informed me that she intended to resign her situation, and apply for
another as a nurse at a general hospital; at the same time asking me
whether I would give her a reference. Whilst expressing my regret that
she was going, I readily promised to do all I could for her, and with
that object gave her a letter of introduction to Dr. Anstie, assistant
physician to the Westminster Hospital, and to Mr. Hart, who was then
connected with St. Mary's Hospital. Dr. Anstie took her name and
address, and promised to do what he could for her; Mr. Hart asked her to
sit down, and proceeded to question her on the various matters
connected with the Strand Workhouse I had mentioned at the committee
meetings, &c. Ultimately he dismissed her, but not until he had a
promise from her that she would write down all her experience of the
wrong-doing she had witnessed at the Strand. She did this. On getting
her manuscript statement he sent it to Earl Carnarvon, one of the
committee, and asked him to apply to Mr. Villiers for an official
inquiry. I had not the remotest knowledge that anything of the kind had
been done, nor had my other colleague, Dr. Anstie. In the early part of
June Mr. Hart told me that there was to be an official inquiry into the
management and the condition of the Strand Workhouse, and that I should
be called as a witness, but he did not tell me how it had been brought
about. A few days after I received an official intimation that such
inquiry would be held, and that my attendance would be required. I had
hoped that the inquiry would be conducted by the Metropolitan Inspector,
Mr. Farnall; but it was not so. Mr. Fleming sent another member of the
staff. The inquiry was held, the first witness called being Miss Beaton.
She astonished me by the extent and character of her revelations, of
some part of which I was an eye-witness, and therefore knew to be true.
Her examination lasted all day. Next morning, the evidence she had
given appeared in all the papers, which commented thereon. On the second
day I was called. On taking my seat Mr. Caine said, "Oh! we have met
before;" I did not know where. I had not long been under examination
before Dr. Anstie, who was in the room, came behind my chair, and said,
"Take care how you answer questions; this inspector does not mean fairly
by you; he is trying to put you in a false position." Forewarned by
this, I simply answered his questions, and parried those which were
irrelevant and misleading. The next day my evidence, in full appeared in
every paper, and all the leading journals denounced the Board of
Guardians for their management of the House. It was unfortunate that my
Board should have been selected, inasmuch as nearly all the workhouses
in the metropolis were in very much the same condition. After the close
of the inquiry Mr. R. B. Caine returned to Whitehall, and made the
remarkable statement in his official report that the condition of the
House was due to my not having made proper representations to the
Guardians. I subsequently heard that on his report being submitted to
the President of the Board, it was altogether set aside by him, and that
he wrote the report himself. It had, however, come to my knowledge that
Mr. Caine had delivered himself of this view; when I wrote to the Poor
Law Board complaining of his injustice, and pointed out that for some
three years he had, as Metropolitan Inspector during the time Mr.
Farnall was away in Manchester, visited the Strand, and that he had
always entered in the visitors' book that he was completely satisfied
with the state of the House. I am happy to say that Mr. R. B. Caine got
very little credit out of the whole transaction, for his report was
severely criticized by the press for its transparent bias. Just at this
time a circular letter was sent by the Poor Law Board to all the
workhouse medical officers--some forty in number--in the metropolis. It
was issued evidently with the view of entrapping these gentlemen into
contradictory answers to the questions which were submitted to them. It
was clearly necessary to take immediate action. I therefore sent a
letter to each of them, asking them to meet me at the Freemasons'
Tavern, Great Queen's Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields. The majority of them
came. Having been voted into the chair, I pointed out to them what was
the object of the letter, and earnestly urged that we should agree as to
the form of reply. This view was adopted, and the answers as agreed upon
were sent by all present to the Poor Law Board. On the same occasion it
was arranged that an Association should be established of metropolitan
workhouse medical officers, so that we might be prepared to deal
promptly with any similar departmental trickery. This was done, and I
was elected as the first president, an office which through various
changes I have occupied to this day. The Association was, during the two
following years, enabled to play an important part in the settlement of
many vexed questions in the administration of workhouse medical relief,
which, without the practical knowledge of medical men, would have been
wholly left in the hands of the officials at the Poor Law Board, who at
this time exhibited a singular unwillingness to face the facts. My
official life after this was a particularly unpleasant one, inasmuch as
I was credited with having asked for the inquiry, and having resolved to
state that which would bring "my masters" into contempt. I should have
survived all this misrepresentation, but unfortunately just at this
juncture the Liberal Government was overthrown, and the Derby-Disraeli
premiership was established. Earl Derby speedily pointed out that he
intended to deal effectually with the scandal that had been brought to
light in connection with workhouse infirmary administration, and with
that view he had selected Mr. Gathorne Hardy--now Lord Cranborne--as
the President of the Poor Law Board, he being in Lord Derby's judgment
one of the fittest men in Her Majesty's dominions to put things
straight. Mr. Hardy up to that date had been principally known as a
Chairman at Quarter Sessions, and an _ex-officio_ Guardian of a Kentish
Board of Guardians. One of the first official acts of this gentleman was
to punish Mr. Henry Farnall for his conduct in aiding the Workhouse
Infirmary Association. He was banished from London and sent to the
northern counties. As Mr. Farnall's residence was at Blackheath, where
his wife and children were living, this act of Mr. Hardy's was a serious
inconvenience to him. The next thing done was to appoint Dr. Markham as
a Poor Law Inspector and so-called medical adviser. Dr. Markham up to
this date had been the editor of what was at that time an obscure
journal. He was not known to have ever been associated with any sanitary
work, nor to have seen the inside of a workhouse in his life, and yet
out of all the able physicians at the time in the metropolis he was
selected. The popular explanation given for this appointment was that he
spent the larger portion of the day in looking out of the windows of the
Carlton, Pall Mall, and that Mr. Hardy, making his acquaintance, gave
him something to do. He fully justified the selection thus made, as
will be shown hereafter, as he became in every sense one of the most
difficult officials of the Board.
At this time the permanent officials, notably Dr. Edward Smith,
promulgated the heresy that the area and cubic space suggested by our
Association for the housing of the sick was excessive; indeed, that the
area did not so much matter if the roof of the sick ward was carried up
high enough. These and other statements having been promulgated by the
staff, a meeting of the Workhouse Medical Officers Association was
called, to take the subject into consideration. We had the aid of the
late Dr. Parkes, the eminent Professor of Hygiene, at Netley Hospital,
as well as of my two colleagues in the secretaryship of our Association.
Conjointly, we drew up a paper stating what was in our view the minimum
area and the minimum cubic space that should be sanctioned. This action
forced the hand of Mr. Hardy, and caused him to issue a cubic space
commission to determine this question.
