[357] Even so populous a town as Newcastle-on-Tyne refused to remove its children from the workhouse. We see the Poor Law inspector arranging a special visit to inspect them, and to confer with the guardians to urge a district school (MS. Minutes, Newcastle Board of Guardians, 10th August and 21st September 1849). He then presses for a joint conference, which does nothing but adjourn (_ibid._ 17th January and 14th March 1850). Nothing is done. Six years after he finds the education is still in a deplorable state (_ibid._ 29th August and 3rd October 1856), and gets the infants into a separate building. The guardians will not appoint a resident schoolmaster (_ibid._ 12th December 1856; 23rd January, 29th May, 18th August, 4th September 1857). It takes three months and three urgent appeals to get them to appoint an additional infants' mistress (_ibid._ 19th November 1858; 21st January, 11th February, 25th February 1859). [358] The disfavour with which, as we have noted, the Central Authority regarded apprenticeship, seems to have continued. The Special Orders of 31st December 1844, and 29th January 1845 (issued to several hundred unions), severely restricting apprenticeship, and the amending Special Orders of 15th and 22nd August 1845, which slightly mitigated these restrictions, were continued in force. Some of the provisions were relaxed in special cases (_e.g._ Special Order of 11th August 1855, to Leicester Union for a deaf and dumb girl). No General Order seems to have been issued on the subject between 1847 and 1871; nor do we trace any instructions or advice to boards of guardians as to the steps to be taken to place boys and girls out in advantageous callings. A few decisions on legal points tended rather to restrict apprenticeship. The Central Authority held that a child could not be apprenticed to domestic service as it was not a "trade or business"; nor bound to a married woman, nor beyond the age of twenty-one (_Official Circular_, No. 54, N.S., 1856, p. 38; _ibid._ No. 46, N.S., February 1851, p. 17; _ibid._ No. 34, N.S., February 1850, pp. 17-18). In 1851, Parliament passed the Poor Law (Apprentices) Act (14 & 15 Vic. c. 11), for preventing cruelty to apprentices; and the Central Authority, in transmitting this statute to the boards of guardians, carefully abstained from any indication of policy, as to how pauper children should be placed out in life (Circular Letter, 26th June 1851, in Fourth Annual Report, 1851, pp. 19-21). As a minor instance of the merging of branches of the Poor Law into the general treatment of all classes of the community, it may be noted that this Act was repealed in 1861, its provisions being practically embodied in the Offences against the Person Act (24 & 25 Vic. c. 100, sec. 26).