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10
In these duties I have been ably assisted by the Inspectors, to
whom I tender my thanks.
Another reform much needed is a comprehensive system of
removal to Hospital of cases suffering from dangerous infectious
diseases. At the present time the Hospitals of the Metropolitan
Asylums District Board are supposed to be only for the reception
of tho destitute, leaving for the accommodation of the general
public the London Fever Hospital, and the Smallpox Hospital, at
Highgate. Up to the end of the year I found no difficulty in
getting patients of the non-destitute class, which your Board was
called upon to deal with into one or other of these Hospitals,
on payment of the usual fees, except in cases of Smallpox occuring
in Children under seven years of age, which are inadmissable
at Highgate. In a District like that under your Sanitary jurisdiction,
where the working classes form a very considerable portion
of the population, it is not always easy to state which is a destitute
case, and which is not. Many cases occur on the border-ground
between absolute destitution and, what I may term, respectable
pauperism. Dr. Johnson, the lexicographer, defines "A pauper" to
bo "a poor person," and that has always appeared to me to be the
proper definition. Many of the cases that came under my notice
were unmistakeably those of destitute persons, and were dealt with
by the Guardians, while many more occurred on the debateable
ground; these I invariably referred to the Guardians with instructions
to the Sanitary Officers—that if the Guardians' Officers could