ABSTRACT
THE foregoing is an outline of the work done at the central office during the first year of the Commissioners' reign. The atmosphere surrounding their work is essentially modern. They are clearly engaged in trying to apply the principles of modern economic science to a very complicated problem. The difficulties which they had to encounter can be best understood by following in some slight detail the work of the Assistant Commissioners, the executive officers of the new subordinate jurisdiction. Leaving, then, at Somerset House, the representatives of the Whig and Radical theorists who were responsible for the passing of the law, we shall seem, when we accompany the Assistant Commissioners into the rural parts, to plunge back into the darkness of the Middle Ages. Such indeed is the fact. The old law did not cease and determine with the passing of the Amendment Act. Even to the present day its influence remains. The Assistant Commissioners began the work of removing the old system of relief, but the medirevalism which they were appointed to eradicate is by no means altogether removed from our midst.
