In the First Class, the parishes are large, thinly populated, and situated generally in rural districts. In some cases, the Union includes a country town; the neighbouring parishes and hamlets being connected with it. The total number of parishes may be eighteen or twenty. In other cases, the Union consists of about twenty-five parishes, townships, hamlets, and chapelries. In some instances, the population of the parishes are collected into so many villages, which are distant from each other. In others, the entire surface of the country is sprinkled thinly with cottages. The communications are by high-roads, and muddy lanes, over high hills, and through bogs and marshes, and by bridle-roads and footpaths--
In each of these Unions, the management of the relief fund is confided to a Board, consisting of resident rate-payers, and resident country magistrates. The former are guardians by election, and the latter ex-officio. The Board is completed by the addition of the churchwardens and overseers. The chairman is generally the most distinguished, and the vice-chairman the most active man in the Union. The chairman regulates the proceedings of the Board, and ascertains its resolutions. The clerk records them. The relief which applicants are to receive, is determined by the Board; except that which is given by certain officers in cases of "sudden and urgent necessity." The management of the Union-house is invested in the master--a paid officer. His duties are ascertained and fixed. He is liable to dismissal by the joint resolution of the Poor-Law Commissioners and the Guardians, or by the order of the Commissioners alone. It is also the duty of the master to attend to such cases of destitution as may be presented at the Union-House gate; and, if their necessities be of a sudden and urgent character, to admit them into the house. It may be remarked here, that information is wanted upon this point. The question is not, by what general term may the cases be designated, whether sudden or urgent, but what the circumstances of the cases really are, which are so relieved. The answers to the question would throw light upon the relation subsisting between a strict work-house system and the increase of vagrancy. To continue. The sick poor are confided to the care of the medical officer; and the out-door relief is chiefly administered by the relieving-officer. His duties in rural Unions are as follows:--To pay or deliver such amounts of money or food as the Board may have ordered the poor to receive, at the villages, hamlets, and cottages where they may reside. He must visit the poor at their homes. He receives applications for relief; and when the necessity is sudden and urgent, he relieves the case promptly with food. He must report upon the circumstances of each case, and keep accounts. For neglect of duty, he is liable to penal consequences, and to dismissal, in the same way as the master. The average number of parishes, townships, and hamlets committed to the care of the relieving-officer may be about twenty. The reader may be able, from his local knowledge, to picture this Union, and give it a name.