cular class of the community who have hitherto been the most miserable and degraded portion-adverting also to the general disposition which we find (with a few rare exceptions) in all classes to co-operate with us in this good work, and to the various other circumstances which, at the present time, are peculiarly favourable to measures of this nature-we think ourselves called upon to apply ourselves without delay to this portion of our functions, and we do so with the most cheering anticipation of a successful result. We trust that your Lordship will not consider that we have laid before you too highly-coloured a picture of the favourable moral effects which have already resulted from the Poor Law Amendment Act, or that we have taken too sanguine a view of the ulterior consequences of this important measure. We can assure your Lordship that it has been the contemplation of these results, and the hope of these consequences, which have mainly enabled us to sustain the continuous labour and anxiety of the last four years, and to bear patiently the charges made against the law and its administration, and those attacks on the principles and details of our proceedings which have been so pertinaciously forced upon the public attention, and which have occasionally, but we rejoice to say rarely, been countenanced by some persons from whom (considering their character and position in the country) we might reasonably have expected aid, and not obstruction, in the performance of our duties. We believe, however, that such obstacles to our progress will gradually disappear; and we are the more inclined to indulge this hope from perceiving that, whilst many excellent persons, and especially of the clergy, who originally were indisposed to the measure, have arrived at a conviction of its salutary results, there have been no recruits amongst the ranks of those who have been opposed to its provisions. We have moreover derived great additional encourgement from the recent proceedings in both Houses of Parliament in reference to the introduction of poor-laws into Ireland; for, although we look forward with some anxiety to the new powers and duties about to be created by the Irish Poor Law Act, we cannot but be sensible that these powers and duties would not have been intrusted to us, had the general course of our proceedings been such as to render us unworthy of the confidence of her Majesty's Government or the legislature. (L. s.) We have the honour to be, Your Lordship's obedient and faithful servants, 93 APPENDIX. APPENDIX (A). DOCUMENTS ISSUED BY THE BOARD. No. I. COPY of the REPORT of the POOR LAW COMMISSIONERS relative to certain Charges which have been disallowed by the Auditors of Unions in England and Wales. REPORT On the Necessity of introducing a Bill into Parliament "for the purpose of making Parish Rates (or County Rates, as may be thought most advisable) liable to certain Expenses of Constables and others in the discharge of their Duty." To the Right Honourable Lord John Russell, &c. &c. Poor Law Commission Office, Somerset House, My Lord, 14th May, 1838. In answer to the communication from Mr. S. M. Phillipps, of the date of the 18th ultimo, wherein he informed us that "your Lordship considers it necessary that a bill should be introduced for the purpose of making parish-rates (or county-rates, as may be thought most advisable) liable to certain necessary expenses of constables and others in the discharge of their duty, the payments for which have been disallowed by the auditors," and that you desired our opinion thereon, we have now the honour to report as follows: The legal principles on which it was necessary to act in the audit of the accounts of the expenditure from the poor-rates are thus stated in our instructional circulars : "Your attention will next be required to your duties in the expenditure of the rates and other money's so collected; and herein you must bear in mind that usage is of no legal authority in the construction of the statue of Elizabeth, by which the poor-rates are established. The law has not given to the parish officers, or even to the vestry, any power of charging or of taxing their fellow-parishioners, even for useful purposes, at their own mere discretion; and no charge upon the poor-rates is legal unless it is, in plain words, sanctioned or directed by some statute. "In no case, however, except in relief of destitution, will it be safe to make any payments out of the poor-rates, unless sanctioned by the express direction of some statute. In doubtful cases, therefore, the proper inquiry will always be,-Under what statue, or by what regulation, is the proposed charge warranted? And unless the authority can be found in the words of the statue, or in some lawful order or regulation of the Poor Law Commissioners, it must be presumed that the charge would be illegal. "By the 50th Geo. III., c. 49, s. 1, the justices (and, by the Poor Law Amendment Act, auditors) are authorised to strike out of the overseers' accounts all such charges and payments as they shall deem to be unfounded, and to reduce such as they shall deem to be exorbitant, specifying, on the foot of such account, every such charge or payment and its amount, so far as such justices shall disallow or reduce the same, and the cause for which the same was disallowed or reduced. "With relation to the unfounded charges, the primary general rule has already been stated-namely, that all charges on the poor-rates are unfounded which are not authorised by some statute." In another portion of the instructions to overseers, we stated that"Either from ignorance or neglect, many illegal practices have crept into the administration of relief, which, from their notoriety and general prevalence, have been supposed to be legal, and have frequently been continued in perfect confidence of their correctness. The Commissioners are aware that many of the charges thus illegally defrayed out of the poor-rates were incurred for useful public purposes; but all such illegal charges they are bound to disallow, and they have accordingly issued directions to the auditors to disallow them in the quarterly audit of the accounts. The Commissioners have directed the following instructions to be issued, to prevent you from incurring such charges unwittingly, and to save you from the consequences of their disallowance." Amongst the charges which have been unavoidably disallowed are many which increasing experience proves it necessary to submit for the sanction of the Legislature for their allowance. The chief charges which we feel it our duty to recommend for allowance are 1. Those charges found necessary for the prevention of burthens upon the rates, occasioned by the desertion of children by their parents, or by the refusal of natural relations to contribute their proper charges; and those charges caused by nuisances by which contagion is occasionally generated, and persons reduced to destitution. 