View report page

11
had been raised some months previously in a correspondence between
the Clerk to the Guardians and myself, which was submitted
to your Vestry in my report (No. 12, 1876) dated 28th
November. In August, 1876, the Guardians having acceded to
our request for their active co-operation, informed the Local
Government Board that they had instructed their Relieving Officers
"to furnish orders for the admission into Poor Law hospitals of
any persons whom the sanitary authorities recommend for removal
and admission there,"* and they desired the opinion of the
Board on the legality of the course they had adopted. The Board
in their reply dated 6th September, directed the attention of the
Guardians to section 42 of the "Poor Law Amendment Act,
1876,"† "under which" the Board stated that, "the class of cases
referred to by the Guardians," (i.e., poor persons not being
paupers), "is provided for;" and "the Guardians therefore need
not intervene in the matter."
Any hope we might have entertained that the power we had so
long sought of being able to send our poor (non-pauper) sick to the
hospitals under the misty and vacillating section of the Act referred
to by the Board, and which has never yet been put into operation,
was quickly dispelled by the publication of a circular letter from
the Clerk to the Managers of the Asylums Board, addressed to
the Clerks of Boards of Guardians as follows:—
"The Metropolitan Asylum Board,
37, Norfolk Street, Strand, London,
Dear Sir, October 24th, 1876.
The attention of the managers having been drawn to the Divided Parishes
and the Poor Law Amendment Act, 1876, and some misapprehension appearing to
have arisen in reference to the meaning of section 42, I am directed to remind you
that the hospitals of the Managers are intended for the reception only of paupers
chargeable to the parishes and unions in the Metropolis. I am directed at the
same time to state that the medical superintendents of the hospitals would only be
justified in admitting any person not a pauper, if they should be satisfied that a
refusal to admit such person might be attended with dangerous results.
I am, dear Sir,
Yours faithfully,
W. F. JEBB, Clerk."
* Letter from the Clerk to the Guardians to the Local Government Board, 12th
August, 1876.
† The section reads as follows:—"If the Managers of a district constituted under
the provisions of the Metropolitan Poor Acts shall have admitted any sick person
into their asylum not being a pauper, but under circumstances of urgency, they shall
have and may exercise the like powers over such person, and shall have the like
remedies for the recovery of all reasonable charges incurred on behalf of any such
person as are conferred by the Poor Law Acts upon Guardians over paupers, and for
the recovery of relief given or deemed to be given by way of loan to such pauper.
''But the said powers and remedies shall not be exercised or put in force by the
Managers until they shall have been authorised to do so by the Local Government
Board, and shall be exercised subject to any restriction which may be imposed from
time to time by the Board.
"Provided also, that no sum shall be recoverable by Managers under the provisions
of this Act in respect of any expenses incurred by them other than those which shall
be the subject of a separate charge in respect of an inmate to any union or parish
in the district,"