Were first erected in England in the year 1723, when they had an instant
and striking effect in reducing the number of poor. Indeed the aversion
of the poor to workhouses was so great, that Sir F.M. Eden mentions that
some proposed, by way of weakening this aversion, "to call workhouses by
some softer and more inoffensive name." Previously to this date, it had
been customary to relieve the able-bodied poor at their own houses.
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