guardians must be taken before answering the letter. All letters received and answered must be submitted to the guardians at each of their ordinary meetings, and it is the duty of the clerk to read to the guardians at each meeting all the official letters he may have received since their last meeting and the answers he may have given to such letters. He is not merely to lay them upon the table for any guardian to read who thinks proper. All documents which the clerk receives in his official capacity must be laid before the guardians at their next ordinary meeting after he receives such documents, and he must act upon the directions he may then receive as to answering them or otherwise; and this whether the documents relate to poor law matters or to any other subject. The clerk is not bound to leave his residence to witness the execution of the bonds given to the guardians by other officers of the union. When the officer does not attend the board of guardians with his sureties to execute the bond, some special directions must be given by the clerk or the guardians to the parties, respecting the execution; and information should be supplied as to the addresses of the attesting witnesses. The clerk must conduct the business relating to the surveys and valuations of parishes, the sale of parish property, and the application of the sale proceeds, and under the Nuisances Removal and Diseases Prevention Acts 1848 and 1849, and regulations of the general board of health, such being the business of the guardians. But he is not bound to act for the parish officers in any of these matters. In conducting the official correspondence of Poor Law Unions with the Poor Law Board, the following instructions must be adhered to: 1. That no document, except returns signed by the Clerk, be transmitted to the commissioners' office, unaccompanied with a letter authenticating it. 2. That every distinct subject of communication, whether relating to the Union, or to any separate parish in it, form a distinct letter on a separate sheet of foolscap paper. 3. That where previous communications have taken place on the same subject, the official number and the date of the last communication be quoted. 4. That the name of the Union, and the day of weekly meeting of the guardians, and where the meetings are held otherwise than weekly, the date of the meeting next following the communication, and the address of the Clerk to the guardians, be placed at the head of all communications from the guardians to the board. 5. That all communications and packages from the country, which are directed to this office, be, as far as the arrangements of the post office will permit, transmitted through the post, and be directed nnder cover. "To the Poor Law Board, "Whitehall, London." II. TREASURER OF THE UNION. This officer must also have reached the full age of twenty-one years. When it is intended that a banking company or firm is to act as treasurer, the manager of the bank, or a partner of the firm, should be appointed to the office. The treasurer must give bond to the guardians for the due and faithful discharge of his duties; but security may, with the consent of the poor law board, be dispensed with in the case of a banking firm, or in the case of a treasurer being a banker or partner in such firm. The treasurer's duties are: No. 1. To receive all monies tendered to be paid to the guardians, and to place the same to their credit. No. 2. To pay out of any monies for the time being in his hands belonging to the guardians, all orders for money which shall be drawn upon him, when the same shall be presented at the house or usual place of business of the treasurer, and within the usual hours of business. No. 3. To keep an account, under the proper dates, of all monies received and paid by him as such treasurer, to balance the same at Lady-day and Michaelmas in every year, and to render an account of such monies to the guardians when required by them to do so. No. 4. Whenever there are not funds belonging to the guardians in his hands as treasurer of the union, to report in writing the fact of such deficiency to the commissioners. No. 5. To submit a proper account, together with the bonds of any officers which may be in his custody, to the auditor at the place of audit, and at the time and in such manner as may be required by the regulations of the commissioners. No. 6. To receive the monies payable to him as treasurer of the union, under any Act of Parliament or other authority of law. The treasurer ought not to allow his account with the guardians to be overdrawn; and if he advance money to them for their current expenditure, as the guardians cannot legally borrow money for such purposes upon the security of the rates, or pay interest on money so borrowed, he does so at his own risk, and upon the credit of the individual guardians who sign the cheque. MEDICAL OFFICER. Medical practitioners are prohibited from tendering for the appointment of medical officer, and no medical officer can be appointed to a district which exceeds in extent, the area of 15,000 acres, or which contains a population exceeding 15,000 persons, unless the consent of the poor law board be first obtained; there are, however, some few exceptions to this latter rule. No person can hold the office of medical officer, unless he possess one of the four following qualifications; that is to say,1. A diploma or degree as surgeon from a royal college or university in England, Scotland, or Ireland, together with a degree in medicine from an university in England, legally authorized to grant such degree, or together with a diploma or licence of the Royal College of Physicians of London. 2. A diploma or degree as surgeon from a royal college or university in England, Scotland, or Ireland, together with a certificate to practise as an apothecary from the Society of Apothecaries of London. 8. A diploma or degree as surgeon from a royal college or university in England, Scotland, or Ireland, such person having been in actual practice as an apothecary on the first day of August one thousand eight hundred and fifteen. 