"That is what I mean when I say that the present Poor Law, as Bumbledom would administer it, has nothing better to prescribe than scientific starvation to old people who refuse the House. If one is foolish enough to grow old without being artful enough to get rich, this world is the wrong place to be in. "When old age comes to working people, both thrifty and unthrifty have in most instances to turn to one of two things--precarious charity or the Poor Law. Charity is a splendid exercise for many people, but no law or custom exists compelling its practice. Now the Poor Law can be enforced; only it has been used to terrorise the poor. The State sets up a system to save old people from starvation, and then allows it to be used to perpetuate starvation. "It won't do. So long as we have this system, I'm going to make not the worst use of it, but the best use of it. And I believe in paying old-age pensions through the Poor Law. The Poor Law ought not to degrade any more than the Rich Law degrades under which Ministers and officers of the State receive their pensions. Why do I say pay pensions through the Poor Law? Because it is here. It is something to begin with at once. It is the thin edge of the wedge of a system of universal old-age pensions, free and adequate." Pending the adoption of some national system, he practises in Poplar the policy he urges in public, that of paying a living pension through the Poor Law. His policy received unexpected endorsement in a letter sent to him by an old woman of eighty-three in a provincial town. She wrote to him in the summer of 1906 at the time others were attacking him for his policy. Your noble efforts on behalf of penniless old people like me I see are being condemned in some of the papers. They can't know the facts. I was managing very comfortably until the Liberator crash took away my income. I started a small school and maintained myself until I was seventy. After that I was no good for work. What I should have done I don't know had it not been for a few friends who, like yourself, believe in out-relief grants of sufficient amount to keep a person living; and they persuaded the Guardians to help me. I thank you for the fight you are making on behalf of hundreds of helpless old people like myself. May the King soon call you Sir Will Crooks. He was examined at some length on his Living Pension policy at the Local Government Board Inquiry into the Poplar Guardians' administration. He admitted that old people over sixty receiving out-relief in Poplar were costing the borough a sixpenny rate.