Shortly after the formation of the Conservative Government a numerous
and influential deputation, consisting of Earl Shaftesbury, the
Archbishop of York, Earl Grosvenor, and many others, waited on Mr.
Hardy, when representations were made to him urging extensive
alterations on the then system. I was so hurt at the intrigues going on
at the Poor Law Board and the attempt of Mr. R. B. Caine to make me
solely responsible for the condition of the Strand Workhouse, that I
availed myself of the opportunity to tell the President that in any
scheme he might lay down for an alteration, I hoped that he would be
guided by his own judgment, and not by that of the permanent officials,
who would most assuredly lead him astray. This plain speaking was not
particularly relished by those against whom it was mainly directed; it
doubtless intensified ill feeling against me. I also handed to him a
series of Resolutions drawn up by the Council of our Poor Law Medical
Officers' Association protesting against the misstatements that had been
propagated by Dr. E. Smith, Poor Law Inspector, against the Metropolitan
Workhouse medical officers.
Immediately subsequent to this our Workhouse Association engaged itself
in drawing up a scheme for a general dietary for all London workhouses,
which differed in every establishment; in some being, as at the Strand,
when I first went there, niggardly in the extreme, while in others it
was absurdly liberal. This question had engaged my attention many years
before, and when I introduced an amended dietary at the Strand I was
often twitted by the economical element of the Board to the effect that
my liberality in the way of dietary was the reason why the House had
filled so much, paupers being attracted to the Union by the prospect of
being better fed by the liberality I had evinced. This allegation was
absurdly unjust. Years before, in 1863, I had, at the time I amended the
dietary at the Strand, addressed a letter to the Department urging that
they should issue a general order to the London Boards of Guardians
enclosing a copy of a uniform dietary to be used in all Metropolitan
workhouses (acute cases of sickness alone excepted). Although this
suggestion had the approval of Mr. Farnall, who invited me down to the
Board to talk the matter over with him, it was set aside. Mr. Fleming,
the secretary, objected to everything of a controversial character.
About this time, understanding that Mr. Hardy was engaged in drafting
his Metropolitan Poor Bill, I wrote to him on several occasions; one of
the subjects I urged on him was the advisability of turning the vast
field for clinical observations which our Workhouse infirmaries afforded
to some practical purpose by throwing the wards open to medical
students, pointing out what had been done at the Marylebone Workhouse
Infirmary some thirty years before; I also urged that the hospitals he
was about to establish should be officered by a resident medical man or
resident medical men, but that in no instance should they be left alone
in their control, but that their work should be superintended by an
extern physician. I understood that my view was overruled through the
opposition of certain physicians who thought that the educational
opportunities thereby proposed would interfere with the voluntary
hospitals they were connected with and the students attached to them.
I also pointed out how desirable it was that pauper schools should be
consolidated, and that permanent young pauper children should be
separated from those who were constantly going in and out of workhouses.
Mr. Hardy always replied personally and with marked courtesy to the
letters I sent him. In the session of 1867 Mr. Hardy brought in his
Metropolitan Poor Bill. In his speech introducing it he referred to my
evidence before the Select Committee, and said that he had resolved to
adopt the views I had advocated, namely, the provision of all medicines
and appliances at the cost of the rates; but although the Bill passed
with great facility and amidst general approval it was a very long time,
in some cases four, five, and six years, before the dispensary clauses
were carried out. The Bill had hardly become law before Mr. Hardy was
transferred to the War Office and Earl Devon became President. This
nobleman when Lord Courtenay, Poor Law Inspector, or Lord Courtenay,
Parliamentary Secretary, had entirely supported the worst parts of the
old system of administration and control. He always yielded to Boards of
Guardians, and, when President, entirely deferred to the permanent
staff. During the short time that he held office--for the election of
1868 shortly afterwards occurred and with it a strong reaction--he
instituted a new order of officials at Gwydyr House--to wit, _Assistant
Inspectors_.
Of course it was not to be expected that the evidence given by me at the
official inquiry would fail to intensify the bitter hostility of a
section of the Board towards me, especially as the clerk to the
Guardians never lost an opportunity of putting my conduct before them in
the worst light. Consequently, shortly after my evidence had been given
an attempt was made to displace me. The Guardian who moved my
resignation was a lodging-house keeper in St. Clement's Danes. Having
been told that this Guardian contemplated this procedure, I forwarded a
letter to the Board in which I gave an outline of all I had done and had
attempted to do during the ten years I had been the medical officer,
the amount of antagonism I had provoked, and the various resolutions
which had been adopted as the result of my endeavours. It was not very
pleasant reading for some of them to hear, as there were several still
there who had taken an active part in thwarting me at all times, and
this letter thoroughly answered them. In spite of all that was alleged,
when the resolution was submitted to the vote it was found that I had
just as many friends as enemies, and therefore the motion was not
carried. I do not know whether at that time the intrigue between the
clerk and certain permanent officials of the Poor Law Board had
commenced, but it took place not a very long time afterwards, as I found
out some twenty months after.
One result of the evidence I had given as regards the over-crowding was
this: I was empowered to send some of the acutely sick to the voluntary
hospitals, and I did so to a limited degree, but my action here was
again met by the hostility of a section of this Board. It was suggested
that I had sent them away to get rid of the trouble of attending to
them, and it was gravely proposed that I should have the cost of the
cabs in which they were removed deducted from my salary.
As an illustration of the mode adopted by some Boards to annoy their
medical officers I subjoin the following: In June, 1867, a person was
sent into the Strand Workhouse by the district medical officer, insane.
In conjunction with a Justice of the Peace, I examined him, and we
certified as to his mental condition, whereupon he was sent to Hanwell.
