Parliament had not abolished the system of apprenticeship it would "doubtless continue to be practised in those districts where it has hitherto prevailed"; that "there are not wanting authorities of weight against the system"; and that local authorities were not to infer that the Central Authority entertained "any desire to promote its introduction."[160] [158] _Official Circular_, No. 5, 16th June 1840, p. 56. [159] General Order, 31st December 1844, and 29th January 1845, in Eleventh Annual Report, 1845, pp. 72-96; 15th and 22nd August 1845, in Twelfth Annual Report, 1846, pp. 60-71; and Arts. 52-74 of General Consolidated Order of 24th July 1847. [160] Circular, 1st January 1845, in Eleventh Annual Report, 1845, pp. 96-7. Apart from this severe discouragement of apprenticeship we can discover no indication of the policy of the Central Authority as to starting the children in life. No advice was given to the local authorities on the subject. _E._--_The Sick_ We have seen that neither the Report nor the Act of 1834 laid down any policy for the sick--suggesting, in fact, no change in the existing practice under which they were both maintained and medically attended in their homes. During the whole of the period, 1834-47, there is nothing in the Orders laying down any other policy so far as the maintenance of the sick is concerned. Both the two streams of regulations, the Outdoor Labour Test Orders (culminating in the Outdoor Relief Regulation Order of 1852) and the Outdoor Relief Prohibitory Order of 1844, expressly excepted, from all their prohibitions or restrictions on the grant of outdoor relief, cases of "sickness, accident, or bodily or mental infirmity." In all these cases the policy of the Central Authority was to leave the local authorities the same absolutely unfettered discretion with regard to the grant of outdoor relief that they had before possessed. In the Instructional Letter of 1836 as to medical attendance the practice of granting outdoor relief to the sick in "food or clothing" is mentioned, without criticism.[161] So much was this the accepted policy that, when the Central Authority referred to the sick, in the comprehensive defence of its action in 1839, it only mentioned the steps that it had in view with regard to the better organisation of medical attendance, which did not seem to call "for any immediate general change"--without even alluding to the almost universal practice under which the sick received also outdoor relief in money.[162] In a Minute of 1840 it is pointed out that members of friendly societies in receipt of a money allowance whilst sick were only to be granted such amount of outdoor relief as, together with their allowances, would make up the sums which the local authority would have granted if they had had nothing. It is not even hinted that the grant of outdoor relief at all was against the policy of the Central Authority, although it is