The Reform Bill, after all, when passed made no present difference in Otterbourne life--nothing like the difference that a measure a few years after effected, namely, the Poor-law Amendment Bill. Not many people here remember the days of the old Poor-law, when whatever a pauper family wanted was supplied from the rates, and thus an idle man often lived more at his ease on other people's money than an industrious man on his own earnings. It was held that if wages were small they might be helped out of the rates, and thus the ratepayers were often ruined. In the midst of the street stood the old Poorhouse. It had no governor nor anyone to see that order was kept or work done there, and everybody that was homeless, or lazy, or disreputable, drifted in there. They went in and out as they pleased, and had a weekly allowance of money. Now and then there was a great row among them. One room was inhabited by an old man named Strong, who was considered a wonder because he ate adders cut up like eels and stewed with a bit of bacon. Every now and then a message would come in that old Strong had got a couple of nice adders and wanted a bit of bacon to cook with them. Then there was a large family whose father never worked for any one long together, and lived in the Workhouse, with a wife and six or seven children, supported by the parish. These people were pursuaded to go to Manchester, where there was sure to be work in the factories for all their many girls. The men in receipt of parish pay were supposed to have work found for them on the roads, but there was not much of this to employ them, and as they were paid all the same whether they worked or not, some were said to hammer the stones as if they were afraid of hurting them, or to make the wheeling a couple of barrows of chalk their whole day's work. A good deal depended on the vestry management of each parish, and there was less of flagrant idleness supported by the rates here than at many places. There was also a well-built and arranged Workhouse at Hursley, and the Poor law Commissioners consented to make one small Union of Hursley, Otterbourne, Farley, and Baddesley, instead of throwing them into a large one. The discontinuance of out-door relief to help out the wages was a great shock at first, but, when the ratepayers were no longer weighed down, they could give more work and better wages, and the labourers thus profited in the end, and likewise began to learn more independence. Still the times were hard then. Few families could get on unless the mother as well as the father did field work, and thus she had no time to attend thoroughly to making home comfortable, mending the clothes, or taking care of the little ones. The eldest girl was kept at home dragging about with the baby, and often grew rough as well as ignorant, and the cottage was often very little cared for. The notion of what was comfortable and suitable was very different then.