Page:Local taxation and poor law administration in great cities.djvu/15

11 houses and the posts of relieving officers are frequently given to men who have failed in other departments of life owing to the absence of those very qualities which are eminently essential in the offices which they are now appointed to fill. And yet on the efficiency and good management of the governor of the workhouse not only the welfare of the inmates, but the whole poor-law system in the locality, depends. And if you have incompetent relieving officers, you either do not relieve those who ought to be relieved, or you relieve the idle and the profligate, to whose support the rates ought not to be called upon to contribute.

I have here a letter from a gentleman of considerable experience as a Guardian, who says:—"One great defect in the working of the present Poor Law Board in our large towns arises from the almost impossibility of providing efficient supervision on the part of the guardians; indeed, I think it would be almost unreasonable to expect from guardians of the poor such a sacrifice of time as would enable them to exercise any thorough supervision of details. It has often surprised me to see how much time has been given to their duties, which are very laborious, and I do not see why you should expect from guardians more than from an unpaid bench of magistrates, or from the members of a town council. Yet I hold that the management of a workhouse is far more difficult than that of a gaol, and requires far more constant watching to prevent abuses creeping in. Unless a Poor Law guardian is to be expected to do his work more thoroughly than a magistrate or a town councellor [sic], I do not see how the evils of which you complain are to be removed, because I am convinced that a workhouse, in which the master is not thoroughly supported by the guardians, is at any time liable to fall into a state of over-crowding from any relaxation in the exercise of the laws which empower the managers to insist upon a strict labour test." Speaking of the necessity of increased inspection, he says:—"I may mention a case which I saw myself in a hospital ward, which was considered by the Guardians and by the Poor Law Inspector to be managed in a very efficient manner. In this ward I saw a man lying on a bed, and on examining into his condition I found that he had been in the ward for a long time—so long, that extensive bed sores covered his back. The discharge from his sores had soaked through the sheet, and the straw of which the bed was made ran into his sores. Of course a remedy was at