lost or destroyed, or a friendless man may be discharged from the infirmary, and the doctor may certify that his own clothing is insufficient to keep him warm. Or it may be a case in which a girl or young woman is to be sent to service. If it were certain that nothing but the want of a coat or a pair of boots stood between an able-bodied man and his chances of work, we should all get them for him somehow. If the matter rested there, and were confined to such cases, it would hardly be necessary to allude to the subject. In some workhouses, however, the giving away of clothes has attained very considerable proportions, as is evident from the fact that the Local Government Board has issued a special minute upon the subject. A gentleman of great experience said a few days ago, in reply to the question: "Does your Board give away clothes?"—"Of course it does. Often a man who comes before it says, 'If you will give me a pair of boots I will tramp away, and you shall never hear of me again,' and my Board think that the cheapest thing to do is to give him a pair of boots."
When there is a Workhouse Examination Committee the periodical appearance before the Committee begins in time to be recognised as the opportunity for the application of something, usually clothing or passes to look for work. These may have been granted, in the first instance, in perfectly legitimate cases, such as those above specified; but when you have a Committee which is known to grant such things, and it soon becomes known, applications multiply at an astounding rate. We thus have, on the one side, a sympathetic committee—committees are always sympathetic; on the other, an applicant who says that he could get work, or at least would free the ratepayers from the burden of keeping him, if he had, let us say, a
