ding of the
rates, as we read it was not an uncommon thing for one of them if he met
a poor person badly off for clothes to give an order on the Workhouse
for a fresh "rig out." In 1873 the Board was reduced to sixty in number
(the first election taking place on the 4th of April), with the usual
local result that a proper political balance was struck of 40 Liberals
to 20 Conservatives. The Workhouse, Parish Offices, Children's Homes,
&c., will be noted elsewhere. Poor law management in the borough is
greatly complicated from the fact of its comprising two different
parishes, and part of a third. The Parish of Birmingham works under a
special local Act, while Edgbaston forms part of King's Norton Union,
and the Aston portion of the town belongs to the Aston Union,
necessitating three different rates and three sets of collectors, &c. If
a poor man in Moseley Road needs assistance he must see the relieving
officer at the Parish Offices in the centre of the town if he lives on
one side of Highgite Lane he must find the relieving officer at King's
Heith; but if he happens to be on the other side he will have to go to
Gravelly Hill or Erdington. Not long ago to obtain a visit from the
medical officer for his sick wife, a man had to go backwards and
forwards more than twenty miles. The earliest record we have found of
the cost of relieving the poor of the parish is of the date of 1673 in
which year the sum of L309 was thus expended. In 1773 the amount was
L6,378, but the pressure on the rates varied considerably about then, as
in 1786 it required L11,132, while in 1796 the figures rose to L24,050.
According to Hutton, out of about 8,000 houses only 3,000 were assessed
to the poor rates in 1780, the inhabitants of the remaining number being
too poor to pay them. Another note shows up the peculiar incidence of
taxation of the time, as it is said that in 1790 there were nearly 2000
houses under L5 rental and 8,000 others under L10, none of them being
assessed, such small tenancies being first rated in 1792. The rates then
appear to have been levied at the uniform figure of 6d. in the L on all
houses above L6 yearly value, the ratepayers being called upon as the
money was required--in and about 1798, the collector making his
appearance sixteen or eighteen times in the course of the year. The
Guardians were not so chary in the matter of out-relief as they are at
present, for in 1795 there were at one period 2,427 families
(represent