inmates, nor is there such in any
workhouse in Scotland to my knowledge; all
attempts to separate children in the larger
workhouses have been given up years ago."
Mr. Kemp adds that the boarding system
is "a plan which long experience has tested,
and which we find to work well;" and he
gives this valuable testimony to its
practical success: "We very seldom indeed
have any of our children brought back to
the workhouse, or falling into pauper
habits; the orphan and the outcast are
especially saved from these results. We
have at this moment three hundred and
thirty boys and girls boarded in the
country." Mr. Kemp's evidence is the
more valuable, seeing that when he first
went to Scotland he was disappointed to
find the boarding system in force. "I
looked upon the plan at first with no great
favour," he says, but after a time, and
practical investigation, the result was,
"a conviction strongly forced upon my
mind that the plan of boarding-out children
with the cottagers around the country was
the best mode of rearing orphan children I
had yet seen." And to this opinion Mr.
Kemp adheres.

Experience has shown the assistant
inspector of the Aberdeen Union "that the
country is the best place for the children,
as they merge into the rural population,
and give us no further trouble." It may
be hoped that this means no further trouble
when they are grown up; while they are still
little pauper boarders it is clear that trouble,
in the shape of needful supervision and
watchful care, they must cause. The
inspector of workhouse children in Glasgow
bears similar testimony to the value of the
practice which "is of long standing here,
and much liked." Indeed from all parts of
Scotland there comes but one opinion, and
that most favourable.

In England, the system has not yet
made so much progress. Possibly this is
in great part due to the failure of an
attempt to introduce something of the
sort in the metropolitan parishes seventy
or eighty years ago. Want of proper
supervision ruined this attempt. Again,
from their great size and the large
numbers which have to be dealt with, the
metropolitan parishes are scarcely the
most favourable field for the first working
of such a system. But even here the
parish authorities seem to be discovering
the dangers and inconveniences of the
workhouse system. The parishes of
Kensington and St. Margaret's, Westminster,
for instance, are about to spend upwards
of twenty-seven thousand pounds for a
district school, which will accommodate
only eight hundred and fifty children: a
small number compared with those in
receipt, at the date of the last returns, of
outdoor relief. But it would be a difficult
matter to deal with the fifty-three
thousand two hundred and eighty-five children
in receipt of outdoor relief in the metropolitan
parishes, according to the returns
for March of the present year, by the
boarding-out system; and in London, at
least, it could only be resorted to as one of
several means of disposing of the children.

But in the country, where the numbers
are far more manageable, the case is
very different. The Bath committee have
gathered evidence from all parts of the
country; and wherever the system has
been tried, the testimony borne to its value
is invariably favourable.

Mr. Archer, chairman of the Highworth
and Swindon Board of Guardians, reports
very favourably of its success in his
district, where it has been in operation seven
or eight years. The Highworth and
Swindon guardians board out as many
children as they possibly can, and are
satisfied with the system, which they find
cheaper as well as better than keeping
them in the workhouse. Mr. Evans, of
Boveney Court, Windsor, a guardian of the
Eton Union, reports, "We are fully satisfied
with our plan of boarding-out children
in the neighbourhood," and also
bears witness to its cheapness. "The
system," according to Mr. Evans, " has
always worked satisfactorily." We have
seen in the early part of this paper, how
the old system broke down utterly in this
district. Mr. Newman, of the Leominster
Board of Guardians who administers the
affairs of a small union, hits the right nail
on the head when he says that the plan
requires most careful watching, and this
expression of opinion renders his further
remark, that when successful the result is
worth any pains, of all the more value. It
is the custom, it seems, in the Leominster
Union, to board children with relatives—
in fact, of thirty-two children boarded out,
twenty-two are with relatives. Possibly
this state of things arises in some way
from the peculiarities of a rural district.
It may be doubtful how far this arrangement
is desirable. From the Horncastle
Union, where the boarding-out plan has
been but recently adopted, and where the