Now what change has taken place? These parishes have been formed into Unions. The churchwardens and overseers of each parish form part of a Board of management. This Board of management is completed by the addition of a class hitherto unknown in parish matters, viz. the guardians who are elected from the parishioners, on grounds in which wealth, station, and public importance are elements. All repairs and alterations, and the supply of provisions, are subject to contract, and open to competition. The parish plumber can no longer make his fortune by the repair of the parish pump. All disbursements are recorded, and subjected to rigid inspection, and all receipts are duly accounted for. But the poor, how do they fare? It is necessary to state, with reference to this point, that the peculiar politico-economic theories which have had such frequent expression in the letters, reports, and orders of the Poor-Law Commissioners, have also had their influence upon all persons connected with the administration of relief. The idea was, that a severe "house test" would nearly destroy pauperism. This dream, however, is passing away, and a more humane set of opinions are being engendered. The circumstances of a city Union are widely different from those of the rural Union; and, therefore, many suggestions and strictures which have been made against the mode of administering relief in the latter are inapplicable to the former. In the rural Union, the chief difficulty is, that a long distance must be travelled before the application to the relieving-officer can be made, and relief obtained. And it becomes a matter of importance to know to what extent the local officers are able to perform their duty. In the Union of small parishes, these difficulties cannot exist, for the whole diameter may be traversed in half-an-hour. Then a relief office is built. It is situated in a poor neighbourhood. It is open a certain number of hours in each day; an officer is in attendance; and the bread and meat, and other kind of food, are in the building. These facts are known to the poor, to the magistrates, and to the police. The individual power of the overseer in these little parishes falls daily into disuetude. The poor man can obtain relief most readily at the office. He need not wait for the leisure moment of an overseer--deeply engaged in his private affairs. The poor know this, and do not apply to him. Occasionally an application is made to an overseer, and if he wish the case to be relieved, his most convenient practical course, is to submit the case to the relieving-officer, by a note, and then to put a question to the chairman at the next board-day. It will be found that the evil to be apprehended is, that relief in certain cases may be too easily obtained, and a class of paupers improperly encouraged. This, however, does not necessarily proceed from the Union, but from certain other wise notions respecting mendicancy and vagrancy.