It is not easy to discover what policy was laid down as to the site and character of the new general workhouse thus prescribed. There was no Special or General Order, and apparently no paper of rules or suggestions, giving any direction as to the position to be chosen, the surroundings to be preferred, or even the area to be obtained. Nothing was prescribed as to the character of the building, the cubic space to be provided for each inmate, the sanitary arrangements, or the structural provision for classification by sex, age, character or condition. To some extent this lack of any statement of policy may have been supplied by oral explanations in the process of sanctioning the building plans. This hardly applies, however, to the choice of a site; and we cannot discover from any published document whether the Central Authority thought it preferable that the union workhouse should be located in the crowded streets of a populous city or in a pleasant rural district. The only help that seems to have been afforded was the publication in 1835 of some pictures and diagrams of suggested workhouses.[203] From these we may infer that the Central Authority had adopted as its policy the erection of the same "low, cheap, homely (?) building"--bearing no little resemblance to the prison plans of the period--with which Sir Francis Head was covering East Kent. [203] First Annual Report, 1835, p. 29, and end. It was not until 1842, after illness due to serious over-crowding had occurred at the Sevenoaks Workhouse,[204] that the Central Authority began to incorporate in its policy some elementary sanitary regulations. We have first the requirement that a maximum number to be accommodated in each workhouse should be fixed. Even then it was left to each board of guardians to suggest whatever number it chose, after consultation with its medical officer, subject to approval and to the final fixing of the number by the Central Authority.[205] In 1847 the phrase with regard to approval drops out, and the Central Authority merely fixes the number. [204] Eighth Annual Report, 1842, pp. 13-15, 188-190, 194-198. [205] General Order, 5th February 1842, art. 11, in Eighth Annual Report, 1842, p. 81; amended by General Consolidated Order, 24th July 1847, art. 100; still in force. In 1842 the medical officer of the union is required to report to his board any defects in drainage, ventilation, and warmth.[206] Beyond these somewhat exiguous forms no policy was even suggested to the local authorities with regard to the structural arrangements of the workhouse. [206] Eighth Annual Report, 1842, pp. 14, 188-190. We have now to consider how the Central Authority exercised its power to determine the character of the one general workhouse which it had imposed on each union. Let us take the policy laid down with regard to each phase of the indoor pauper's life. (i.) _Admission_