RURAL WAGES AND ALLOWANCES 719 
several divisions, make the following calculations and allow- AD Is 
ances, for the relief of all poor and industrious men, and their ” grant 
families, who, to the satisfaction of the justices of their parish, allowances 
shall endeavour (as far as they can) for their own support Fomiies of 
and maintenance; that is to say, when the gallon loaf of bode 
seconds flour, weighing 8 lbs. 11 oz. shall cost 1s., then every matically 
poor and industrious man shall have for his own support 3s. 
weekly, either procured by his own, or his family’s labour, or 
an allowance from the poor-rates; and for the support of his 
wife, and every other of his family, 1s. 64. When the gallon 
loaf shall cost 1s. 6d., then every poor and industrious man 
shall have 4s. weekly for his own support, and 1s. 10d. for the 
support of every other of his family. And so in proportion, 
as the price of bread rises or falls (that is to say) 3d. to the 
man, and 1d. to every other of his family, on every 1d. which 
the loaf rises above 1s.2.” Occasional out-door relief had been 
given in many parishes, but these justices now made use of 
their powers under Gilbert's Act? to give it systematically, 
and to the able-bodied poor. The example they set was 
generally followed, and received legislative endorsement in the 
same year, as an Act was passed which rendered it possible 
for the overseers, in parishes which had not come under the 
provisions of Gilbert's Act, to pursue the same course, and 
gave the justices power to order the granting of out-door 
relief’, This practice must have tended to check the rise 
L Pashley, Pauperism and Poor Laws (1852), 258; compare also the table in 
Annals of Agriculture, xxv. 537, and gee p. 765 below. 
2 22 Geo. ITI. c. 83, § 32. See above, p. 578. 
® The Act of 1723 had given any parish power to establish houses for the poor, 
and to refuse all out-door relief to those who would not go into them, but this was 
amended in 1795, as it was ‘found to be inconvenient and oppressive, inasmuch as 
it often prevents an industrious poor person from receiving such occasional relief 
as is best suited to the peculiar case of such poor person, and inasmuch as in 
certain cases it holds out conditions of relief injurious to the comfort and domestic 
situation and happiness of such poor persons.” The workhouse test was thus 
abolished ander 36 Geo. III. ¢. 23. An effort appears to have been made to retain 
it in certain districts in the Eastern Counties, where Houses of Industry had been 
established (Ib. § 4) under private Acts of Parliament. Ruggles gives a very 
Iavourable account of these establishments and contrasts them with the ordinary 
poor-houses, History of the Poor (1797), 308, 324. He held that they were bene- 
ficial in every way, and could be 80 managed as to diminish rates (75. 333). But 
these parishes were unable to resist the tendency of giving out.door relief (75. 315) 
shougn they struggled against it. Rules and Orders for regulating the meetings 
and proceedings of the Directors amd for the better governing, regulating and