Welsh Journals

propaganda guile that seduced the U.S.A. into entering the war. He quotes H. L. Mencken (who had German forebears), who claimed that British propaganda had reduced the U.S.A. once more to the status of a British Crown Colony. Though it did not lack importance, Buitenhuis tends to exaggerate propaganda's role on the war's outcome. Nevertheless, he has written a thought-provoking book, bringing to light many forgotten, but in their time significant, writings. Though not sharing his prejudice, I should add that his literary criticism is often perceptive. The book also contains many well chosen photographs and caricatures-Private Arthur Conan Doyle as 'Old Bill', for example-which add an extra dimension to the text. NEVILLE MASTERMAN Swansea ON THE PARISH: AN ILLUSTRATED SOURCE BOOK ON THE CARE OF THE POOR UNDER THE OLD POOR LAW. By Raymond K. J. Grant, Glamorgan Archive Service, 1988. Pp. 94. £ 6.95 paperback. Dr Grant has conscientiously worked through documentation held by the Glamorgan Archive Service, gathering and transcribing contemporary source material relating to the treatment of poverty in Glamorgan up to 1834. Because the sources are essentially descriptive, there is little need to interpret the evidence in terms of, say, bias or accuracy. Nevertheless, in his explanation to the document extracts, Dr. Grant does produce a clear and comprehensive account of the machinery of poor relief, which is valuable in itself and which is relevant not only to Glamorgan but to England and Wales as a whole. Indeed, the body of background information could well serve as a template for students wishing to gather similar source material in other localities. It is also gratifying to note that the term 'bog house' (p. 43), colloquially used in my own schooldays, has a venerable and exact tradition extending back at least to 1740. There were, of course, three kinds of poor: the old, sick, and disabled ('the impotent poor'); the able-bodied poor unable to work; and 'incorrigible rogues', able to work but unwilling to do so. Distinctions between categories tended to blur, however, and the great debate centred on who was to pay for helping 'the poor'. As far as possible, a pauper's family had to furnish assistance, and the Settlement Act of 1733-34 stated that illegitimate children must be provided for by their fathers (assuming the fathers were known and could be found). Parish constables were empowered to bring recalcitrant fathers before the magistrates, who could then make an affiliation order for payment by the father to the parish authorities. Although J.Ps. at Quarter Sessions dealt with some matters concerning the relief of poverty, such as affiliation orders, it had been acknowledged since the early seventeenth century that each parish was obliged to shoulder the main burden of looking after its own poor. With money raised by the poor rate, sometimes