The deceased Baronet had been the great man of the district—a leading magistrate, with power to ameliorate the condition of the poor—a power that he had never used. The workhouse was old and unhealthy, yet he had opposed every effort to build a better one; the relieving-officers were drunkards, and generally unable to keep their accounts correctly. The selection of such officers was, in fact, a job in order to make provision for some aged, feeble, drunken bankrupt, a boon companion of the farmers; nor were the medical officers much better. The outdoor paupers were victims of the grossest abuses. The aged were set to eke out their miserable existence by breaking stones on the road, and thus these poor creatures, half-clad, ill-fed, and suffering from rheumatism, had to work on the bleak roadside, exposed to the inclemency of the weather, till they ceased to be a parochial charge at all; and, as a rule, their homes were unfit for human habitation. The vagrants suffered from the grossest ill-usage. One quarter of the workhouse, ill or scarcely provided with bedding accommodation, was appropriated to a class consisting of honest seekers for work, tramps, vagabonds, and thieves of all ages, huddled indiscriminately together, using or listening to the vilest language, initiated in the mysteries of vice and crime, quarrelling and fighting. There were no vagrant wards, and any attempt to introduce them was strenuously resisted, and thus, in spite of the Reformed Poor Law, as it was called, the state of the poor grew more wretched every day. Sir Watkin knew all this. A word from him would have inaugurated a better state of things, but he never spoke that word. He was far too busy in his pursuit of pleasure to think of the poor on his estate, or to plead their cause, and the guardians were content to let things slide. Dr. Chalmers maintained that the one main drawback to the effectual working of the new Poor Law would be the defective attendance at the boards of the landlords, and, as far as Sloville was concerned, the doctor was right. Had the deceased Baronet discharged the duties of his position, and concerned himself about the welfare of the poor, he might have been a blessing to the district. As it was, he was very much the reverse. In his time, as in that of the old Hebrew Psalmist, it might truly be said: ‘The wicked in his pride doth persecute the poor.’