A second inroad into the classificatory scheme was made by the provision that children under seven might be placed in any female ward, whether that of the sick women, that of the aged and infirm women, or even that of the able-bodied women.[224] [224] Consolidated Order for the Administration of Relief in Town Unions, 7th March 1836, sec. v. art. 15, in Second Annual Report, 1836, p. 90; repeated in General Order of 5th February 1842, art. 10, proviso 5, in Eighth Annual Report, 1842, p. 81; and in General Consolidated Order of 24th July 1847, art. 99, proviso 7. Yet another, and possibly a more important inroad into the scheme was made by a rule of 1842, which permitted the guardians in particular cases to classify boys and girls over ten in any way they thought fit.[225] [225] General Order of 5th February 1842, art. 10, and Instructional Letter of the same date, in Eighth Annual Report, 1842, pp. 81, 109; repeated in 1847, in more guarded form, maintaining at any rate segregation by sex (General Consolidated Order of 24th July 1847, art. 99). (iii.) _Service_ But it was in its rules as to the services to be rendered by the workhouse inmates that the Central Authority most effectually undermined its own classificatory scheme, and practically destroyed any real segregation. That scheme, as we have shown, expressly forbade the paupers in any class to leave the particular "ward or separate building and yard" assigned to such class, or to hold any communication with any other class.[226] Nevertheless the Central Authority had, from the first, a policy of workhouse organisation inconsistent with any such segregation. Practically all the workhouse service was to be performed by the paupers themselves, and every pauper who was capable of work was to be incessantly occupied in that service. The able-bodied women who formed Class V. might be supervised by the aged and infirm women of Class IV. The children under seven who formed Class VII. might be supervised either by the able-bodied women of Class V., or by the aged and infirm women of Class IV., or by the girls of Class VI. The boys over seven who formed Class III. might be supervised by the aged and infirm men of Class I. The girls over seven who formed Class VI. might be supervised by the aged and infirm women of Class IV. These girls, so far from being confined to the premises assigned to their class, were to be employed in the able-bodied women's wards, in the aged and infirm women's wards, in the wards for the children under seven, and in household work generally, provided only that they were somehow kept from communicating with able-bodied men or boys. The sick, whether male or female, whether of good character or of bad, had necessarily to be waited on, and no paid nurses were required to be appointed. Consequently the provision allowing all the sick wards to be attended by the able-bodied women, by the girls between seven and sixteen, by the