Experimental  ^Legislation  25
anywhere  found.  In  more  recent  years  several
very  important  experiments  have  been  tried  by
different  Boards  of  Guardians,  such  as  the  boarding
out  of  pauper  children,  the  suppression  of  vagrancy
by  the  provision  of  separate  vagrant  cells  and  the
hard-labour  test,  and  the  cutting  down  of  outdoor
relief.  If  the  total  abolition  of  outdoor  relief  is
ever  to  be  tried,  it  must  be  tried  on  the  small
scale  first;  it  would  be  a  far  too  severe  and  dangerous ­
  measure  to  force  upon  the  whole  country
at  a  single  blow.  Much  attention  has  lately  been
drawn  to  the  so-called  “  Poor  Law  experiment  at
Elberfeld,”  which  was  carefully  described  by  the
Rev.  W.  Walter  Edwards,  in  an  article  in  The
Contemporary  Review  for  July,  1878,  vol.  xxxii,
pp.  675-693,  bearing  that  precise  title.
Even  when  an  Act  of  Parliament  is  passed  in
general  terms  applying  to  the  whole  kingdom  at
once,  it  by  no  means  follows  that  it  will  be  equally
put  into  operation  everywhere.  The  discretion
necessarily  allowed  to  magistrates  and  other
authorities  often  gives  ample  scope  for  instructive
experiments.  Some  years  since  the  Howard
Association  called  attention  to  what  they  expressly
called  “  The  Luton  experiment,”  consisting  in  the
extraordinary  success  with  which  the  magistrates
of  Luton,  in  Bedfordshire,  enforced  the  provisions
of  the  “  Prevention  of  Crime  Act.”  The  number
of  committals  to  gaol  from  Luton  and  its  vicinity
was  reduced  from  257  in  1869  to  66  in  1874.