Scotland and Ireland have been legislated for separately. Their poor laws are similar to the English in principle and practice; both are administered by a central board, which supervises the local bodies charged with relief, and in both the rate is levied on the annual value of real property. The present system in Scotland was instituted by the 8th and 9th Vict. c. 83 (1845). Scotland is divided into 883 parishes, some of them com bined for poor-house accommodation. The relief is administered by a parochial board, appointed by the rate-payers, the burgh magistrates, and the kirk-session. They appoint inspectors of the poor, who act as relieving officers. The Scotch law differs from the English and Irish in allowing no relief to able-bodied adults. Claimants must be aged, infirm, or disabled. Out-door relief is the rule. As regards the working of the Scot tish poor-law, its great and acknowledged defect is the constant, and costly contest respecting settlements, or right to fix claims on particular parishes. Scotland had, in 1874, 64 poor-houses for 406 parishes, having a population of 2,407,441. Ireland had no the year 1838, when they were introduced by the 1st and 2d Vict. c. 56. For the purpose of relief, Ireland is divided into 163 unions of townlands or parishes. Each union has a work-house managed by a board of guardians, elected by the rate payers. Every destitute person has an absolute right to relief, which is administered almost entirely in the work-house. The average yearly population of the United King dom during the 10 years ending 1870 was 29,694,138; average paupers in each year, 1,149,185, or 3.9 per cent. They were apportioned as follows: Population. Paupers. Percentage.
England 20,998,332 973,860 4.6
Scotland.... 3,044,919 100,927 3.3 Ireland .... 5,650,897 65,398 1.2 The total expenditure in the United Kingdom during the 10'years was £80,901,456, or an annual charge of 5s. 51d. per head on the average population of the period, appor tioned as under: Amount of Assessment. Per head per annum.
£ . d.
England and Wales 67,286,674 6 44 Scotland 6,191,066 4 02 Ireland . 7,423,716 2 7-F To look back 10 years, the rate which, at the end of the financial year 1861, was 5s. 9d. a head on the population, was Os. 41d. two years after—a fact due to the cotton famine. Applying similar calculations to the 5 years 1871-75 give the following results: esti •mated annual average population of the United Kingdom, 32,129,865; annual average of paupers, 1,109,608, or 3.4 per cent, distributed thus: Population. Paupers. Percentage.
England and Wales . 23,355,535 920,030 3.9 Scotland 3,430,930 112,132 3.25 Ireland .. 5,343,400 77,446 1.4 The total expenditure for the same period was £47,532,756, or an annual average charge of 5s. Old. per head of population, allocated thus: Amount of Assessment. Per head per annum.
£ s. d.
England and Wales 38,739,734 6 71 Scotland 4,300,342 5 14 Ireland.... 4,492,680 3 5 There is no poor-law in our Australian colonies, but benevolent asylums for the infirm and destitute have become general, and hospitals are numerous in all the rising towns in the gold-fields.—Compare Bhckh's Public Economy of Athens, translated by sir G. C. Lewis; sir George Nichol's History of the Poor-Laws; Emningham's Poor Relief in different parts of Europe, revised by E. B. Eastwiek (1873); Report of the Poor-Law Corn onissioners (1835); Reports of the Poor-law Commission and Poor-law Board from 1835 to 1875.