The number of workers who, by reason of old age or other infirmity, are compelled to take refuge in the poorhouses, bears a larger proportion to the total population than it did a generation ago.
In 1876-7 the mean number of indoor paupers for England and Wales was 130,337, or 5.4 per 1000 of the population; in 1902-3 the number had risen to 203,604, or 6.2 per 1000 of the population.

This rise of indoor pauperism has indeed been coincident with a larger decline of outdoor pauperism through this same period.

But the growth of thrift in the working-classes, the increase of the machinery of charity, the rise of the average of wages--these causes have been wholly inoperative to check the growth of indoor pauperism.

Nor, if one may trust so competent an authority as Mr Fowle, is this explained by any tendency of increased strictness in the administration of outdoor relief, to drive would-be recipients of outdoor relief into the workhouse.
The figures of London pauperism yield still more strange results.

Here, though the percentage of paupers to population has shown a steady decline, the process has been so much slower than in the country that there has been no actual fall in the number of paupers.