which divide the chorus from the orchestra, to listen to the second performance of the 'Miserere.' In the centre a priest conducted, and before him stood the singing boys in a circle like a group of angels by Botticelli. The music was by Estaba (1835), a curious mixture of light opera choruses and plaintive solos which suited the ter per of the artists who loved their work. Fully a third of the adult singers had no music before them but sang their parts with a certainty and verve which did them infinite credit, and the same is true of many of the singing children and instrumentalists, who evidently knew every note of the composition by heart. There they stood, a band and chorus of some two hundred souls, with their backs to the High Altar, railed in from the maddening crowd by the splendid iron grilles which surround the chancel; to them it seemed as though silence reigned in the whole Cathedral, and they lifted their united voices toward one single point the brilliantly lighted Monument at the west end which contained the sacred elements of the Sacrament. Far in the distance it gleamed out of the darkness as a tower, outlined by the light of innumerable candles; to its safe-keeping the emblems of the Sacrifice were confided, and toward these alone (across the gloom of midnight) the Song of Penitence was sung.

Good Friday passes solemnly, silently, without ritual; but on Easter Eve the approaching joy in the Resurrection is already recognisable in the ceremonies of the Church. From seven o'clock onwards there are services, including the picturesque office of blessing the holy water for the font in the Baptistry, where hangs Murillo's famous picture of Saint Antony of Padua ; and culminating in High Mass, during which the immense purple pall which, throughout the week, has shrouded the reredos, is drawn aside as a sign that the night of anguish is over and the day of gladness is come. Then the bells within and without the cathedral peal forth in chimes of jubilation, the organ pipes speak out ir tones of wonderful emotion, the great portals of the Cathedral are thrown wide open, and the sunlight of Heaven bursts in upon the faithful with the message that Christ is risen from the dead.

Outside the churches the various Guilds of Seville have, for the last few hundred years, been accustomed to perambulate the streets and squares on the Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of Holy Week. In early days each of these Confraternities made procession through the city, its sacred images accompanied by a retinue of penitents with tapers in their hands. But, in these

latter years, the glory and meaning of it all has departed. The function lacks the variety of, though it shares the popular indifference accorded to, a Lord Mayor's Show. For hour after hour, from afternoon till the early gleams of morning, these dismal lines of graven images (miraculously wrought and royally apparelled), with their accompaniments of bands of music and shrouded attendants, file wearily past the Town Hall, situated in the centre of the city. In front of the building is erected a huge grand stand, partitioned off into stalls and boxes, and presided over by the head of the municipality; opposite are ranged some thousands of chairs for the mass of assembled spectators, and a fair-way is kept for the processions down the centre. At first every seat is taken, and outward tokens of respect are paid to the sacred symbols as they pass; but after a couple of hours or so the interest dwindles, the vast assemblage falls to chattering and smoking, and the undivided attention of everybody is diverted to the success or failure of some children's balloons in their efforts to soar over the surrounding houses. So, here again, the spirit of devotion and discipline which originated these functions must be restored to them if they are to avoid failure and contempt in the coming years. So far as the majority of Sevillans are concerned I believe that they would welcome the disappearance of these empty shows with joy; and I know that nearly every traveller expresses his disgust at the grievously disappointing character of this Great Take-in.'

But, in spite of it all, Seville remains beautiful, and nothing can mar her in her every-day attire. It is not until she is tricked out in vulgarity and pretence that she begins to show her age and feebleness, a pathetic spectacle against which every lover of Andalucia must vehemently protest.

IAN MALCOLM.

497

SOME PRINCIPLES OF THE POOR LAW.

THE report of the Poor Law Commission issued in 1834 begins thus:

It is now our painful duty to report that the fund which the 43d of Elizabeth directed to be employed in setting to work children and persons capable of labour, but using no daily trade, and in the necessary relief of the impotent, is applied to purposes opposed to the letter, and still more to the spirit, of the law, and destructive to the morals of that most numerous class, and to the welfare of all.

Legislation followed the issue of this epoch-making report, and the Bill which was introduced into the House of Lords by Lord Brougham, and supported by the Duke of Wellington, laid down two leading principles:

(1) That the condition of the pauper ought not to be more desirable than that of the independent labourer; or, to quote the words of an Assistant Commissioner, the hanger-on ought not to be raised higher than him on whom he hangs.'

(2) That the accident of locality should not unduly affect the pauper, who should receive uniform treatment in all districts.

Thus were established the two great principles now known as— "The Principle of Less Eligibility';

The Principle of National Uniformity.'

