instead of this, we see that relief is made a reason for more relief.
Formerly, the greatest stress was laid upon the condition that the old age pensioner should be dissociated altogether from the Poor Law, and for that reason the administration of the Act was assigned to the officers of excise, who, of course, are entirely unversed in such administration, whilst the very name of the relieving officer was anathema. For the same reason, strict rules were laid down that all the information obtained by the excise officers regarding old age pensioners should be treated as confidential, and there was to be no touch between old age pensioners and the Guardians. But, in fact, a very large number of old age pensioners continued to receive Poor Law relief, often simultaneously with their pension, whilst the Guardians are unable to recover any appreciable part of the cost. The Committee of the Central Poor Law Conference have recently made some inquiries into the matter, and have received definite answers from about 134 Boards of Guardians. The result is very striking. At least 100 of these Boards report duplicated relief, which usually takes the form of infirmary treatment plus the old age pension, whilst they are in most cases entirely unable to recover anything from the pensioner. In West Derby, for example, in a single year 301 pensioners received duplicated relief of this kind, and only £10 was recovered. In Bethnal Green the number was 240, and all but six of these continued to receive their pensions; practically nothing was recovered.
There is similar evidence from a number of other Unions. The pension authority, in most cases following instructions from headquarters, refused to give any information to, or to co-operate with, the Guardians. We have thus the singular
