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going on as nearly as possiblo in their present course. Specific
and differontiated experience is what me need, before making
any fnrthor important change in the drink trade.
Not only is this the rational method of procedure, but it is
practically the method to which we owe all the more successful
legislative and administrative reforms of later years. Considor
the Poor Law question. During the eighteenth century,
Parliament madc two or throe leaps in the dark, by enacting
laws such as Gilbert’s Act, nnd vcry nearly ruined tho
kingdom by thcm. Tho great Poor Lam Commission commoncod
its operations in the soundest way by collecting all
available irlformrrtion rhbout tho treatment of the poor, whether
at Lomc or abrod. But, what is more to the point, since
tho now Poor Law mas passed in 183-$, thc partially free
action of noards of Guardians, under the supervision of
the I’oor Lam Conmlissiou and the Poor Law Board, has
afforded n long series of experimental results. The reports of
Mr. Edwin Chadwick and the lute Sir George Sham Lefevre
aro probably tho bcst models of tho true process of administrativc
reform to be anywhere found. In morc recent years
scveral very important experiments have been tried by different
Boards of Gunrdinns, such as tho boarding out of pauper
children, the supprcssion of vagrancy by thc provision of
sepnrrttc vagrant cclls and the hard-labour test, and the
cutting down of outdoor rcxlicf. If the total abolition of
outdoor relief is ever to be tricd, it must Le tried on the small
scale first ; it mould be R far too scvcrc and dangerous measure
to force upon the whole country at a singlc blow. Much
attention has lately been drawn to the so-called (l Poor Law
Experimcnt at Elberfeld,” which was carefully described by
the ROV. W. Walter Edwards, in an article in The Contemporary
Review for July, 18i8, vol. xxxii. pp. 675-693, bearing
that precise t.itle.
Even when an Act of Parliament is passed in general terma
applying to the whole kingdom at once, it by no means follows
that it will be eqndy put into operation everywhere. The
discretion necessarily domed to magistrates and other anthorities
often givee ample scope for instructive experiments,