There was no middle way left for this description of sinner but a long incarceration in gaol or a procession to the hymeneal altar in company with her whom he had outraged. The prospect of the gratuitous "dinner and drink" no doubt decided the point. Lunatics were treated in an equally characteristic manner. 1753.--"Paid for necessaries for Rd. Strayne, 1s. 6d. "Two hopsacks for a bedtick for him, 3s. 4d. "Straw for him, 6d. "A nurse to look to him, 1s. 6d. "Paid a man to help to chain him, with expenses, 3s. "Two staples, a chain, and a lock, 8d." The small-pox and the itch were the two greatest scourges of pauperism in those days, and it seems that even then (though I was not aware of the fact before) the contract system was resorted to in reference to both the sick and able-bodied poor. In 1779, Mr. William Dunn, apothecary, contracted with St. Peter's vestry to supply the poor of the parish in the workhouse with medicines and proper attendance for the sum of £7. 7s. for three years. Six years later, Robert Tasker, governor of the workhouse, contracted to lodge, clothe, keep, and manage the poor for three years, at £185 per annum: and in 1791 Robert Tasker again contracted for £195, and £10 was then further paid to him "for extras during the last three years and for his particular care and attention to lunatics." But in reference to the workhouse question we must retrace our steps as far back as 1746, when the vestry requested the churchwardens "to take to their assistance others of the parishioners, and draw a scheme for establishing a workhouse in the parish." Ten pounds a year was fixed as the salary of the governor, Zachary Humphries, and "a proper person was to be employed to instruct young persons and others in the workhouse in pareing of leather, sewing of gloves, spinning, or other employments." One shilling a week was allowed to the governor for every person admitted to the house. At the same time it was ordered that "the house now rented by the parish of Mr. Brooker, the minister, be converted into a workhouse, and fitted up in a fortnight." In 1771 it was apparently found that the accommodation was insufficient, as an order was made "That a workhouse be set on foot and established as speedily as may be." Exactly twenty years later it was resolved to concur in the plan of a general workhouse, and delegates were appointed to attend the general committee. Great opposition, however, was raised, in consequence of an outcry against the suppression of the parochial system--as usual, no doubt, by interested individuals having a tender regard for the abuses of the old plan, for this has ever been the experience attending great measures for the public good. In the following year therefore (1792), at a vestry meeting convened to consider the bill for establishing a House of Industry, it was resolved, by a majority of forty-five to reject the bill "as unnecessary for this parish;" and a Mr. James