Three weeks after, he was discharged from the asylum, not because he had
recovered, but through an informality in the certificate given by the
justice. As this latter gentleman was out of town, I took the lunatic
before Mr. Vaughan, at Bow Street, who, after examining him for a minute
or so, threw up the certificate, and said he would not sign it, the man
was not mad. I again implored him to fill up the certificate, as the man
had been only sent back to the House through an informality in the
certificate. As he again refused, I said, "Then I have to request that
Sir Thomas Henry be apprised of the case." This was done, and Sir Thomas
advised that he should go back to the House for another week. That
afternoon the lunatic was interviewed by three of the Board, who
pronounced the opinion that he was of sound mind. Hearing of this
irregularity, I wrote to the Commissioners in Lunacy, and asked them to
see the man. They attended at the House and examined him, and directed
his removal to Hanwell without delay. That night he escaped by scaling a
high wall, and was not captured for three days, when the police caught
him. In the following September he was discharged cured, when I received
a letter from the clerk, informing me thereof, and stating that the
Board was of opinion that I had been too hasty in sending the man away,
and that too by an unusual course. I immediately wrote to the
Commissioners in Lunacy, enclosing the clerk's letter, and asked their
opinion, when the secretary, Mr. C. P. Phillips, wrote to me stating
that at the time the Commissioners saw him he was clearly insane, and
that the Commissioners approved of my action under the exceptional
circumstances of the case. I sent their reply to the Board. The evening
the clerk read my letter to the Board, the man's wife made an
application for his re-admission to the House, as he had a relapse of
his insanity. This man went into and out of the asylum on several
occasions subsequently. Whenever he was at liberty he made me aware of
it by coming to my house between 1 and 2 a.m., and ringing my night-bell
violently. Of course I had to put up with the infliction, as the man was
not in his right mind. This annoyance went on for years, and only ceased
when I left Soho.
The Guardians also authorized my sending some of the infirm women to
Edmonton, where the school for the pauper children was situated. This
school was a favourite place of resort for the worst members of the
Board, and very comfortable parties were kept up there at the expense of
the ratepayers. A certain portion of the Guardians went down fortnightly
in carriages to inspect the schools, and every scheme was adopted by
those not on the School Committee to be asked to go out of their turn by
those who were entitled to go. It meant an outing in the country, and a
splendid dinner with wine, &c., and tea, free of cost, to all who went
there.
Of course the resident officers were always in high favour with the
majority of the Board, and to arraign them or their conduct was a
hopeless affair, as the least competent element immediately stood
forward to shield them.
In the September of 1867 a young girl was admitted, suffering with
rheumatic fever; she remained ill some time, but towards the end of the
month she recovered sufficiently to be sent to a Convalescent Home, but
as the autumn was a cold one I decided that she should be sent to
Edmonton, and to secure her considerate treatment I wrote a special
certificate, which was addressed to the matron, in which I stated what
had been the matter with her, and begged that she should be kept warm
and not employed in scrubbing or any damp occupation.
About a month afterwards I found this girl again in the women's sick
ward in Cleveland Street with a severe relapse of her rheumatic attack.
On inquiry I was told by the girl that shortly after she had gone to
Edmonton the matron came into her ward and told her to go to the
laundry. On her reminding her that she was still weak, and that the
London doctor had directed that she was to be kept warm, the matron
abused her and again ordered her there. She went. In a very short time
she broke down; the matron, however, persisted in keeping her at work,
but at last she became so ill that she was compelled to put her to bed.
On the school doctor seeing her it was decided to send her back, to
town, some eight miles distant. She was sent in a tilted cart and very
imperfectly clad--that, too, on a very cold day. It was altogether so
improper a proceeding that I complained to the Board, who made inquiries
of the matron, &c., who of course denied the facts _in toto_. This false
answer was sent to me. I was so enraged that I drew up another complaint
and sent it to the Poor Law Board and asked for an inquiry. Dr. Markham
was deputed to go through the form of an investigation, which he
interpreted by going, unknown to me, to the sick ward, asking one or two
questions of the girl, and sending for the matron at Edmonton to come to
his private house in Harley Street. I did not know this at the time. He
then reported that I had made a "frivolous and vexatious complaint." I
will leave my readers to determine whether this procedure was not a
mockery of a Departmental inquiry. This report, thus obtained, was sent
to the Guardians, whereupon a man, who had misconducted himself at the
official inquiry by coarsely asking "whether mesenteric disease was not
something to eat," moved that I be suspended from my office. This was
adopted by the Board, only four of the members supporting me, the fact
being that the Board had changed very considerably at the preceding
election, some of the Board ejected from office two years before having
unfortunately returned again. Of course it was necessary for the Board
to report this suspension to the Poor Law Board. The clerk asked
permission to absent himself from duty for a time. He took with him the
minutes of the Board for the preceding twelve years, and busied himself
with extracting all the hostile resolutions which the Board had adopted
against me, frequently at his suggestion, in return for my continuous
efforts to cleanse their augean stable. I do not know who had distinctly
intimated to the clerk that it was desirable to get rid of me, but the
mover of my suspension stated that he knew the Poor Law Board wanted to
get me discharged. That was admitted some time after by Sir Michael
Hicks Beach in a conversation he had with a medical gentleman living
near him in Gloucestershire.
Some month after my suspension a copy of the clerk's extracts was sent
me by the Poor Law Board, and I was asked what I had to say to it. I
acknowledged its receipt, and asked for an official inquiry. This
request was ignored, although it was suggested by a minority of the
Board, by the Vestry of St. Anne's, Soho, who unanimously supported me,
and by many influential inhabitants of the parish in which I had lived
and worked. That my suspension would have been followed by the Poor Law
Board calling on me to resign my office, without delay, would have been
certain, but the President, Earl Devon, was away, although the most
terrible distress prevailed that winter in East London. He had gone off
to the South of France, and there he remained some three months. On his
return, he at once put me out of doubt by removing me from my office.
It is very curious, but true, that when I turned on this Department and
stated my own case, he made the remark to a friend, who repeated it to
me, that he was surprised at my hostility to the Board, as in calling
for my resignation no reflection had been made by the Department on my
character. At this time a general order was issued by the Department,
imposing, without payment, additional and onerous obligations upon
Workhouse medical officers. It was to the effect that they should make,
from time to time, a return of all that was amiss in their respective
workhouses to the Board of Guardians, the doing of which, on my own
account, had led to my differences with the Strand Board. It had always
been understood that this was one of the duties of the Inspectors, but
it was attempted to throw the obligation on the doctors. After Earl
Devon resigned, our Council had an interview with Mr. Goschen at the
House of Commons, who promised an important modification of this unjust
order.
When my compulsory resignation was called for, it was decided by the
Rev. Harry Jones, the late Dr. Anstie and others, to call a meeting of
the all but moribund Infirmaries Association at Mr. Hart's house, to
discuss the matter, and arrange for action. The meeting was addressed
by both of these gentlemen, and by several others, and the action of the
Department was severely censured by all who were present, except one
person. Sir John Simeon, M.P., undertook to put a question in the House,
and to move for papers. In due course the question was asked, when Sir
Michael Hicks Beach made reply that the Board did not desire to make any
reflection on my character, but that I had been called on to resign as I
could not get on with the Board of Guardians.
The insufficiency of this answer will be understood when I state that it
had been already decided to break up the Strand Board by taking away St.
