With regard to all other classes except the able-bodied men and their dependents,[841] the Central Authority has, _de facto_, abandoned the Principle of Less Eligibility. It prescribes merely a policy of "adequacy" of maintenance according to the actual requirements of each case, viewed from the standpoint of modern physiology, irrespective of whether the maintenance is at home or in an institution. This, it is clear, is much above the standard attained by the lowest grade of independent labourer. When this maintenance is given at home (as it is with the explicit permission of the Central Authority in the majority of cases) it is not accompanied by any other drawback than the "stigma of pauperism." In respect of the extensive classes of the sick and the children, the Central Authority may even be said to have avowedly adopted a diametrically opposite policy to that of "less eligibility," namely, the principle of substituting for relief the best possible "treatment," with the intention of making these paupers actually more fit than the lowest grade of independent labourer. And, short of entire removal out of the Poor Law (as has actually been done with the able-bodied who are "unemployed," the children in industrial schools, and the patients of the Public Health Department), everything possible has been done to remove the "stigma of pauperism" from the children in Poor Law institutions and from the recipients of medical relief. [841] In unions under the Prohibitory Order, also able-bodied single women. (iii.) _The Workhouse System_