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were disinfected and instructions had also been given that 110 further
discharges should take place without leave.
A complete list of the boys and girls who left the Home since the
case of presumed chickenpox on the 4th of the month, was obtained on
the morning of the 15th, but this list gave us no idea of the destination of
the boys or girls beyond the number of the police constable in whose
charge they left the Home. (The boy Gooch left the Home on the 14th,
before the notification of smallpox had been received at the Town Hall.)
On the same day that this list was received from the Home,
namely, the 15th, a clerk from this office attended at the offices of the
Metropolitan Asylums Board to see if any information of the whereabouts
of the boys could be obtained. Getting none there he went to Scotland
Yard Police Offices, but could get no information there whatever—except
that at the offices of the Industrial Schools in Great Scotland Yard they
might be able to help; on applying at this address we were supplied with
the destination of three boys (one of these was that of a boy we were
informed went to St. Vincent Training Ship) and on that day a letter was
sent to the Superintendent stating that two boys from Mawby Buildings,
Borough, had been admitted to his ship. For the remaining cases we
were, referred to the various police courts, and it being then too late to
apply at the police offices this had to be delayed until the next morning.
On the 16th consequently a visit was made to the Lambeth and
Southwark Polic0 Courts, and as a consequence a letter was sent to the
St. Vincent's Reformatory School, as we feared that the letter sent the
previous day to the St. Vincent's Training Ship would miscarry. Letters
were also sent to wherever the boys or girls could be traced. A visit was
also made on the 16th to Westminster Police Court, but as it was then
late in the day and the chief clerk was not there, a letter was sent in the
evening to this Court asking for information, and a reply was received the
next morning, by telegram, which notified us of a boy who had been sent
to the Redhill Reformatory, where we at once wrote. Inquiries were also
made by letter at the Greenwich, Woolwich, Wandsworth and Thames
Police Courts, and all information obtained from these sources was at
once sent by letter to the schools concerned.
First, as regards the complaint signed "T. D. Robertson," in
which he states that the schools were not warned until the 16th and then
by letter instead of telegram, I have to say that we were not able to obtain
the list from the Remand Home till April 15th, and had we been able to
get on that day the information at the Industrial Schools Offices that we
afterwards had to find out for ourselves at the various police courts to
which the constables had taken the boys and girls from the Remand
Home, we should have been in a position to have advised the schools
concerned on the 15th.
With regard to the actual case at the St. Vincent Industrial
School, Dartford, it must be obvious that no action on our part would
have prevented that, for I note from a letter from that institution that
the boy was admitted on the 8th, i.e., when he was incubating the disease;
while with regard to the wrong school being notified I can only say that it
was the address given to us.