difficulty, allowed gradually to lapse early in the day over a great part of the country, and the easier method of relieving the poor by allowances of money without labour, adopted in its place. This, as will presently appear, was rather the fault of the system than of the administration, though it is constantly alleged as a ground of complaint by a succession of writers. The experience of 300 years has shown the impossibility of creating work for the unemployed outside of that which is required by the economic demands of the community. Towards the end of the eighteenth century, parish authorities were reduced to such expedients as making men stand in the parish pound for so many hours, or of making them dig holes and fill them up again, as a condition of relief. The Central Unemployed Body is at the present time confronted with similar difficulties. Generally speaking, the system became one of outdoor relief either entirely without labour or coupled with labour which was purely nominal and absolutely useless.
It is not proposed to do more than to glance at a few of the pamphlets in question, which have special interest either from the eminence of the writers, or intrinsically. It may be interesting to note that, even before the Elizabethan Poor Law, as early as 1552, there was complaint of the "intolerable hurts to the nation from tippling houses," and "tippling in alehouses" was made an offence by a statute of James I. A pamphlet published in 1614, entitled "England's Way to Win Wealth," contains a project for the establishment of herring fishing as a means of employing the poor, and concludes, "wherefore, seeing that we can excel all other nations wastefully to spend money, let us in one thing learn from other nations to get thousands out of His Majesty's seas."
