Ordnance gazetteer of Scotland > Volume 6

104
ADMINISTRA TION.
we have very different areas represented by the same geographical name. An elected body of
police commissioners (not more than 12 or less than 6) attend to the watching, cleaning,
lighting, paving, water-providing, and improving of the burgh, to the extent determined by the
degree in which the acts have been adopted. Contiguous burghs may unite for the purposes of
those acts.
Parliamentary Burghs were up till 1885 all the Royal Burghs with the exception of
Auchtermuchty, Earlsferry, Falkland, Newburgh, Rothesay, and Peebles, and the 15 burghs
constituted for the purpose of parliamentary representation by the Reform Acts of 1832 and
1868. Compare infra, p. 106.
For further information on the administration of Scotland, see the admirable summary,
Local Govemmerit (Edinb. 1880), by Henry Goudy and William C. Smith, which has been
largely put under contribution in these pages.
POOR RELIEF.
The civil parish is in all cases the unit of poor law administration, but two or more
adjoining parishes may be conjoined. The local authority is a parochial board, comprising
so many nominees of the kirk session, and so many persons elected by the ratepayers ; and
the central authority is the Board of Supervision, consisting of the Lords Provosts of Edin-
burgh and Glasgow, the Solicitor General, the Sheriffs of Perth, Renfrew, and Ross, and three
nominees of the crown. The Parochial Board imposes and levies the poor rate, but not
according to one general system. For the year ending 14th May 1884, the total income of the
Parochial Boards of Scotland was .£927,090, of which £774,650 was raised by assessment, while
.£48,577 was from voluntary contributions and church collections, etc., ,£103,863 from the Grant
for Lunatic Poor, and from the Grant for Medical Relief. The ordinary expenditure was
,£869,996, of which .£665,993 on maintenance of poor, .£39,509 on medical relief, ,£120,248
on management, and ,£6365 on law expenses. During the thirty-nine years since the Board of
Supervision was formed (August 1845) a large number of parishes have abandoned the method
of voluntary contributions for assessment. While the assessed parishes in 1845 were only 230
against 650 with voluntary contributions, the assessed in 1884 numbered 827 and the voluntary
59. 'In 623 of the assessed parishes the funds are raised by an equal rate upon owners and
occupants respectively, and in 189 there is a classification of occupants in terms of the 36th
section of the Act 8 and 9 Vict., c. 83. In 15 parishes the assessment is still levied according
to established usage.' The number of parishes that have poorhouses singly or in combination
is 450, and arrangements are in progress by which this number will be increased to 466. The
64 poorhouses in operation provide accommodation for 15,618 inmates, an increase of 2848
since 1864. The following figures show the general growth of expenditure : —
Year.
Expenditure for Relief and
Valuation as Returned by
Rate of Expenditure
Management of the Poor.
Inspector of Poor.
per Head of Population.
£
£
s. d.
1S47
433.91s
10,053,142
3 ii
1850
534,353
10,602,403
3 8|
1S55
584,823
11,517,838
3 i'i
1S60
643,303
13,428,403
4 2£
1S65
731,855
15,598,386
4 7
1870
8iS,3 9 o
17,804,036
4 io|
1875
804,916
19,571,152
4 7
isso
849,064
22,263,612
4 7
1881
853,348
22,287,670
4 6|
1882
844,781
22,689,006
4 5f
1883
834,657
23,006,697
4 4i
1S84
832,115
23,388,500
4 3l
While the expenditure has thus increased, the number of registered and casual poor has been
decreasing. In 1866 the former were returned as 76,229, and the latter as 3242; by 1884
they had gradually sunk to 58,346 and 2319 respectively. If we unite the two classes and
include their dependants, we find the total for 1866 to be 126,042, and for 1884, 94,642. One
department in which the cost has been progressively increasing for many years is the mainten-
ance of lunatic poor: the sum thus expended in 1868-69 was ,£124,813; in 1883-84,
,£217,942. The average annual cost of maintenance for each registered pauper in 1859 was
(including lunatics) ,£6, 10s. 7^d., in 1884, ,£11, 2s. 6|d. In 1874 there were 22,766 pauper
children and 2377 non-pauper children receiving education at the cost of parochial boards to