poverty some account of pauperism. Although chiefly owing to a stricter
and wiser administration of the Poor Law in relation to outdoor relief,
the number of paupers has steadily and considerably decreased, both in
proportion to the population and absolutely, the number of those unable
to support themselves is still deplorably large. In 1881 no less than
one in ten of the total recorded deaths took place in workhouses, public
hospitals, and lunatic asylums. In London the proportion is much greater
and has increased during recent years. In 1901 out of 78,229 deaths in
London, 13,009 took place in workhouses, 10,643 in public hospitals, and
349 in public asylums, making a total of 24,001. Comparing these figures
with the total number of deaths, we find that in the richest city of the
world 32.5 per cent., or one in three of the inhabitants, dies dependent
on public charity. This estimate does not include those in receipt of
outdoor relief. Moreover, it is an estimate which includes all classes.
The proportion, taking the working-classes alone, must be even higher.

Turning from pauper deaths to pauper lives, the condition of the poor,
though improved, is far from satisfactory. The agricultural labourer in
many parts of England still looks to the poorhouse as a natural and
necessary asylum for old age. Even the diminution effected in outdoor
relief is not evidence of a corresponding decrease in the pressure of
want. The diminution is chiefly due to increased strictness in the
application of the Poor Law, a policy which in a few cases such as
Whitechapel, Stepney, St. George-in-the-East, has succeeded in the
practical extermination of the outdoor pauper. This is doubtless a wise
policy, but it supplies no evidence of decrease in poverty. It would be
possible by increased strictness of conditions to annihilate outdoor
pauperism throughout the country at a single blow, and to reduce the
number of indoor paupers by making workhouse life unendurable. But such
a course would obviously furnish no satisfactory evidence of the decline