ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a summary of long-run trends in composition of the ‘pauper host’ and in objects of expenditure. Because of the nature of the statistics, it is difficult to make any comparison between old and new poor law. This comparison shows the increasing importance of the group of aged paupers, but it does not show the change in composition of the able-bodied group and the abolition of relief to unemployed able-bodied men after 1834. Returns on ‘causes of relief’ for outdoor able-bodied paupers were received from only 629 unions. There is a discrepancy at source between the official gross total and the sum of the individual categories. All percentages have been calculated using the latter total.