Anne's and joining it to St. James's, in order to make the Westminster
Union, and by adding St. Martin to the remnant of the Strand--thereby
making it a perfectly new Union.
I have stated that it was arranged at the meeting of the Workhouse
Infirmaries Association, called to consider the action of the Department
in requesting me to send in my resignation, that the papers connected
with the subject should be moved for in the House. This was done, and in
due course they were presented. On their appearance, _The Lancet_
commented as follows thereon--
"At last, after months of delay, the Parliamentary Papers concerning
the enforced resignation by Dr. Rogers of his post as medical officer of
the Strand Union have been published. They amply justify everything we
have said as to the unwarrantable character of the action of the Poor
Law Board and of the Strand Board of Guardians in the whole affair.
"It is impossible for us to afford space for a detailed analysis of
these papers, but we beg to draw attention to the following damning
facts. 1. The evidence upon the whole case consists (_a_) of a series of
quotations by the Guardians, or rather by a party among the Guardians,
hostile to Dr. Rogers, from minutes and other documents extending over
many years, these extracts being selected without any reference to
contemporary facts which would throw light upon them, and (_b_) of
utterly gratuitous and unfounded insinuations that the various leading
articles in the general press which were written apropos of the
notorious scandals at the Strand were written by Dr. Rogers and his
friends. 2. That although Dr. Rogers (backed by a most respectable
minority of the Guardians and by the Vestry of St. Anne's, Soho)
protested that it was impossible to deal with these charges without an
open inquiry, such inquiry was refused by the Poor Law Board. 3. As
regards the Edmonton scandal which was the cause of the dispute which
led immediately to the suspension of Dr. Rogers, the printed evidence
distinctly bears out the justice of Dr. Rogers' allegations. 4.
Nevertheless Dr. Markham reported to the Poor Law Board that his
inquiries had proved these charges to be false. He does not, however,
venture to specify the nature of the inquiry by which he disproved
charges which, with unblushing effrontery, Mr. Fleming says were made on
the unsupported testimony of a pauper, but which are now seen to be
absolutely corroborated by two respectable witnesses (one of them a
medical man), besides the direct observation of Dr. Rogers; and either
Dr. Markham did not take, or the Poor Law Board has suppressed, the
evidence of at least one other impartial witness, the master of the
Strand Workhouse, which we have reason to believe would have absolutely
settled the matter in Dr. Rogers' favour.
"It is well-nigh incredible, but we have heard it on authority which we
cannot discredit, that although the so-called inquiry on which the
Medical Inspector of the Poor Law Board based the unfavourable report,
which gave the Strand Guardians courage to make their onslaught upon Dr.
Rogers, included an examination at Dr. Markham's private house of the
Edmonton officials chiefly inculpated by Dr. Rogers' charges. Dr.
Markham never asked Dr. Rogers one single question. Volumes of comment
could not add anything to the ugly emphasis of this fact."
Sir Michael Hicks Beach has been recently afflicted. I would ask him if
he does not consider that his sufferings would have been intensified if
his sleep had been disturbed by the noise of carpet-beating--if he had
been waited on by infirm and drunken women, and broken-down potmen--if
the air he breathed had been poisoned by the dust from the beating of
carpets, and utterly vitiated by over-crowding? And yet, because I had
protested against this hideous wrong-doing, and had done my best to get
it altered, he had to get up in the House of Commons and do his best to
justify the action of the Board.
The Department thought I was disposed of; it was not long before I
showed them the contrary, as some of them did not subsequently hesitate
to admit.
I have stated that it had been decided, owing to the all but unanimous
application of the ratepayers of St. Anne's, Soho, to the Poor Law
Board, to take that parish out of the Strand Union and join it to St.
James's, so as to constitute the Westminster Union, and within a very
brief space of time after my compulsory resignation this was done. As
there was no returning officer for the Union, the Poor Law Board
directed that the Vestry clerks of each parish should act as such for
this time, consequently all books and papers relating to St. Anne's had
to be handed over by the clerk, of Peterborough notoriety, who was the
friend of Catch, when a notable discovery was made, to wit, that the
proxy book, as it was called, was altogether illegal, and had been so
for years, as by the efflux of time the power to vote by proxy in most
instances had expired, and yet this clerk had gone on year after year
issuing voting papers to persons, though he must have known that they
had no right to vote. We had often wondered how it happened that we
could not oust the Guardians who sat for St. Anne's: they had been
returned by illegal proxy votes for years. Although the Guardians who
had recently represented St. Anne's in the old Strand Union had lost the
kindly aid of the clerk, it was so necessary to some of them that they
should still be Guardians, that they again got themselves nominated,
only to meet with a unanimous rejection on the part of the ratepayers,
as the following letter from an ex-Guardian for St. Anne's, Soho, who
was a supporter of Dr. Rogers, but precluded from again standing through
serious illness, of which he subsequently died, will show--
"TO THE EDITOR OF _The Daily News_.
"THE STRAND UNION AND THEIR LATE MEDICAL OFFICER.
"SIR,--It will be gratifying to the friends of Dr. Rogers, who was
suspended by the Board for his continued advocacy of the rights of
the sick poor, to know that at the election of Guardians of St.
Anne's, Soho, which took place on Saturday last, the whole of those
who voted for his suspension, &c., were rejected by an overwhelming
majority of ratepayers.
"I am, Sir,
"Yours obediently,
"JOSEPH GEORGE.
"81, DEAN STREET,
"_April 11, 1868_."
The story of two of these men I will here relate. The first had been
appointed Assessed Tax Collector for St. Anne's, Soho, but two or three
years after my resignation of the Strand he was discovered to be a
defaulter to some hundreds of pounds, which his sureties had to make up.
He was one of the most active of my opponents. The second had commenced
life as a milkman. Very shortly afterwards he began to take tenement
houses in the worst part of St. Anne's, Soho, which he let out from
garret to cellar to the very poor. His lodgers lived under the most
insanitary conditions, and my local knowledge induced me always to
protest against this man as a Guardian of the poor. He was always the
most energetic of my opponents at the Strand Board. At last retribution
came upon him. It was in this wise: he was a freemason, and, though very
illiterate, he had managed to obtain a high position in the masonic
brotherhood, so much so that he was deputed to preside as the returning
officer in an important election. There were two candidates, one a
Guardian of the Strand Union, who was his personal friend--in fact, that
very person who had recommended the broken-down pot-man as one of my
nurses--the other was to him a comparative stranger.
