. . .f the sick, by money allowances in their own homes. But where these[85] classes were admitted into the workhouse, the Commissioners, instead of the separate, specialised institutions recommended in the Report of 1834, prescribed one general workhouse to contain these classes together with the able-bodied and their families, and, we may add, also the orphan and deserted children. This involved, in spite of the elaborate classification nominally imposed, an indiscriminate, common establishment, with a uniform régime for all classes alike. This régime was, with the minimum of exceptions, that devised for the able-bodied adults. The workhouse of 1847 was, above all, to serve as a test of destitution, and as a place which the able-bodied would find less eligible than the worst independent existence. Hence when it was used for all classes—the aged and infirm, the sick, the dependent women, the young children, the defectives of various kinds, and those whom accident . . . Read More