It is true that the widow has not read the reports nor even heard of the Poor Law Commission and its colossal labours, worthy of the gratitude and reverence of all who love their country. But these things filter out though not couched in official language. “I can’t a-bear of them to go, ma’am,” says some work-beaten mother. “There’s Mrs. Jones, she lost her baby when they had to go in, as her husband was took with galloping consumption, and her Billy got bad eyes and Susie seemed to lose all her gaiety like.” “No! I’d rather go hungry than see them that way and not be able to kiss ’em when they cries.” But is it true? It is understandable that individual homes which the Guardians only subsidize may not always be all that they could wish, but when the children are entirely under their care surely what this poor woman alleges cannot be true. Alas! it is far less than the truth. Let us read again and see how the children, not being babies, fare when they are kept in the workhouses. The following are extracts:[7]-- “The children are not kept separate from the adult inmates. The children’s wards left on our minds a marked impression of confusion and defective administration.... The eyes of some of the children seemed suspiciously ‘weak’ and in two or three cases to be suffering from some serious inflammation.” “The chief defect here, as in so many workhouses, is in the accommodation for the children. The girls use the sewing-room as a day-room. The older children go to school one and a half miles distant, taking bread and butter or jam with them, and dining on their return when the other inmates have their tea. The dining-hall is used by all inmates at the same time.... Altogether, there is great need for reform in the treatment of the children.” [7] Majority Report, pp. 186, 187. It is true that children of school age maintained in the workhouses attend the public elementary schools, save for 651 who are still educated within workhouse walls, but the school hours account only for about one-third of the children’s waking existence, and during the other two-thirds, which include the long winter evenings, Saturdays and Sundays, and all school holidays, the workhouse is still their only home.