After the ballot had been taken, this returning officer gave the
election to his friend by such a majority of voting papers that the
unsuccessful candidate, who had been promised support to a large extent,
suspected foul play, and made an application to the Prince of Wales, as
Grand Master, to order a scrutiny. His Royal Highness assented, and
directed the Earl of Carnarvon to hold it, when it came out clearly that
this ex-Guardian of St. Anne's, Soho, had knowingly made a false return,
and he was sentenced to a deprivation of all his offices in the
brotherhood, and exclusion from his Lodge for three years. He was at
this time holding various offices in St. Giles, also in St. Pancras, but
the different parochial Boards' requested him to send in his
resignation forthwith, as they refused any longer to associate with him
or allow him to remain a member of their respective Boards.
Here let me remark that there is no occupation that can be followed at
which so much money can be made as by the system adopted by some
speculators of taking houses in poor localities and letting them out in
single rooms to the humbler classes. To get therefrom all the benefit
possible you must be absolutely heartless and unprincipled. If the
wretched tenants do not pay their rent weekly, they must go out--and do
go! Having, after their weekly collections, much spare time on their
hands, these men often get on to Boards of Guardians and frequently on
to the District Boards as well: at the first they are always present
when outdoor relief is given, which they strongly advocate as a means
whereby the rent may be more readily secured; secondly, on the District
Boards, where they are always at hand when the Inspector of Nuisances
and of insanitary tenement houses makes his report. They generally try
to be on the best of terms with this latter official, their scheme being
to minimize the character of their reports, and to minimize what is
required to be done, as it saves their pockets. One of these persons,
who had some three hundred of these houses, was fined by the magistrate
for neglecting to keep his houses in a sanitary condition. I had the
honour of his permanent hostility. He was, at the time of being fined,
not only a member of the Board, but of the Health Committee also. When I
was a member of the Strand Board of Works I carried a resolution that
the name of the owner of these tenements should be always included in
the Inspector's Report. In my deliberate judgment, all persons of this
class should be disqualified from sitting on a Board of Guardians, or on
any District Board. The same class of middlemen are to be found in all
large towns; they are the most dangerous members of the body politic,
and should be rigorously treated as such. The person I have before
referred to, was not only a member of the Strand Board of Guardians but
a member of the District Board also. He was also on that of St. Giles,
and St. Pancras. In all these places, and districts, he had tenement
houses.
It having been my habit to go to the Workhouse infirmary for twelve
years early each morning, I found my time at first hang somewhat heavily
on my hands, but after a short while I made up my mind what to do. I
resolved to watch the action of the Department, and to do my best to
make the permanent officials do their duty, so far as my observation
could aid me. With that object in view, I arranged for an aggregate
meeting of the profession, at the Freemason's Tavern, to discuss the
composition of the so-called Board at Whitehall, and the grievances of
the Poor Law medical officers. Among other things, I told them that the
nominal Board never met, and that documents requiring the various
members' official signature, were taken round to the residences of the
Ministers, and, it was alleged, frequently signed without reading the
contents.
This statement had been made in the House by an ex-President.
This meeting was an immense success, for not only was there a very large
attendance of medical men, but they came from all parts of the country,
and the Department had an opportunity of learning how their permanent
officials were watched and criticized throughout the country as
permanent officials always should be. Mr. Griffin having retired from
further vindicating the claims of his professional brethren owing to an
attack of paralysis, to which, unhappily, he ultimately succumbed, the
balance of the money in his possession was handed over to me in trust
for carrying on the objects of the Association. It was also decided
that the Provincial Poor Law Medical Officers Association, of which he
was the Chairman, should be merged in the Metropolitan Association,
which had been started by me two years before, and I was elected the
President, a position I held for some years, and which I resigned only
when I recognized that the objects of our Association would be more
readily advanced by selecting some medical member of the House of
Commons to act in that capacity. So I contented myself with the humbler
position of Chairman of Council.
At this representative meeting of the profession, I alluded, _inter
alia_, to my evidence before the Select Committee, and to my advocacy of
the supply of all medicines. I also mentioned the action of one of the
Inspectors, a Mr. Gulson, when Mr. Fleming's letter containing the
recommendation of that committee was read out by the clerk of the
Weymouth Board of Guardians at their weekly meeting. The Chairman having
appealed to this official, who was present, as to what should be done,
he stated that the resolution was only carried in committee by one vote,
and that the Chairman of the Committee, had voted against it. Thereupon
the Guardians of the Weymouth Union directed that the official letter
should lie on the table, and no expensive medicines were found. I took
care that a report of this meeting should be sent to every Poor Law
medical officer, and to the Department, as well as to every influential
Member of Parliament I could reach. One of the reports having fallen
into the hands of Mr. C. P. Villiers, the ex-President and Chairman of
the Select Committee on Poor Relief, that gentleman wrote to me
protesting against the statement which had been made, and assuring me
that it was in direct opposition to what had really taken place, as he
had warmly supported my suggestion, and that he should at once call on
Mr. Gulson for an explanation of his statement. He also stated that he
had been much annoyed at the long delay that had occurred ere the Chief
Secretary, Mr. H. Fleming, had drawn up and forwarded to the various
Boards of Guardians the letter containing the recommendation of the
Select Committee. From other sources, I subsequently learned that for a
very long period of time prior to the resignation of Mr. Villiers as
President of the Board, he held hardly any communication with his
Permanent Secretary. It will be well understood, that if it took some
fifteen months for the Permanent Secretary to draw up and issue the
letter containing the Committee's suggestion as regards expensive
medicines, that no hurry would occur in the establishment of Poor Law
dispensaries in the Metropolis, which was only an amplification of my
original suggestion. And that actually happened; and it was only by our
constantly pegging away, that at last the Board commenced to establish
them. But whilst no _bonâ fide_ effort was made to carry out this
portion of the Metropolitan Poor Act, an absolute epidemic took place as
regards the building of asylum hospitals, district hospitals for fever
and infectious diseases, asylums for epileptics, idiots and imbeciles,
district schools, &c. This arose partly from indifference on the part of
the permanent officials, but to a greater degree from their complete
ignorance of the necessary details required for economic building. It
was never my desire, in striving to amend the system--that is, to
substitute for the absence of all system of medical relief to the poorer
classes the reverse policy--that architects, surveyors, and builders,
should be at liberty to extract all the money they could get from the
pockets of the metropolitan ratepayers. As it was, finding that the
absence of all efficient control was leading to an enormous outlay, and
that the public was naturally getting not only alarmed, but indignant,
at the profligate expenditure of their money, I put myself in
communication with Mr. Torrens, then M.P. for Finsbury, and asked him to
question the President of the Poor Law Board on the subject, and to move
for a return of what had been already spent and what was proposed to be
spent in such buildings. I also requested him to inquire to what cause
the delay in establishing Poor Law dispensaries under Mr. Hardy's Act
was due. This action considerably alarmed the permanent officials. More
important still, it led to a very considerable curtailment in the amount
of contemplated expenditure on buildings, and, with this, an
approximation to some control. Soon afterwards the establishment of Poor
Law dispensaries was commenced, which was an important feature of the
Act.
