Another man, with a wife and five children, so idle and disorderly that no one would employ him, was entitled to eight gallon loaves for their maintenance, so that he had 12 s.

a week to support him.

The increase of allowance according to the number of children acted as a direct bounty upon marriage.

The report of the Committee of the House of Commons on labourers' wages, printed in 1824, describes the effect of this allowance system in paralysing the industry of the poor.

'It is obvious,' remarked the committee, 'that a disinclination to work must be the consequence of so vicious a system.