in filth and wretchedness, and are often by the pressure of casual sickness or accident, which incapacitates them from working, tempted to the commission of improper acts, not to say crimes, against which the sure resource of a Benefit Club would have been the best preservation." These words are as literally true to-day as when they were written. Any visitor amongst the poor can judge of this for himself. The member of a permanent Friendly Society—though not, perhaps, of a sharing-out club—is altogether on a higher plane, and has taken the first step upwards out of the crowd.
In 1782 a measure was passed which had momentous consequences and contributed more than anything else to bring matters to a head. It has already been pointed out that in various parts of England and at various times, but especially towards the end of the seventeenth century, the utility of what is now known as the workhouse test as a restraint upon pauperism had been proved by experience. In the early years of George I. an Act was passed sanctioning the unconditional offer of admission to the poorhouse—for as yet workhouses, as they are now understood, were few and far between. By 1782 the pendulum had swung in the opposite direction, and the Act passed in that year, usually known as Gilbert's Act, provided that no one should be sent to a workhouse who was physically capable of labour. That Act may be looked upon as the removal of the last barrier against the onrush of pauperism. From that time forwards the pace became fast and furious. The rates, which in 1785 were £1,912,000 per annum rose in 1817 to £7,870,891. Statistics of pauperism there were none except such as can be extracted from old parish books which were often ill-kept, but there