4. A warrant or commission as surgeon or assistant-surgeon in her Majesty's navy, or as surgeon or assistant-surgeon or apothecary in her Majesty's army, or as surgeon or assistant-surgeon in the service of the honourable East India Company, dated previous to the first day of August, one thousand eight hundred and twenty-six. But should the guardians be unable to procure the services of a person possessing a double qualification, they may, with the consent of the poor law board, appoint to the office of medical officer any person who is duly licensed to practise as a medical man. In addition to his salary, a medical officer is entitled to the following fees for out-door paupers :— 1. Treatment of compound fractures of the 2. Treatment of compound fractures or com- 3. Amputation of leg, arm, foot, or hand 6. Amputation of a finger or toe £ s. d. 5 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 But in some unions this provision of the general consolidated order has been rescinded, and the remuneration for all these services included in the fixed salary of the officers. In midwifery cases the medical officer is entitled to a fee for each case, varying from 10s. to £1, according as the guardians may agree with the officer. If the case be that of an out-door pauper, he will be entitled to the sum of £2, if great difficulty have occurred in the delivery, or long subsequent attendance in respect of some puerperal malady or affection have been requisite. Unless the period for which a medical officer is appointed is entered on the minutes of the guardians at the time of making the appointment, or be acknowledged in writing, the medical officer is to continue in office until he may die, or resign, or become legally disqualified to hold the office, or be removed by the poor law board. The following are the general duties of a medical officer, whether acting for a district or a workhouse only. No. 1. To give to the guardians, when required, any reasonable information respecting the case of any pauper who is or has been under his care; to make any such written report relative to any sickness prevalent among the paupers under his care, as the guardians or the commissioners may require of him; and to attend any meeting of the board of guardians when requested by them to do so. No. 2. To give a certificate respecting children whom it is proposed to apprentice. No. 3. To give a certificate under his hand, in every case, to the guardians, or the relieving officer, or the pauper on whom he is attending, of the sickness of such pauper or other cause of his attendance, when required to do so. No. 4. In keeping the prescribed books, to employ, so far as is practicable, the terms used or recommended in the regulations and statistical nosology issued by the registrar-general; and also to show when the visit or attendance made or given to any pauper was made or given by any person employed by himself. It forms no part of the duty of a medical officer to attend before justices to prove the sickness or disability of a pauper-if his attendance be required he must be summoned or subpoenaed to attend, in the same way as any other witness whose evidence is necessary, and he will be entitled to be recompensed accordingly for his attendance. III.-DISTRICT MEDICAL OFFICER. The following are the duties of a district medical officer:No. 1. To attend duly and punctually upon all poor persons requiring medical attendance within the district of the union assigned to him, and according to his agreement, to supply the requisite medicines to such persons, whenever he may be lawfully required to furnish such attendance or medicines by a written or printed order of the guardians, or of a relieving officer of the union or of an overseer. No. 2. On the exhibition to him of a ticket, and on application made on behalf of the party to whom such ticket was given, to afford such medical attendance and medicines as he would be bound to supply if he had received in each case an order from the guardians to afford such attendance and medicines. No. 3. To inform the relieving officer of any poor person whom he may attend without an order. No. 4. To make a return to the guardians at each ordinary meeting, in a book prepared for the purpose, and to insert therein the date of every attendance, and the other particulars required by such form. Provided, however, that the medical officer may, with the consent of the guardians, but not otherwise, make the entries which he is directed to make in such book on detached sheets of paper, according to the same form, and cause the same to be laid before the guardians at every ordinary meeting, instead of such book; and the guardians shall, in that case, cause such sheets to be bound up at the end of the year. The medical officer is bound, if a domiciliary visit be necessary, to visit his patients at their own homes; and if serious inconvenience is likely to be caused to any pauper by coming to the medical officer, the visits should be so made. It does not follow, however, that the medical officer is to visit every sick pauper, when the pauper can himself, without injury or danger to his health, attend at the medical officer's surgery:-but if the medical officer refuses or neglects to visit, he must be prepared to show that he was justified in the particular case. In cases of midwifery, the medical officer is not permitted to employ a midwife as his substitute. If a midwife be employed, she must be employed, and paid, by the guardians, and not by the medical officer. Of course, the person employed by the guardians should be approved of by the medical officer. It is immaterial whether the poor person is in the receipt of other relief when a medical order is given; the fact of the party applying for such order and of its being granted constitutes him de facto a pauper; and the medical officer is bound to attend. If he conceives that the party is able to procure medical aid in his illness from his own resources, he should, nevertheless, continue his attendance till the next meeting of the guardians, to whom he should report the circumstance, and take their further directions upon the case. The obligation upon those who have the administration of relief to supply necessary medical assistance to a person labouring under dangerous illness, though such person may not have received, or have stood in need of, relief previous to his illness, is established by the decision in R. v. Warren, Russ. & R. Crown Cases, 48. It may also be observed, that a medical officer is bound to attend members of sick clubs, if he receives a regular order from a relieving officer, or an overseer, or from the board of guardians. It is also the duty of the medical officer to supply the me dicines which he prescribes, in such a state that they admit of being conveyed to his pauper patients. If the medicine is fluid, he must supply a bottle or some other vessel; if solid, a box, &c. He may, however, require the paupers to preserve and to return them when done with, Medical officers are not bound by any regulation in this order to forward, or to cause to be forwarded, to the residences of the sick paupers, the medicines which they may prescribe. If the paupers are able to go themselves for the medicines, or if they can send any member of their family or any other person, they may reasonably be expected to do so. In general, the medical officers cooperate in forwarding the medicines, so far as the means of sending medicine in their general practice may be available, without incurring additional expense. But if the paupers themselves are |
