Apprenticeship to the sea service[650] had, previously to 1894, been left outside the scope of the orders regulating other apprenticeships, being subject to special provisions under the Merchant Shipping Acts, and also regulated by the Board of Trade. That Board made some alterations in the form of indenture in 1895, and the Local Government Board issued a circular to guardians calling attention to the changes. The master was required to pay to the superintendent any balance of spending money, share of salvage and other perquisites due to an apprentice after his daily or weekly allowance had been paid, and the superintendent was to apply such sums for the boy's benefit in the expenses of holidays, payment of fines, or other ways. This provision was considered by the Local Government Board to be of great importance, as it would "enable the magistrates in many cases to punish a boy for breaches of discipline, without committing him to prison." The new form of indenture also required the master to allow each apprentice a reasonable holiday in every year. [650] _See ante_, p. 17. The same circular referred to recommendations made by Mr. Davy and Mr. Berrington, in a Report on the Fishing Apprenticeship System, as to the desirability of continued supervision by the guardians after the boys were apprenticed, and of arranging for reports to be made to the guardians in cases of absconding or other grave offence on the part of the boys, and also as to the expediency of giving future apprentices some preliminary instruction in cooking.[651] [651] Circular of 2nd March 1895, in Twenty-fifth Annual Report, 1895-6, p. 118. So far as we can make out from the published documents, the use of the power of apprenticeship is--in the view of the guardians and the Central Authority alike--practically limited to the children maintained in Poor Law institutions (indoor paupers), numbering 50,669 on 1st January 1906, together with those outdoor pauper children who are either "boarded out" (in the technical sense), numbering 8,781, or maintained in certified schools, etc., numbering 9,364, making an aggregate total of 68,814 children to whom the Central Authority's policy of apprenticeship is assumed to be applicable.[652] We do not find any suggestion that any similar policy is applicable to the other 166,258 children on outdoor relief,[653] about the starting in life of whom we can find no documents. [652] Thirty-fifth Annual Report, 1905-6, pp. cxxx, cxxxi. [653] Omitting children receiving medical relief only; and the casuals and insane (_ibid._ p. cxxxi). (vii.) _Adoption_ From 1871 to 1889 the powers and responsibilities of Poor Law authorities with regard to children whose parents claimed the control of them were, as against the parents, extremely limited. The Central Authority clung to the principle of parental authority. In 1887, Mr. Ritchie said: