With circulars so-called we include all explanatory or instructional communications to local authorities or to the officers of central or local authorities, or to Parliament. These, though embodying the policy of the Central Authority, had not the force of law. Moreover, as they were issued for particular emergencies, and were never withdrawn or expressly abrogated, _they_--unlike any unrepealed orders--_must not be considered as necessarily laying down general policy for all time_. Subject to consideration of this limitation, we propose to include the circulars, letters, etc., along with the general and special orders, in our analysis of the policy laid down for each of the several classes of destitute persons. _A._--_The Able-Bodied_ (i.) _On Outdoor Relief_ The ambiguity that existed, alike in the Report and in the Act of 1834, as to the meaning intended to be given to the term "the able-bodied" was, to a large extent, reflected in those documents of the Central Authority which expounded its policy with regard to the kind and conditions of relief to be given to this class. Once more there is no definition of the term able-bodied, which is used sometimes as an adjective and sometimes as a substantive. From the context it must be inferred, as we shall presently show, that the term is used in different senses in the orders relating respectively to outdoor relief and to the management of the workhouse. What proved in the event more inimical to the principle of National Uniformity was the fact that in the orders relating to outdoor relief to the able-bodied, there was no consistency as to whether any class of women was or was not to be included among the able-bodied. There are, as we shall presently describe, two distinct streams of regulations affecting outdoor relief to the able-bodied, one permitting such relief under conditions, culminating in the Outdoor Relief Regulation Order of 14th December, 1852 (still in force), and the other prohibiting it subject to exceptions, culminating in the Outdoor Relief Prohibitory Order of 21st December, 1844 (still in force). In the former series of regulations, beginning with the first orders issued in the autumn of 1834 to particular unions, the term "able-bodied" is _expressly qualified by the adjective "male"_ ("able-bodied male persons").[94] In the other series, beginning in 1836 with the Consolidated Order for the Administration of Relief in Town Unions, the category of the "able-bodied," _if we are to go by the actual wording of the orders_, clearly comprises both sexes; at first by excepting widows only from a universal rule, and presently by specifically including "every able-bodied" person, "_male or female_."[95] That this differing interpretation of the category of the "able-bodied and their families" was actually intended by the Central Authority in 1840, and 1844, and that it was not merely accidental, is shown by cases in which it was