WORKHOUSE, in the United States, a correctional prison for petty offenders. In England the poorhouse is called a °workhouse? Workhouses appear to have been correctional originally in England also and were first erected in the reign of Charles II in order to compel rogues and vagabonds to work for a living. Act 8. Charles I, ch. vii, entitled the churchwardens or overseers of the poor, with consent of the majority of the inhabitants to establish work houses for lodging and maintaining the poor, and made various arrangements for union of parishes for this purpose. By 34 and 35 Vic toria, ch. cviii, the guardians of every union are bound to provide casual wards, with such fittings as the poor-law board consider neces sary, for the accommodation of the casual poor. Every workhouse has to keep a register of re ligious creeds and also a register of persons under 16, hired out as servants or apprentices, whom the relieving officer must visit to in quire into their food and treatment. The inmates
of workhouses are not allowed to go out and in at pleasure and the able-bodied are compelled to work when required. In suitable situations they are often employed in field labor. Married persons are separated unless both are above 60 years of age. Drunkenness, misconduct or re fusal to work exposes to the penalty of im prisonment with bard labor. The workhouses, after being under the control of the poor-law board, were placed under the local government board in 1891.
In Scotland the legal designation of houses provided for the accommodation of the poor is as in America, the designation lasylum for the poor" being also used in the United States. Sec CHARITIES, PUBLIC; Prar sroxs ; PAUPERISM ; SOCIOLOGY.