View report page

30
below, so that this long-contested case is now in the same
position as when the proceedings were first instituted by "Hill and
Others" in 1876, there being, as I understand, nothing to prevent
the Managers from using the Hospital for the reception of the
sick excepting, happily, at the present time, the absence of any
necessity for their so doing. It is improbable that the Plaintiffs
will renew the litigation which has already involved them in such
heavy costs, and we may be permitted to hope that the forthcoming
Report of the Royal Commission on Infectious Disease
Hospitals will lead to legislation which shall have the effect of
settling the whole question on a satisfactory basis.
LOCAL OR DISTRICT HOSPITAL ACCOMMODATION.
In my last Annual Report I referred to the action of the
Fulham District Board of Works, in providing a tent hospital
on the north bank of the Thames in what seemed a perfectly
unobjectionable site. The Board having been compelled to close
this hospital, they made preparations to establish a tent hospital
on Little Wormwood Scrubbs, near the Latimer Road Station.
Here again they were met with opposition and legal proceedings, so
that the plan proved abortive.
I also referred to the action of the Vestries of St. Pancras
and Islington, both these bodies having established tent hospitals
at Finchley. Legal proceedings were threatened but not commenced,
and a few patients were treated in both hospitals,
thus relieving to a certain extent the pressure of the space at the
Managers' disposal, but at an inordinate expense to the local
authorities, many thousands of pounds having been disbursed.
The intention of the Kensington Guardians to provide a few
beds in their temporary iron hospital at Mary Place Potteries, in
obedience to the mandate of the Local Government Board, was
frustrated by the opposition of a Committee of Ratepayers, an
injunction having been obtained restraining the Guardians from
giving effect to their intention. By a curious coincidence, just at
the time when the Guardians proposed to open the hospital for the
reception of patients, there occurred in its immediate vicinity and
within a short period of time, some twelve cases of small-pox.