We have been favoured by Mr. Thompson, the able and experienced governor of this asylum, with a statement of expenditure for the past year, for the relief of the aged and indigent poor of ten parishes, which together include a population of upwards of three thousand two hundred, almost exclusively agricultural. The workings of this establishment as regards the advantages to the public and the poor themselves, may be considered a fair example of what will be derived from the new poor laws, if party prejudice is laid aside and the system recommended by the bill is allowed to have a fair trial. We have before us a statement of expenditure for the year ending the 27th of November 1835. At Stanford Rivers the sick, the feeble, and the orphan, derive those comforts which treble the cost would not procure for them at their own houses, whilst to the vicious and turbulent, this workhouse is indeed, “for a prison but a milder name,” and instances have occurred, that such characters, by restraint and judicious treatment, have been reclaimed and have escaped that contamination they had probably acquired, if mixed with others as worthless as themselves. The gross expenditure is divided into nine parts, and the charge apportioned to each parish, is in proportion to the number of paupers of each class sent to the house for maintenance in the course of the year.
The first class includes males and females, under the age of 10 years; this class in rated as two-ninths. The second class includes males and females between the ages of 10 and 15 years, rated as three-ninths. The third class consists of males above the age of 15 years, and is rated a four-ninths, The total expenditure for the past year ending the 27th of November is £526. 15s. 7d.
The following is a statement of the number of paupers maintained during that period, distinguishing the classes, which were sent to the House from each of the ten parishes:-
1st Class
2nd Class
3rd Class
Abbotts Roothing
33
58
40
Bobbingworth
33
99
117
Great Warley
109
97
174
Greenstead
52
-
130
Little Laver
69
18
58
Stanford Rivers
147
339
297
Stapleford Abbott
217
177
1
Staplefor Tawney
171
136
62
Stondon Massey
60
75
52
Shelley
-
56
56
891
1055
977
These classes, when added together make a gross number of 2923, and an average of 56 weekly. The food consists of meat twice a week; broth, rice, milk gruel, puddings and bread the other five. Nothing can exceed the cleanliness of every department, as regards linen, bedding, and rooms; and the air they breathe is calculated to promote health and long life. The sturdy paupers are generally engaged in cultivating the garden, and the women capable of doing any work, and the children, knit stockings which over and above what is required for the establishment, are distributed to the parishes in the Union; in the present year they will receive 117 pairs.
In the course of three years, there has been a surplus of 343 pairs of stockings. The cost for maintaining and every other charge has been decreasing in three years in the following proportions –
1832, the cost per head was 3s.6d
1833 - 3s.3½d
1834 - 3s. 3¼d
In 1833 the expenditure was £644. 19s. 11½d, the average number in the House being 65; in the present year the average number being 56, the expenditure was £526. 15s 7d; this sum includes extra nourishment for the sick. The number now in the house is 60; four deaths only occurred in the year. The establishment has been but little troubled with able bodied paupers since the first year, and real necessity only will induce them to apply; in such cases they are admitted and provided for, but the vicious, if not reclaimed, are sent to the tread wheels at Springfield; seven of this class have been so dealt with; twelve have absconded, and four were ultimately transported.
In each parish of the Union, there are those who were continually applying for relief, but who now find means to maintain themselves. Several cases of fraud by pretended illness, have been detected, and the rules of the establishment have effected a reformation in habitual drunkards.
In the year 1824, the poor rated in Stanford Rivers amounted to £826; in the first year of the Incorporated Workhouse, it was reduced to £436, and since to £254. This must be highly satisfactory to the rate-payers of each parish, with the strict, but humane manner in which the house has been conducted under the present excellent system. But the reduction of the poor rates is not the only advantage derived by the system. Such a saving might induce some to suspect that the poor were pinched; but the following facts may be taken as evidence to the contrary, and that the condition of the poor has been materially improved. The sum of £118 was last year paid by the poor of Stanford Rivers, consisting of 130 families, into a clothing club; and the poor of Bobbingworth, one of the united parishes, have also raised for the like purpose, £46.11s.8d. The clothing clubs are deservedly encouraged. Mr Jonathan Stokes very kindly receives the money, and the clubs are becoming general; persons working in the parishes are also admitted members. Men and women are allowed to deposit three-pence per week, and a child two-pence. To the amount of each depositor, a fund is provided by subscription among the inhabitants, to add five-pence to every shilling so deposited. This act of benevolence has tended greatly to promote sobriety and economy among the poor.