WORKHOUSE. Relief to the indigent is of two kinds, in-door relief and out-door relief. In-door relief is relief in the workhouse. At first workhouses appear frequently to have combined the character of a bridewelL In the reign of Edward VI. the poor of London were classed into three great divisions, and the third comprised the "thrift leas poor," namely, 1, the rioter that conaumeth all ; 2, the vagabond that will abide in no place ; 3, the idle person, as the strumpet and others : and the king, who had been moved to the necessity of alms deeds by a sermon of Bishop Ridley's, provided hospitals for "the poor by impotency " and " the poor by casualty," and Bridewell was allotted to the 'thriftless poor." The workhouse at Hamburg, one of the oldest institutions of the kind in Europe, is still called the Correction and Poor House. The Canterbury Local Act, passed in 1727, expressly orders the bridewell and workhouse to be kept up within the same precincts ; and they were only separated under en act passed in 1812. A century and a half ago it was common for writers to speak of the workhouse as a place where idlers and vagabonds were set to work. (See Workhouse,' Johnson's ' Dictionary.') The general character of our early statutes relating to the poor was harsh, and indigence was treated as a penal offence.
One of the great objects of the 43 Eliz., e. 2, the foundation of our present poor-laws, was to provide employment for the destitute. The overseers and justices of the peace were directed to set to work children whose parents were unable to maintain them; and also adult persons wbo had no means of maintaining themselves, and who used no ordinary and daily trade of life ; for which purpose, with the fund rAised for the relief of the poor,a convenient stock was to be purchased of flax, hemp, wool, thread, iron, and other ware and stuff. The 43 Eliz. also authorised overseers and churchwardens to build cottages on waste land for the poor to inhabit, and to place inmates, or more families than one, in one cottage or house, such cottages or houses to be used thereafter only for the poor. Workhouses in former times
were generally called louses of industry, and for the most part a profit was expected to be derived from their labour, at any rate, to the extent of making such institutions in some measure self-supporting. The house in such cases became a linen or woollen factory ; or sacks, nets, and a variety of other articles, were manufactured. Sometimes land was rented or purchased, and the inmates of the workhouse were employed in agricultural labour. The final extinction of poor-rates was regarded as n not impossible result of these schemes of workhouse industry. In 1701, when the popularity of those schemes was at its height, De Foe clearly pointed out their inevitable operation, and especially their effect on independent labour ; but he was scarcely heeded. Nearly a century afterwards houses of induetry.were erected in Suffolk on a greater scale than had previously been attempted. Instead of being employed as a test of destitution, these houses were intended to provide occupation for all the unemployed.
I'revious to the passing of the Poor-Law Amendment Act, in 1834, the poor-housee (or workhouses) presented, generally speaking, only accumulated instances of maladministration. Absence of classifica tion, discipline, and employment, and extravagant allowances, rendered them prolific nurseries of pauperism and vice. Sonic of the cases of • workhouse corruption would be ludicrous, laud they not exhibited practices so thoroughly demoralising. In by far the greater number of cases, the workhouse was a large almshouse, in which the young were trained in idleness, ignorance, and vice ; the able-bodied main tained in sluggish and sensual indolence ; the aged and more respectable exposed to all the misery that is incident to dwelling in such a society without government or classification ; and the whole body of inmates subsisted on food far exceeding both in kind and in amount not merely the diet of the independent labourer, but that of the majority of the persons who contributed to their support. By 30 Geo.