[483] The policy of the Central Authority seems, down to this date, to have contemplated the supplementing of outdoor relief, not only by charitable gifts in kind, but also by money. At Poplar, in 1868, a special committee draws attention to the "instruction" of the Poor Law Board that when relief is given to persons in receipt of charitable relief, the relief given must be only so much as, with the assistance of the charitable relief, will suffice for the relief of such person's actual necessities (MS. Minutes, Poplar Board of Guardians, 22nd September 1868).
[484] The number of relieving officers in the Metropolis had already increased from 102 in 1866 to 161 in 1870. It now rose further to 190 in February, 1873 (Mr. Corbett's Report of 10th August 1871, as reprinted for circulation in 1873). The number is now (1907) about 205.
[485] Twenty-second Annual Report, 1869-70, pp. xxxii-xxxiv, 9-30. Mr. Goschen directed an inspector to make a special inquiry into the administration of outdoor relief in the Metropolis, and this was followed by similar inquiries in the provinces (Twenty-third Annual Report, 1870-1, pp. ix-xxi, 32-173; First Annual Report of the Local Government Board, 1871-2, pp. xv, 88-215; Second Annual Report, 1872-3, pp. xvi-xviii; Third Annual Report, 1873-4, pp. xx, 66-116, 136-209). The reports that resulted revealed many defects and some malpractices, but we do not find that there was any action by the Central Authority.
[486] It should perhaps be mentioned that in the Third Annual Report, 1873-4 (pp. xvii. and 126-35), reports by Miss Octavia Hill and Colonel Lynedoch Gardiner, on the Co-operation of Charity with the Poor Law in Marylebone, are given and commended.
To the historian of Poor Law policy, Mr. Goschen's Minute is important as the first indication of what we shall see developing in the ensuing period--an attempt to restrict the range of operations of the Poor Law, which here began to battle with the opposite tendency to extend the range of those operations, and to improve their quality, which, as we have seen, had marked the whole reign of the Poor Law Board with regard to children and persons of unsound mind; and which had, from 1865, taken such a stride onwards in the provision of hospitals and dispensaries for the sick, and improved accommodation for the workhouse inmates.