I cannot but relate the close of Mr. George Catch's career.
I have already stated that after the enforced resignation of his
appointment at Newington, this model master was selected by the
Guardians of Lambeth, as the master of their Workhouse, notwithstanding
that he had as opponents some respectable persons who had creditably
filled similar appointments elsewhere. His election was due to the
assistance he received from the clerk of the Strand Union, and his old
friends at that Board. His appointment was challenged at the time, but
in spite of the serious evidence afforded by the Newington inquiry, it
was confirmed by the Department, but with this proviso--that a special
report as to his conduct should be sent by the Guardians to the Poor Law
Board at the end of six months.
It was not very long before the opponents of this man's appointment were
fully justified in the course they took, as he speedily renewed his old
course of cruelty to the inmates, and of quarrelling with the other
officers. One of these acts was inquired into, and reported on by Dr.
Markham. Although it was clear that the master was in the wrong, yet Dr.
Markham, in his official report, managed to throw a doubt on the
evidence of the medical officer, evidently to screen the master; but he
was not saved for long, for shortly afterwards a young woman, who had
been subjected to much harshness by Catch, ran away and hid herself, as
it was supposed, in the chimney of one of the women's infirm wards, when
the master, with the view of forcing her to come down, induced the
junior resident medical officer, to bring from the surgery some
substance, on which he poured some hydrochloric acid, whereby some
extremely pungent gases were evolved, thinking thereby to compel her to
come down; but as the young woman was not there (fortunately for Catch,
for if she had been she would have been suffocated), the only effect was
that all the old women in the ward, were set sneezing and coughing. This
atrocious proceeding, having been reported to the Poor Law Board, Catch
was called upon to resign. It will hardly be believed that certain of
the Guardians memorialized the Poor Law Board to let him retain his
office, when Mr. Shaen, the eminent solicitor, on the urgent
representation of his wife, who was a lady visitor at the Workhouse, and
knew a great deal of Catch's doings, took the matter up. Mr. Shaen saw
me, and asked me whether I could tell him anything about Catch. I
narrated the incident of the false charge which he, in connection with
the clerk, had made against me when I was away in Scotland, and also
told him the story of his behaviour in reference to the sick woman in
the lying-in ward of the Strand Union which had led to his leaving that
Workhouse. Mr. Shaen took down my statement, and subsequently he sent me
a pamphlet of some two hundred pages, in which I found not only my own
statement, but sundry others of a highly damaging character, but
unfortunately these were so recklessly drawn, that it gave Catch the
opportunity of bringing an action for libel. Its publication had
induced Mr. Goschen to peremptorily call upon him to resign his office.
Catch sent out an appeal to all the masters of workhouses to support him
in his action, and a sufficient sum having been collected, the
Attorney-General of the day, now Lord Chief Justice Coleridge, acted as
his counsel. Having been asked by Mr. Shaen to support my statement in
the Court of Queen's Bench, I attended. When called on, I went into the
witness-box, and after giving my evidence-in-chief, was cross-examined
by the Attorney-General in such a manner that three times during the
cross-examination Lord Chief Justice Cockburn interfered to stop it,
giving as his opinion that the Attorney-General was pressing me
unfairly. As I was leaving the witness-box I turned round and thanked
the Lord Chief Justice for his kindness in screening me. I was followed
by the late porter of the Strand Workhouse, who was there to
substantiate my evidence. A similar attempt to browbeat this witness
afforded fine fun. The witness was an Irishman, and at every effort made
by the counsel to confuse him, Pat was too much for the Attorney, and
feeling that he could make nothing of him, he told him peremptorily to
stand down, which he did in such a comical way as convulsed the court
with laughter. Unfortunately Mr. Shaen failed to justify several of the
libels, and the jury, after twelve days' trial, gave a verdict in favour
of Catch for £600--an amount which the judge said was excessive, and for
which he refused to certify, thereby affording Mr. Shaen the opportunity
for asking for a fresh trial. Subsequently a compromise was effected at
the instance of the Lord Chief Justice. In summing up the case to the
jury, the judge said that my evidence, if it stood alone, was sufficient
to stamp Catch as an improper person to hold the office of a Workhouse
master. Mr. Goschen would not allow Catch to resume his office, and,
having no resources whatever, he drifted downwards until ultimately,
being without means and having tired out all his friends, he in a fit of
despair threw himself in front of a Great Western train and was cut to
pieces.
I was so much annoyed by the action of the Attorney-General in
cross-examining me that on my return home I wrote to the Lord Chief
Justice again thanking him, and enclosing for his perusal a pamphlet I
had just written on the administration of the Poor Laws. To my great
surprise he sent me by hand the next morning a letter, in which he
acknowledged its receipt, and informed me that he should read my
pamphlet with the greatest pleasure. There is no doubt that my labours
up to that time were very well known to his Lordship, as, when at the
Bar, he was the standing counsel of _The Lancet_ newspaper, in which my
name had frequently appeared. When he became a judge he kept up his
interest in that journal. This was told me by the late Dr. Wakley, to
whom I related Catch's story and the account of my cross-examination and
of the courtesy and support afforded to me by Lord Chief Justice
Cockburn whilst under cross-examination. The Lord Chief Justice was a
man of scrupulous integrity and honour. I remember a solicitor of good
position in Soho, whose brother was then the Treasurer of the County of
Middlesex, and whose son now holds the position, saying to me, "Although
I am opposed to him politically, yet I have the highest opinion of his
conscientiousness, and of his extraordinary ability--we are all proud of
him." I esteem it a high honour to have received a letter from such a
man written under such circumstances. I have this letter still.
