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rate is not above, indeed is rather below, that of persons of a
similar class occupying better houses in other and more densely
populated parts of the district.
I have attended several meetings, and also formed part of a
deputation to Mr. Sclater-Booth on the subject of providing
hospital accommodation for non-pauper cases. This question
hinges to a great extent on the definition of a pauper, but partly
also on the manner in which the Acts of Parliament are to be
carried out. I stated my opinion, with which Mr. Sclater-Booth
concurred, that any person being sick with a dangerous infectious
disorder, and not having a residence of his or her own, or the
means of procuring one, and not having the means of providing
proper medical attendance, necessaries and nursing, is a pauper,
and should be removed to a hospital belonging to the Metropolitan
Asylums Board; that, on the contrary, a person having a
house and the money necessary to provide medical attendance,
medicines, food and nursing, is not a pauper, so that if it were
necessary to isolate such a person he or she should, according to
the Act, be removed by the Sanitary Authority. This definition
of a pauper has been acted upon at all times by the Guardians
for this district, otherwise we should have suffered much more
severely from small-pox than we have done, and it is therefore
an error to say, as the managers of the Asylums Board have
done, that nearly 90 per cent. of the persons treated in their
hospitals were non-paupers. My own opinion is, as I have often
stated, that the removal should in all cases be effected through
the Relieving Officer, and on the certificate of any duly qualified
medical practitioner, and that if it were deemed right to charge
the Sanitary Authority with the cost, they should defray it and
recover the amount from the person removed, or by the Guardians,
who can sue non-paupers for the costs and expenses incurred in their
removal and treatment. Of course this would be claimed only in
cases where the persons so removed could have paid for all necessaries,
including nursing and medical attendance, which would be
very few. My chief reason for this opinion is that much time