ANTI-PAUPERISM 
769 
parishes where the Elizabethan administration was retained AD Lie 
and the office was an annual one, the duties were discharged 
in a most perfunctory manner? 
It cannot be said, moreover, that the supervision exercised 
over these parochial officers by the county magistrates was nor the 
either judicious or effective. They appear to have been’"*"** 
disinclined to support the overseers in any case whatever. 
The officials had got a reputation for harshness; and the 
justices seem to have thought that the easy course was 
also the safe one, and as a matter of fact they almost in- 
variably supported the claims of applicants for relief, however 
undeserving they might be2?, There seems to have been a 
proposed for compelling all parishes to appoint and remunerate permanent over- 
seers.” Reports, 1834, xxvii. p. 56. 
1 The system of farming the poor-house presented the means by which the 
overseers could get rid of their responsibilities at least cost. It appears to have 
bad disastrous results according to Sir W. Young, Considerations on the subject of 
Poor-houses or Work-houses, 1796, p. 8, and it does not even seem to have been 
economical. Compare 4 Charge to the Overseers of the Poor, by Sir T. Bernard. 
“We find, from the different returns throughout the kingdom, that, where work- 
houses have been farmed, though there was some saving at first, yet in a few years 
the expenses have thereby been greatly increased, and the poor-rate accumulated 
to an alarming amount. Where, indeed, a principal land-owner, or land-occupier, 
of a parish can be induced to contract for the parish workhouse, he has an interest 
in the permanent improvement of its condition, and in the diminution of the dis- 
tresses of the poor; but where a vagrant speculating contractor visits your parish, 
with a view of making his incidental profit by farming your workhouse, we trust 
you will consider the Christian principle of doing as you would be done by; and 
that you will not confide the pdor, whose guardian and protector it is your duty 
to be, to one, into whose hands you would not trust an acre of your land. or any 
portion of your own property.” Hunter, Georgical Essays, mm. 179. 
2 “Dr Webb, Master of Clare Hall, the present Vice-Chancellor of the Uni- 
versity, has acted as county magistrate for more than sixteen years; and being 
resident a great part of the year at his vicarage in Littlington, he has personally 
superintended the relief of the poor in that parish, as well as in Great Gransden, 
in Huntingdonshire, where the college has been obliged to occupy a farm of 
700 acres, in consequence of their not being able to obtain a tenant for the same 
at any price. He is strongly of opinion that a great part of the burthen of actual 
relief to the poor arises from the injudicious interference of magistrates, and the 
readiness with which they overrule the discretion of the overseers. He has 
attempted in both the parishes above-mentioned to introduce a more strict and 
circumspect system of relief—with great success in Littlington, as appears by the 
descending scale of poor-rates in that parish since 1816;...the population at the 
same time having nearly doubled itself since 1801....Tn Gransden he has found 
less success, being seldom personally present there, and acting principally through 
his bailiff. Also he had had less time by some years for effecting any steady 
improvement in that parish. He showed me, however, by a reference to the 
books. that he had made the practice of allowing relief to married men, when