The Central Authority "framed a scheme for division of the whole of the Metropolitan district" into areas corresponding "to the great lines of roads along which mendicants and vagrants" entered London,[130] which were to have separate establishments for vagrants, and so entirely relieve the Metropolitan workhouses of their care.[131] What Orders were issued to this effect is not clear. Meanwhile the House of Commons appointed a Select Committee to consider the whole conduct of the Central Authority; and no further action was taken. Orders were issued to the boards of management of the newly created vagrant districts, telling them that they need not meet.[132] How far these vagrancy districts ever came into existence we have not yet discovered. One of them, the North Eastern Metropolitan District, had got so far as to enter into a contract for the purchase of a site and to borrow £3500 to pay for it. "Owing to various causes, the chief of which was a want of co-operation on the part of several of the boards of guardians, that scheme, after an inquiry by a Committee of the House of Commons, was abandoned."[133] Beyond this somewhat obscure episode, all that happened was that when the General Consolidated Order of 1847 systematically codified the regulations affecting workhouses, it included, scattered among its various sections, a few provisions relating to the treatment of the "casual poor wayfarers," such as the requirement of a separate ward, and the express regulation of their diet and employment.[134] [130] p. 19 of Eleventh Annual Report, 1845. [131] p. 19 of Twelfth Annual Report, 1846; _Official Circular_, No. 5, N.S., p. 69, 1st May 1847. [132] p. 11 of Thirteenth Annual Report, 1847. [133] Minute of Poor Law Board on the Houseless Poor in the Metropolis, 23rd December 1863, in Sixteenth Annual Report, 1863, p. 31. [134] General Consolidated Order of 24th July 1847, _see_ arts. 97, 99 and 104. _C._--_Women_ We have shown, in the preceding analysis of the Report and Act of 1834, that neither the "principles of 1834" nor the enactment of Parliament had prescribed the policy to be pursued with regard to women; except that it was implied or assumed that wives were to follow their husbands exactly as if they were infants. With regard to the widow, the deserted wife, the wife of the absentee soldier or sailor, the wife of a husband resident in another parish or another country--above all, with regard to the independent able-bodied woman--the Central Authority had either to let the existing practice of outdoor relief continue, or to discover a policy for itself.