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84
Managers for powers to acquire additional land adjoining the
Western Hospital at Fulham, to which the Local Government
Board have given scant attention. The Board do not appear to
have taken any action on the general question.
(7.) Ghargeability of Patients admitted from the Tower of
London.—This subject does not call for remark here.
(8.) Contracts with Sanitary Authorities for the Reception and
Maintenance in Hospitals of Non-Paupers, under Section 15 of the
Poor Law Act, 1879.—Many of the Sanitary Authorities, following
the lead of your Vestry, as previously explained (page 73),
declined to enter into contracts with the Managers, for reasons
which I stated in my Annual Report for 1884, the principal one
being that it was desirable, in the public interest, to throw the
entire cost of the hospitals upon a Common Sanitary Fund,
making it, in fact, a Metropolitan charge. The Managers forwarded
to the Local Government Board in October, 1886, a
synopsis of the replies that had been received to the communication
addressed by them to the several Sanitary Authorities. The
Managers were unable to See that they could "take any further
action in the matter, unless and until the Local Government
Board should see fit to obtain from Parliament such additional
powers as will render compulsory instead of optional the conditions
of the section in question." The Local Government Board
have not taken any further action in the matter up to the
present time, and it is to be hoped that no action may be taken,
excepting for the purpose of giving effect to the views of which
your Vestry have been the exponents, as set out in my monthly
and annual reports.
A RETROSPECT.
"Reform" of Local Government, as carried out by the
Vestries and District Boards, being to all appearance near at
hand, it will not be out of place to review, in a very few