 'pay,' for a third child just born, at 1s. a week for six months; it will then be raised to 1s. 6d. a week. The plan of allowance, without inquiry into earnings, is justified on the ground that if the same allowance were not made to all, it would cramp industry."

In Westoning, Bedfordshire,—

"There is scarcely one able-bodied labourer in the employment of individuals but what receives regular relief on account of his family. A married man and his wife, without any child, receive 5s. per week if he be out of employment; for one child, he is allowed 1s. whether in or out of employment; for two children, 2s. and so on in proportion to the number of children under 10 years; above 10 years, each boy out of employment is allowed from 1s. 6d. to 3s. 6d."

Mr. Walcott states, that in North Wales,—

"No single able-bodied man in the employment of individuals ever obtains parochial relief.

"Married agricultural labourers in work, and with only three children, although in many cases their rents are paid, and the rates remitted, yet are very rarely considered entitled to regular weekly relief; but if out of work, or with more than three children, in nearly every parish they obtain it on those grounds.

"The allowance is usually 1s. a week for each child above the third. Overton is the only parish I heard of entirely free from the abuse of relieving the able-bodied in the employ of individuals. It is there considered, he states, contrary to law, justice, and humanity.

"The rule of commencing relief with the fourth child, is, however, by no means inflexible; for example, in Kerry, a very well-managed parish, a great portion of the labourers support four, five, and six children, without any parochial assistance, and wages are not higher there than in many other places where it is given.

"The effect of thus placing the married and unmarried man on a different footing as to relief, is clearly to encourage early and improvident marriages, with their consequent evils. Of this there was no lack of evidence; the answers to inquiries on this subject being, that such marriages are now much more common amongst the labouring and lower classes than formerly; that the great majority of young men marry under twenty-four years of age, and frequently under twenty-one. That such is one of the effects of the practice, is evident from the circumstance, that in the parish of Kerry, where a married man is not certain of obtaining relief, even with five or six children, the labourers (according to the testimony of a very intelligent and long-resident magistrate, Mr. Pugh) do not marry earlier than they did twenty or twenty-five years ago."

In the Northern Division of Devonshire, says Mr. Villiers,—

"The practice of granting allowance for children is so general and confirmed, that the pauper is in the habit of giving formal notice to the overseer of the pregnancy of his wife. Should the overseer refuse the application for the fixed sum allowed for the second, third, or fourth child, the magistrates' single inquiry, on his appearance before them under a summons, would be as to the custom of the parish or the hundred: 'At what number does allowance begin with you?' is the common mode of putting the question, as I was repeatedly assured by overseers. The previous or present earnings of the pauper, or of any of his family, are never mentioned."

It is to be observed, also, that under the scale system a child is very soon considered as an independent claimant for relief, and entitled to it, though residing with his parents, and though they may be in full work and high wages. At Friston, Suffolk, Mr. Stuart states, that "a child is entitled to relief, at the rate of 3s. a week, on his own account, from the age of 14."

At Bottisham, Cambridge, says Mr. Power,—

"A boy of sixteen receives 2s. 6d. for the week; lives at home with his father; the family consists of his father, mother, brother, and himself. His father and brother are both now doing work at full wages, for Mr. Jenyns the magistrate.—(From the overseer;) Seventeen is the age at which we consider a young man entitled to separate relief, as an unemployed labourer; his pay then is 3s. 6d.; this boy is relieved, not as a labourer out of employ, but at the instance of Mr. Jenyns, who has been for some time past endeavouring to obtain him a service.—(From Mr. King afterwards:) The allowance to our young single men out of employment used to be 2s. 10d., according to scale, four quartern loaves, present price 8 1/2;d. Last November they came to the sessions in a body to complain of the insufficiency, and it was then rased to 3s. 6d. This sum they receive when above a certain age, although residing with their families. One family consisting of man, wife, and seven children, are entitled to, and at this time receiving 19s. 6d. from the parish several of the sons being grown up. At Little Shelford a worse case than this was given me by the acting overseer, of one family, a man, wife, and four sons, living together, receiving 24s. weekly from the parish. The woman was receiving 3s. a week at that time in the family of Mr. Finch, the clergyman, as Mrs. Finch informed me."