_A._--THE DEPARTURES FROM THE PRINCIPLES OF 1834 The principles of the 1834 Report, to which different people will assign different degrees of scope or importance, are, as we have shown, three in number. We will deal successively with the Principle of National Uniformity, the Principle of Less Eligibility, and the "Workhouse System." (i.) _The Principle of National Uniformity_ The Principle of National Uniformity--that is, of identity of treatment of each class of destitute persons from one end of the kingdom to the other--for the purpose of reducing the "perpetual shifting" from parish to parish, of preventing discontent, and of bringing the parochial management effectually under central control, is, in 1907, with one notable exception, in practice abandoned. Uniform national treatment is to-day obligatory with regard to one class only of destitute persons, the wayfarers or vagrants. Whatever may be the diversity of practice amongst boards of guardians, the policy of the Central Authority for the vagrant is, uniformly throughout the kingdom and without exception, indoor relief, in a specially appropriated ward, with prescribed "deterrent" treatment as regards diet, task and detention. For the able-bodied male person, seeking relief in his own parish--the very class for whom the 1834 Report most passionately postulated national uniformity of treatment--there is, in 1907, no uniform policy. The universal "offer of the House" was apparently found to be impracticable even in the first decade; and by 1852 the Central Authority had settled down to the division of England and Wales into two geographical regions, in one of which outdoor relief to the able-bodied male applicant is (with minor exceptions) prohibited, whilst in the other region boards of guardians are not only permitted, but even advised, to meet the recurring times of distress, and of pressure on the workhouse accommodation, by the grant of outdoor relief against a task of work. With regard to that section of the class of able-bodied who may be intended by the indefinite term "unemployed," there is to-day, under the Unemployed Workmen Act 1905, a third alternative policy, in itself capable of endless variety from place to place, with which we shall have to deal under the head of principles new since 1834. Less intelligible is the existing diversity of policy of the Central Authority in 1907 with regard to able-bodied women. In all the unions in one of the geographical regions into which the country is divided, an able-bodied woman, whether spinster, wife or widow, can be granted maintenance in her own home. In all the unions of the other region, such women, unless included in certain exceptions, can be relieved only in the workhouse.