This question is answered by a further parliamentary return, asked for in 1892 by Mr (afterwards Lord) Ritchie. This return shows for England and Wales the number of persons of each sex aged 65 years and upwards, and the number between 16 and 65, also the number of children under 16 years of age, in receipt of relief (a) on January 1st, 1892, and (b) during the twelve months ended Lady Day 1892. As in Mr Burt's return, vagrants and lunatics are not included. The return differs from Mr Burt's, however, in distinguishing those persons in receipt of medical relief only.

This return of Mr Ritchie's showed that while 700,746 paupers of all ages were in receipt of relief on January 1st, 1892, the number relieved during the year ended Lady Day 1892 was more than twice as great, viz. 1,573,074.[60]

Mr Ritchie's return relates to all paupers, whereas that of Mr Burt related to the aged only. It is difficult to say which fact in Mr Ritchie's return is the more saddening, the relief of 401,904 aged paupers in a single year, or that in the same period 553,587 children under sixteen were pauperized.

The following table (p. 276) summarizes the facts elicited by the return as to the paupers relieved during twelve months. (It should be observed that, of the 1,573,074 persons enumerated, 211,082 were in receipt of medical relief only. Of the 401,904 paupers over 65, however, but 25,447 were in receipt of medical relief only.)

PAUPERS RELIEVED IN ENGLAND AND WALES
DURING THE TWELVE MONTHS ENDING LADY DAY 1892

Comparing the number of paupers in England and Wales, as shown by the figures on p. 276 with the census population of 1891, we get:

TOTAL PAUPERS IN 1891
COMPARED WITH TOTAL POPULATION
(ENGLAND AND WALES ONLY)

Thus the paupers of all ages relieved in 1891 amounted to one in every eighteen of the population of England and Wales.

What of those over 65? The facts are:

PAUPERS AGED 65 AND UPWARDS IN 1891
COMPARED WITH TOTAL POPULATION OF THAT AGE
(IN ENGLAND AND WALES ONLY)

Thus of the population of England and Wales aged 65 and over in 1891, one in every three was in receipt of poor relief!

In 1899, and again in 1900, the Local Government Board published returns relating to aged pauperism in those years, and Mr Burt, in 1903, obtained a second return in continuation of that of 1891. We are thus enabled to compare one-day returns for five different periods and this is done in the following table:

PAUPERS, INDOOR AND OUTDOOR, RELIEVED ON CERTAIN DAYS
DURING A PERIOD OF THIRTEEN YEARS (ENGLAND AND WALES ONLY)

[Note.—In the Returns for 1892, 1899 and 1900 the numbers include persons in receipt of relief constructively by reason of relief being given to wives or children. In the Returns for 1890 and 1903 (Mr Burt's returns) such persons are excluded.]

Apart from seasonal changes—the number of paupers is, of course, always higher in the winter than in the summer—it will be seen that the proportion of paupers over 65 years of age to the total population of that age has not varied much. On August 1st, 1890, there were 245,687 paupers of 65 years and upwards, or 18 per cent. of the total population of that age. On September 1st, 1903, there were 284,265 paupers of 65 and upwards, or 18.3 per cent. of the population of that age.

We have only the figures of the 1892 return to throw light upon the number of aged paupers relieved during one year. If we assume that still the same proportion of aged pauperism exists, viz.: 292 in each 1,000, then, in the present year, out of a total population in the United Kingdom aged 65 and upwards of about 2,100,000, as many as 613,200 persons are pauperized.

This number includes both indoor and outdoor paupers, and the ratio of indoor and outdoor paupers varies greatly in different places because of the varying policies of Boards of Guardians. But this point need not detain us. Outdoor relief may in some cases be injudiciously given and in other places most cruelly refused. The fact remains that, taking the country as a whole, we have the clearest evidence of the existence of 613,000 exceedingly poor aged persons.

More important it is to remember that, for one poor person who obtains either indoor or outdoor relief, several who justly might claim it refuse to avail themselves of the tender mercies of the Poor Law. The poor, as a rule, will exhaust every penny of their savings and pawn every stick of their furniture before they seek the workhouse door. Moreover, the amount of genuine charity bestowed by the poor upon the poor is wonderful. If, then, there are 600,000 aged paupers either inside workhouses or receiving outdoor relief in the course of the year, we may be quite sure that at least as many more are as urgently in need of succour, and obtain it by increasing the poverty of their poor friends rather than by seeking from the Guardians the loaf, the 2s. 6d., and the insults which too often constitute outdoor relief.

The reader will see how probable it is that, of the 2,100,000 persons aged 65 and upwards now living in the United Kingdom, fully 1,750,000 are in a condition of poverty which at the worst is pauperism and at the best is sore need. Some 613,000 of them are certainly in receipt of poor relief during the year. Probably another 600,000 are only deterred by horror of the workhouse from recourse to the Guardians. For the remaining third, as for the other two-thirds, the life which has for three-score years been a constant struggle with poverty meets its hardest and cruellest phase at the close.

A certain number of extraordinary men exist who contrive to rear a family upon 30s. a week, and to save enough to provide for their old age. These are the few who are not merely themselves of a most frugal disposition, but who have chanced to bestow their affections upon a girl as abstemious and as thrifty as themselves. A pair of such character, blessed with perfect health and not more than two or three healthy children, may contrive to meet first the fall of earnings after 45 or 50, and finally old age itself, with a light heart. That such cases are rare will only surprise those who have never had occasion to practise thrift. Only a little less rare than the comfortable aged workmen are those who contrive to provide for themselves a tiny pension for their declining years, through the continuous sick pay of friendly society or trade union, or through the superannuation benefit of the latter. There are only 38 trade unions which provide a superannuation benefit, and these have a membership of about 600,000. They pay between them about £200,000 a year in old age pensions to about 25,000 members. How small this number appears when we compare it with the total number of persons over 65 in the United Kingdom, which is about 2,100,000 at the present time!

The value of the practice and experience of Trade Unions is very great. Summing them up, I showed in "Riches and Poverty," edition 1905, that workmen who earn their living, not by the mere exercise of physical strength, but by skill, are usually used up by the age of 60, and not infrequently by the age of 55. The latter age may be regarded as the limit of full-earning capacity for the average skilled workman. After 55 he is in the greatest danger of dismissal when trade becomes slack. From a considerable number of inquiries, I arrived at the conclusion that the full wage-earning capacity of the average skilled workman begins at 25-30 and ends at 50-55. Before 25-30 a man is inexperienced and not valued so highly as after that age. After 50-55 the age factor again begins to tell, and the workman trembles at thought of the future. Each grey hair is a deadly enemy to his livelihood.

If the skilled workman can hope to earn the full wages of his trade (full wages, it should be remembered, means about 40 to 46 weeks' pay per annum in most trades) for but 20 to 30 years, what of the men who are hewers of wood and drawers of water? The answer is that after 45 good wages are difficult to obtain, and that for the rest of their lives, if not mercifully ended by death, the earnings are poor in the summer, and often at zero in the winter. If we look at the "occupations" (with what irony the term is used in this connexion) of the inmates of workhouses at the census of 1901 we find: