[213] Consolidated Order for the Administration of Relief in Town Unions, 7th March 1836, sec. v. art. 15, in Second Annual Report, 1836, p. 90; art. 10 of General Order of 5th February 1842, in Eighth Annual Report, 1842, p. 82; repeated in art. 99 of General Consolidated Order of 24th July 1847.
[214] Instructional Letter of 5th February 1842; in Eighth Annual Report, 1842, p. 110.
In 1847, still without amendment of the classificatory scheme, the guardians were allowed to permit a mother and her infant children to occupy the same bed.[215]
[215] Art. 111 of General Consolidated Order of 24th July 1847.
With regard to vagrants, the first departure from the policy of merely including them as able-bodied paupers came in 1842, in a rule requiring "casual poor wayfarers and vagrants" to be kept "in the Vagrant Ward," or other separate ward--presumably separate for each sex, though this was not explicitly required.[216]
[216] Art. 10 of General Order of 5th February 1842, and Instructional Letter of the same date, in Eighth Annual Report, 1842, pp. 81, 110. In 1847 "casual poor wayfarers" were to be kept in "a separate ward" (General Consolidated Order, 24th July 1847, art. 99).
With regard to segregation by character, the first relaxation from the classificatory scheme is to be found in a letter of 1839, in which the Central Authority permits married women of good character to be placed with the aged women, in order that they may avoid the contamination of bad characters, but only _provided that their daily employment is not interfered with_.[217] We can find no contemporary document even allowing the guardians to protect from a like contamination unmarried women or young girls of good character.
[217] Letter, 1st April 1839, in Special Report on the Further Amendment of the Poor Law, 1839, p. 293.
In 1840, however, the _Official Circular_ referred to "the separation of certain abandoned persons from the other inmates," explaining that it rested "not on the consideration of their past conduct, but on that of their present habits and character."[218]
[218] _Official Circular_, 24th December 1840, No. 10, p. 143.
In 1842 the central authority incidentally observed in an instructional letter that the guardians were _permitted_ to subdivide any of the seven classes of the scheme imposed on them, and that it was "very desirable that females of dissolute and disorderly habits should be separated from those of a better character."[219]