2. Those charges necessary for the protection of parish property from injury and destruction. 3. Those charges found necessary for the protection of officers engaged in the administration of the law. To these may be added miscellaneous charges for useful purposes, the pecuniary burden of which, as in nearly all the instances referred to, is inconsiderable, whilst the inconvenience to the public and consequent discontent at the unavoidable disallowance is great and extensive. The most prominent and pressing of the first class of charges for which some provision appears to be required, are for the means of averting the charges on the poor-rates which are caused by nuisances by which contagion is generated and persons are reduced to destitution. In general, all epidemics and all infectious diseases are attended with charges, immediate and ultimate, on the poor-rates. Labourers are suddenly thrown, by infectious disease, into a state of destitution, for which immediate relief must be given. In the case of death, the widow and the children are thrown as paupers on the parish. The amount of burdens thus produced is frequently so great as to render it good economy on the part of the administrators of the poor-laws to incur the charges for preventing the evils, where they are ascribable to physical causes, which there are no other means of removing. The more frequent course has been, where the causes of disease are nuisances, for the parish officers to indict the parties for nuisance, and to defray the expenses from the poor-rates. During the last two years the public has suffered severely from epidemics. At the present time fever prevails to an unusually alarming extent in the metropolis, and the pressure of the claims for relief in the rural Unions, on the ground of destitution caused by sickness, have recently been extremely severe; but, in the course of the investigations into the causes of destitution and the condition of the pauperized classes, carried on under the operation of the new law, and especially in the course of the investigations of the claims for relief arising from the prevalent sickness, extensive and constantly-acting physical causes of sickness and destitution have been disclosed and rendered fearfully manifest. With reference to the claims for relief on the ground of sickness, in the metropolis, we have directed special inquiries to be made of the medical officers of the new Unions. We have also directed local examinations to be made, in parts of the metropolis where fever was stated to be the most prevalent, by Dr. Arnott, by Dr. Southwood Smith (the chief physician of the London Fever Hospital), and by Dr. Kay, our Assistant Commissioner. The more important communications of the medical officers are comprehended in the medical report prepared by Dr. Kay, with the concurrence of Dr. Arnott. We have given their opinions in a Supplement to this Report,* and also the report made to us by Dr. Southwood Smith, on the sanatory condition of the district comprehended by Bethnal Green and Whitechapel. From this last report we select the following instances of the condition in which several neighbourhoods, densely populated by the labouring classes, have been found: "Lamb's Fields.-An open area, of about 700 feet in length and 300 feet in breadth. Of this space about 300 feet are constantly covered by stagnant water in winter and summer. In the part thus submerged there is always a quantity of putrefying animal and vegetable matter, the odour of which, at the present moment, is most offensive. An open filthy ditch encircles this place, which, at the western extremity, is from 8 to 10 feet wide. Into this part of the ditch the privies of all the houses of a street called North-street open: these privies are completely uncovered, and the soil from them is allowed to accumulate in the open ditch. Nothing can be conceived more disgusting than the appearance of this ditch for an extent of from 300 feet to 400 feet, and the odour of the effluvia from it is at this moment most offensive.. "Lamb's Fields is the fruitful source of fever to the houses which immediately surround it, and to the. small streets which branch off from it. Particular houses were pointed out to me, from which entire families have been swept away; and from several of the streets fever is never absent. In several houses in Collingwood-street, fever of the most severe and fatal character has been raging for several months. Part of the street called Duke-street is often completely under water: this street consists of about 40 houses; in 12 of them all the members of the families residing in them have been attacked with fever, one after another, and many have died. 66 Virginia-row. In the centre of this street there is a gutter, into which potato-parings, the refuse of vegetable and animal matter of all kinds, the dirty water from the washing of clothes and of the houses, are all poured, and there they stagnate and putrefy. In a direct line from Virginia-row to Shoreditch, a mile in extent, all the lanes, courts, and alleys in the neighbourhood pour their contents into the centre of the main street, where they stagnate and putrefy. Families live in the cellars and kitchens of these undrained houses, dark and extremely damp. In some or other of these houses fever is always prevalent. My assistance here,' said the * Suppt., No. 1, p. 103. Suppt., Nos, 2 and 3., pp. 129, 139, |