An illustration of profligate expenditure, and the absence of all
efficient control at the Poor Law Board, was at this time supplied by my
old friends, the Strand Union Board. Shortly after I resigned the Board
decided to build a new Workhouse at Edmonton, and plans of the
contemplated building were issued to builders, &c. Tenders from sundry
large firms for its erection were sent to the Guardians, the lowest
tender being from an eminent firm that had acquired a great reputation
for the buildings it had put up in various parts of town, as well as in
the country. Their tender was rejected, and the contract given to a
small builder, resident in St. Paul's, Covent Garden, whose estimate was
some £2,000 higher. It was stated at the time that after the contract
had been signed the members of the Board were invited to a dinner given
by the lucky contractor. The large firm that competed for it, feeling
that they had been improperly treated, got the question raised, and the
new President, Mr. Goschen, investigated the transaction, but it was too
late, as the builder had already set to work, and had a considerable
amount of his plant on the ground. Although Mr. Goschen felt that he
could not interfere to stop this disreputable transaction, he did not
fail to give this party of jobbers a most severe lecture, probably the
most severe that ever emanated from the Poor Law Board, in connection
with the doings of a Board of Guardians. The issue of it to this Board
must have brought about a change of policy among the permanent officials
who had not remonstrated against it. I know not whether it was this
transaction, or Mr. Goschen's general knowledge of the laxity of the
staff, certain it is that during his Presidentship he kept the Secretary
in his place, and did not permit him or Sir John Lambert (then plain Mr.
Lambert) to obtrude themselves upon him when he received deputations
from public bodies and from societies. But I am anticipating.
In the autumn of 1868 a general election took place, with the result of
replacing the Liberal party in power. With the concurrence of the
Council of the Poor Law Medical Officers Association, I had issued a
circular letter to the various candidates for Parliamentary honours, in
which I drew attention to the imperfect character of the Poor Law Board,
and the usurpation by the permanent officials of powers they were not
entitled to, and asked whether the candidate would assist us in our
efforts to reconstruct the Board, and to improve the system of medical
relief. The replies I obtained were not only very numerous, but they
held out the prospect of an alteration for the better. Looking back at
the various changes that were made subsequently, I have no hesitation in
asserting that many of these improvements were brought about by the
action our Council took at this general election. These will be briefly
referred to.
I will here relate an incident that gave me the cue as to the line to
be taken in the introduction and establishment of a Public Health Act. I
was desirous of visiting an aged relative who lived in a village in
Hampshire. The local medical gentleman kindly volunteered to fetch me
from the station, some seven miles distant, and to put me up for the
night, &c. As I neared his house my sense of smell was assailed by one
of the most awful odours I had ever encountered. To my inquiry from
whence it originated, my host said, "That is from the farmyard over
there. Young Green, the son of the corn dealer, has taken Miss Smith's
farm, and has commenced to breed pigs. He has at least 300." "Well," I
replied, "if I lived here I should make short work of Mr. Green and his
pigs; I would at once indict him." "Ah," he said, "you can afford to be
independent, you live in London. I dare not; for if I complained, or
took any action in the matter, old Green would go to all the markets
round about, and would denounce me for attempting to interfere with his
son's business, and I should make enemies by the score." Some three or
four years after Mr. Stansfeld brought in his Public Health Bill, one of
the essential features of which was that every district medical officer
should be the health officer in his district. I opposed the proposition
with all my might. I knew the Act would be absolutely abortive if Poor
Law medical officers were placed in this utterly false position which
Mr. Stansfeld proposed. In taking this course I encountered much
opposition, and became for a time very unpopular, though at last my
views prevailed, and gentlemen wholly independent of local influences
were appointed to large areas. Among the remonstrants was the medical
man who was the neighbour of the pig breeder, when I silenced him by
reminding him of Mr. Green and his pigs, and of the fear that he had
that if he complained that his business as a country medical gentleman
might be damaged. He said no more.
Having come to the conclusion that the course followed by my poor
friend, Richard Griffin, of Weymouth, in continually calling attention
to the grievances of Poor Law medical officers, would never eventuate in
an improvement of their position, for the general public have never
cared for our class in any way, I cast about to ascertain whether there
could be any course adopted by which the attention of the public could
be drawn to the shortcomings of the system, and decided that the only
chance that existed, whereby an improvement could be effected, was by
proving that an amended system of medical relief would eventuate in the
diminution of the duration of sickness, and consequently of its cost to
the ratepayers; and having at this time a copy of the annual report of
the Irish Poor Law Commissioners placed in my hands, I studied its
pages, and saw that under the Irish Medical Charities Acts the poorer
classes of that country had secured to them the most complete system of
Poor Law medical relief. I resolved to go over to Ireland, and study its
administration on the spot. I carried out my intention, and during my
stay in Ireland obtained a complete insight into the way in which the
Irish dispensary system was carried out. I also brought back with me all
the papers and documents that enabled me to popularize the subject here.
I also spent much time in examining the annual returns of the English
Poor Law Board, with the result that I was enabled to prove conclusively
that efficient medical relief was followed by diminished poor relief
expenditure, not only by shortening the duration of sickness, but by the
actual saving of human life: this latter was shown also by a return I
got Mr. W. H. Smith to move for, which was as follows--
"A return of the population at the last census in England and Wales, in
Scotland and in Ireland.
"A return of the mortality from general causes in the three portions of
the United Kingdom, and of preventable mortality."
That return exhibited the following: That whilst one in every 43 died
yearly in England, one in 44 in Scotland, only one in every 60 died in
Ireland; and whilst in England zymotic, or preventable diseases,
constituted one-fourth of the total mortality, or one in 190 of the
population, Scotland one-fourth, or one in 194 of the population, in
Ireland it was one-fifth of the total mortality, and one in 308 of the
population; the fact being this, that in England and Scotland there
existed the same miserable system of medical relief, whilst in Ireland,
after the potato famine and the fever which followed it, calamities
which swept away a large portion of the inhabitants, the Medical
Charities Act was introduced, and led, by its efficient working, to the
beneficial changes which had taken place in the health of the country.
The views I advanced met with much favour, and were commented on and
approved by many general, as well as by all the medical journals. Having
sent a copy of the paper I read at a meeting of our Association to Mr.
C. P. Villiers, that gentleman wrote to me stating that he had derived
much pleasure from its perusal, and that I had thrown more light on the
causes of pauperism, and devised better measures for its diminution,
than any previous writer on the subject. Subsequently, through the
influence of Mr. Corrance, then M.P. for East Suffolk, I was invited to
address the Central Chamber of Agriculture, which I did, when a
resolution, couched in very flattering terms, was adopted, and further
it was moved that a copy of the Chamber's approval of my address, and
the principles contained in it, should be sent to the Poor Law Board,
coupled with the request that the attention of all the provincial
Chambers should be called to the subject. Subsequently I was invited to
address the Worcester Chamber on the same subject, as well as that of
Suffolk.
At a very early period of the presidency of Mr. Goschen, several of the
provincial Poor Law Inspectors were directed to make inquiry into the
question of medical relief to the poor, and the desirability, or
otherwise, of establishing dispensaries, modelled on the principles
contained in the Irish Medical Charities Act. One of the most able and
exhaustive reports was sent in, as might have been expected, by Mr.
