[47] "By sudden and urgent necessity, the Commissioners understand any
case of destitution requiring instant relief, before the person can be
received into the workhouse; as, for example, when a person is deprived
of the usual means of support, by means of fire, or storm, or
inundation, or robbery, or riot, or any other similar cause, which he
could not control, where it had occurred, and which it would have been
impossible or very difficult for him to foresee and prevent."--_Eighth
Report of the Poor-Law Commissioners._ App. A.; No. 2.