To ensure that due effect should result from the labours and conclusions of the Commission, a Central Board was established to control the local administration, to frame and enforce regulations as to the giving of relief, and to make those regulations uniform'; and it is to the Central Board, known first as the Poor Law Commission, later as the Poor Law Board, and now as the Local Government Board, that the nation owes such organisation as exists, as well as the confusion of aim, the variety of standard, and the uncertainty of administration which have brought Poor Law authorities into disrepute.

Whether we consider the relation of the Local Government Board to the young, to the old, to the sick, to the able-bodied, to the imbecile, or to the vagrant, we find affecting them all the same obscurity of vision, the same confusion of ideal, the same weakness of government, the same dilatoriness of action, the same indifference

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to the march and progress of economic conditions or the development of the national sense of responsibility. A few examples will serve to elucidate this accusation.

There are 69,080 children entirely dependent on the rates. Some Unions are allowed, if not encouraged, to build pauper villages, where, isolated from the normal life of the community, the children live in electricity-lit villa residences, where they cost as much as 17. Os. 6d. each per week; other Unions are allowed, if not encouraged, to pay ls. 6d. a week to a villager to feed, house, clean, and train one of the assets of the nation. Some Unions are allowed, if not encouraged, to keep the children in the workhouses or infirmaries, mixing freely with degraded adults, learning of them by example unlovely habits and low standards; other Unions are allowed, if not encouraged, to erect palatial institutions where, at great cost, the children are reared, divorced from every adult, except the hired attendants and officials. Some Unions are allowed, if not encouraged, to pay ls. or 1s. 6d. a week as out-relief; though, as one of their own inspectors pointed out in 1891, 'if any relief at all is given to an applicant, it is the plain duty of the Guardians to take precautions to insure that the pauper is sufficiently fed, clothed, and lodged '-not a superfluous reminder in view of the report of another of the Central Board officials, who in 1893 wrote:

In many Unions the relieving officer could show Guardians cases where the accommodation is in almost every respect unsatisfactory, where the children have little but rags to cover them by day or night, where school attendance is avoided to the utmost, where the feeding only just escapes starvation, where the physical and moral education of the children are equally impracticable, and where infant life is one long struggle with misery and privation.'

And this condition of things does not affect a few children. On January 1, 1906, the number of outdoor pauper children was 179,890, rather more than half being widows' children and 10,345 being orphans-so adequately does the richest nation of the world carry out the Christian command to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction.'

If this variety of treatment was seen only in the case of children the excuse might be urged that the Central Authority was wishful to try various experiments in training this class of children, who, handicapped as they often are by parentage and environment, specially need carefully thought-out systems of education. But we find the same vacillation of policy affecting other classes of the indigent poor. For the sick the 646 Boards of Guardians fare

permitted, according to their fancies, to provide workhouse sick wards, separate infirmaries of general character, specialised hospitals and sanatoria for particular diseases, subsidies to voluntary institutions, dispensaries, and domiciliary treatment, with or without nurses. The result is confusion in the public mind, and unequal treatment to the equally worthy sick poor. There are some infirmaries where skill and love were hourly united for the benefit of each decrepit old pauper; and there are infirmaries where classification is all but absent, and where to be sick is considered as almost a crime.

The widow is equally unable to feel security about her fate. In one Union she is refused out-relief; in others she is given 18. and a loaf for each child; in another, 5s. for herself, 48. for the first child, 3s. for the second, and 28. for each additional member of her family. By some Boards she is made to part with her children and send them to the Union schools; in others she and all her family are offered only refuge, food and clothing, within 'the House." If any official view has been expressed by the Central Authority on these treatments, the diversity of which almost amounts to cruelty, I have yet to discover it.

The Editor's limitation on the space allotted to me forbids further expansion of this aspect of the subject, otherwise I could show a similar confusion of policy and inconsistency of practice with regard to the able-bodied, the aged, the imbecile, the infirm, the blind, deaf, dumb, lame, and deformed. For them all different Unions have different methods, from the hard parting of Darby and Joan at the 'House' gates, Darby to become one among the rows of corduroy-clad, dreary old men, Joan to join the groups of uniformed old women, whose work-room hands lie idly on their laps, to the almshouses specially designed and built for 'deserving couples,' who have paid rates and passed a certain number of years in the parish.

If the principles of 1834 had been repudiated after being carefully tested, the consequences would not have been so disastrous, but the Local Government Board have never either advised their abandonment or enforced their observance. The principle of Less Eligibility will at one time be enforced by degrading labour, such as stone-breaking, and ignored by the dietary table which provides bacon for breakfast, beer and tobacco at Christmas, and expenses for children's excursions. In the same Union one can find efforts to retain the workhouse test, while rendering it null