I find then, gentlemen, that in a district comprising, in round
numbers, two million inhabitants--for that is about the number in
that district--in the fourth week of September 1861, there were
forty-three thousand five hundred persons receiving parochial
relief; in the fourth week of September 1862, there were one hundred
and sixty-three thousand four hundred and ninety-eight persons
receiving parochial relief; and in the short space which elapsed
between the last week of September and the third week of November
the number of one hundred and sixty-three thousand four hundred and
ninety-eight had increased to two hundred and fifty-nine thousand
three hundred and eighty-five persons. Now, gentlemen, let us in the
same periods compare the amount which was applied from the parochial
funds to the relief of pauperism. In September 1861, the amount so
applied was 2259 pounds; in September 1862, it was 9674 pounds. That
is by the week. What is now the amount? In November 1862 it was
17,681 pounds for the week. The proportion of those receiving
parochial relief to the total population was two and three-tenths
per cent in September 1861, and eight and five-tenths per cent in
September 1862, and that had become thirteen and five-tenths percent
in the population in November 1862. Here, therefore, is thirteen per
cent of the whole population at the present moment depending for
their subsistence upon parochial relief alone. Of these two hundred
and fifty-nine thousand--I give only round numbers--there were
thirty-six thousand eight hundred old or infirm; there were nearly
ninety-eight thousand able-bodied adults receiving parochial relief,
and there were under sixteen years of age nearly twenty-four
thousand persons. But it would be very far from giving you an
estimate of the extent of the distress if we were to confine our
observations to those who are dependent upon parochial relief alone.