MR. COLEasked the President of the Local Government Board, Whether he is aware that in the Poplar and other Metropolitan Unions a rule has been adopted and acted upon that every female adult pauper, not suffering under temporary or permanent infirmity of body, who shall be relieved in the workhouse, in return for such relief shall, as a task, pick four pounds of unbeaten oakum per day; and, if so, whether he approves of such rule, or whether some other and less severe work could not be substituted?
§ MR. SCLATER-BOOTH, in reply, said, the rule in question was sanctioned by the Local Government Board, and 949 the Guardians had exercised their own discretion in putting it in force. He saw no reason for disputing the exercise of that discretion in the present instance. In the neighbourhood of Poplar, oakum picking was pursued by women and children as a regular industry.