Farnall, who thus proved true to the views he held in his interview with
me some ten years before; whilst the very feeblest of these was that
preferred by Mr. R. B. Caine, who manifested the same lack of heartiness
here as he exhibited earnestness some years before in upsetting poor
Richard Griffin's statistics, of which he boasted to me during his
conduct of the inquiry at the Strand Union in 1866.
One of the results that sprang from my visit to Ireland was the
establishment of a good understanding between our Association and that
of the Irish Dispensary Medical Officers, of which the late Dr. Toler
Maunsall was the honorary secretary. Dr. Maunsall was the most
indefatigable secretary I ever knew. His appetite for work, and his
skill in getting up statistics was remarkable. He was most valuable to
me, as he assisted in getting out dry figures for my use, which would
have given me infinite trouble. Poor fellow! like many others of my
fellow-workers, he was destined to die early, and I sustained a great
loss by his premature death. Unfortunately, too, he died badly off. I
started a subscription in England for the benefit of his widow and
children, which helped to swell the sum that his friends got together in
Ireland.
During my stay in Ireland it was arranged between us that we should
mutually help each other, and consequent on that, when the Irish
Association strove, under the leadership of the late Dr. Brady, M.P. for
Leitrim, to obtain superannuation allowance for dispensary and workhouse
medical officers, I called attention to the subject in the medical
journals, and induced the members of our Association not only to
petition, but to interview members in their respective localities, in
favour of the Bill. Dr. Brady, having succeeded in carrying this
measure, essayed the next year to do the same for England and Wales. The
success of the appeal we had made to members in the general election of
1868, facilitated the passing of the measure most materially, as we had
promises of support from upwards of eighty gentlemen who were
subsequently elected. Prior to the second reading of our Bill, I
interviewed several members, and got promises to attend the second
reading and vote for the measure. Some of these gentlemen, having
intimated their desire to speak in its support, and having asked to be
supplied with information on the subject, I coached them up. To one of
the ablest of our supporters, who asked me to provide him with facts, I
said that I was opposed to superannuation on principle, as I held that
every one should be able during the working days of his life to provide
for the exigencies of his old age--but then it was necessary if he held
an office that the pay should be such as would enable him to do so. Now
it was notorious that the pay of the medical officer was based on such a
starvation principle as to render it impossible for him to save
anything. This argument, reproduced very much as I have written it, in
the House assisted a great deal in the success of the Bill. At the time
this occurred I was out of office, and had not the most distant idea I
should ever again be a workhouse medical officer. I did not know what
was again in store for me, nor that I was destined to have another
fourteen years of it; that I should be again suspended, restored to
office, and eventually, through broken health, compelled peaceably to
resign and to be myself a pensioner.
After the Bill had become law Dr. Brady most generously bore tribute to
my efforts, and stated that he never could have carried the Bill without
my help. _The Lancet_ published this statement of Dr. Brady's, and I for
the time gained from my Poor Law medical brethren credit for what was,
at that period, absolutely disinterested labour.
About this time I was invited by a leading physician in Edinburgh to
visit that city and address a meeting at the College of Physicians on
the subject of Poor Law medical relief in Scotland. Although I was
aware that the condition of things in that country was worse even than
it was in England, yet I had not studied the subject so completely as to
justify me in asserting it. Consequently I declined what was a very
great compliment. Some years afterwards I went and delivered an address.
It took place at the time when the annual meeting of the British Medical
Association was last held there, when a highly complimentary resolution
was adopted at that meeting in reference to that visit and address of
mine. After occupying the position of president for a brief period only,
during which time the Department was administered most vigorously and
successfully, Mr. Goschen was transferred to another office in the
Government, and Mr. Stansfeld was appointed President, the effect of
which became immediately apparent, for the leading permanent officials,
whose influence had been checked during Mr. Goschen's presidency, came
directly to the front again.
One of the first measures introduced by Mr. Stansfeld was the conversion
of the Poor Law into the Local Government Board. This was carried out by
the absorption of the Public Health Department of the Privy Council in
the destitution element of the Poor Law Board--a most disastrous act of
policy, as it subordinated the Health Department, which had done its
work so well to the discredited section of the Poor Law Board as
exhibited in the permanent officials of the Board, who had always been
obstructive, and had neither carried out, nor permitted any one else to
carry out, any reform whatever.
This was early made apparent, for at the first deputation to the
President, at which I was present, after his appointment, I saw Mr. H.
Fleming and Mr. Lambert sitting together with the President, whilst Mr.
(only just recently made Sir), John Simon and his staff, who were the
only intellectual element of the new Board, were relegated to distant
seats in the corner of the room.
That a Public Health Bill started under such circumstances should be
framed absurdly, seeing that those who understood the subject were
ignored, and those were consulted who had never done anything well, was
nothing but what might have been expected.
One of the provisions of the Bill was, as I have before stated, that
every district Poor Law medical officer should be the health officer of
his district, and that his reports of insanitary conditions should be
sent to the Board of Guardians, many members of which Board would be
found to be the principal offenders against sanitary requirements.
This scheme speedily evoked an opposition, and a deputation,
representing the British Medical Association, the Social Science
Association, and the Poor Law Medical Officers Association, had an
interview with Mr. Stansfeld at the Local Government Board. The speakers
from the two first Associations having addressed the President, Mr.
Stansfeld announced that he had just received a summons to attend a
meeting of the Cabinet, but he would leave Mr. Fleming to hear any
further remarks that might be made, which would in due course be
communicated to him and meet with attention. Being the sole remaining
speaker, I said to Mr. Fleming that when I first heard of the proposed
utilization of the Poor Law medical officers in the Public Health
measures of the Government, I hailed it as a tardy recognition of the
valuable services that class of official might render. But when I came
to look into the details I saw it would not work, as medical officers
would hesitate in affronting their Board of Guardians, many members of
which would be found to be the principal offenders against the
contemplated Act, and that in the few cases where the parish officers
would faithfully carry out the requirements, and thereby offend their
respective Boards, they would be sacrificed to the resentment of their
members, and if appeal was made for support to the Central Department,
such honest men would be called on to resign for not exhibiting
sufficient courtesy, &c., and working with their Boards. It was very
evident that my observations went home to this Permanent Secretary, but
whether they were ever communicated to Mr. Stansfeld is open to much
doubt, for his Bill was eventually brought in on the lines he had
originally indicated, only to turn out on trial a disastrous and
ludicrous failure.