The scandals that had arisen led to the reform of the Poor Law in 1834, which placed the administration in the hands of Commissioners who were to see that the law was carried out, and by a natural swing of the pendulum they turned from an indiscriminate doling out of rates to favoured paupers to a system whereby the labourer was to find that the parish was his hardest taskmaster so as to induce him to keep away from the overseers and make parish relief his last and not his first resource. The ideal that the Commissioners stood out for was that no relief whatever was to be given to able-bodied persons or to their families otherwise than in well-regulated workhouses. This was the beginning of the workhouse system which really made the workhouse a kind of prison for those who could not find work outside. A great deal has been done since then, and especially in recent years, to mitigate the lot of the poor. Old Age Pensions, Labour Exchanges, Medical Insurance, Unemployment Insurance and the enlightened administration of some of the better Boards of Guardians have made great inroads on the negative inhumanity of the workhouse system. But unless it be in some of the more vigorous northern centres Poor Law work and Poor Law elections rouse but little enthusiasm. There are no doubt many men and women who enter into the service of the Poor Law from noble motives and do useful work, but the good they can do is very limited. The Central Authority seems to have no very settled ideals, different boards run different policies, some hanker after the flesh pots of labour cheapened by indiscriminate relief, others clamour for lower rates obtained by the inhumanity of not allowing anything but indoor relief. The guardians whose voices are raised only in the interests of the poor are scarcely heard by those who are clamouring for a lowering of the rates. One thing all reformers seem to be agreed upon, and that is that the General Mixed Workhouse with good, bad, and indifferent men, women, and children herded together within its four walls is an abomination of desolation. Maybe it did its work in the past as part of the evolution of the Poor Law, dragging it out of a slough of corrupt and unwholesome administration, but a time has surely come when we can apply more scientific remedies to prevent the recurrence of such scandals, and there is no longer a necessity to sacrifice the lives and happiness of decent men, women, and children by the continuance of our workhouse system.