When the old man could no longer complete even a short day's work, and
suffered from the cold in winter, he decided to go to the workhouse
for a time, but he was out again before the cuckoo was singing, and we
found him light jobs "by the piece," so that he could work for as long
or as short a time as suited him. He was most grateful for any
assistance, and told me that "A little help is worth a deal of
sympathy." Eventually he became a permanent inmate of the workhouse,
much to my grief; but it is, of course, impossible to run a farm on
which heavy poor-rate has to be paid, as a philanthropic institution.
The difficulty with aged and infirm persons is not so much food and
maintenance as the necessity for nursing and supervision, which are
expensive and difficult to arrange. Tricker told me that he could live
on sixpence a day, and if it had been a question of food only, and our
village could have cut itself adrift from the Union and the rates it
entailed, we could easily have more than kept the poor old man to the
end of his days in comfort. For years he was the only parishioner
receiving any help from the immense sum the parish annually paid in
rates. I have heard it said that out of every shilling of the
ratepayer's contributions the poor people only get twopence or its
equivalent, the officials and administration expenses absorbing the
remaining tenpence.
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