View report page

67
That unfortunately through the employment of any one who applied, young men who had
never earned a guinea a week in their lives before, had been selling the food they received in
the streets at half price, but this would be altered now, as from 6 to 8 Inquiry Officers and
9 Overseers had been appointed. That this meant a great expense, and an increase of from
l0d. to 1s. in the pound on the poor rate, and also pauperised the men and deprived them
of their votes for the next two years.
That on Monday 7 Eotherhithe men applied, on Tuesday 133, on Wednesday 30, on
Thursday 55, on Friday G3, on Saturday 103, on Monday 268, and on that day no less than
350. He therefore urged the Yestry to do all they could to give work to these men and take
them off the Union.
The Chairman, in reply, stated that the Vestry were quite in sympathy with the
unemployed movement, and informed the Deputation that a register had already been
opened at the Stone Yard, and the Surveyor instructed to employ casual men on the roads
as much as possible.
The Vestry ultimately instructed the Clerk to call an Emergency Meeting of the General
Purposes and Works Committee, for Thursday, 17th January, 1895, at 11 a.m., to consider
as to what steps could be taken with reference to the unemployed in the Parish, with power
to act in the matter.
The Committee met and carefully went into the matter ; they found that the total number
of names upon the register opened by the Surveyor was 277, and that a day's work had up till
then been given to 189 men, and that preference had and would be given to married men with
families, also that there were 14 men working on the sewer in Albion Street, that the Town Hall
building operations would not afford any immediate relief, as there were still certain formalities
to be gone through before the work could be commenced; that before the old Mortuary could
be pulled down, provision would have to be made for temporary Mortuary accommodation,
and with the view of starting that work at once the Committee made application to the
Guardians of the St. Olave's Union for the temporary use of their Mortuary at the
Infirmary in the Lower Eoad, and inspected the same, but elicited from them that the
Mortuary in question was not large enough to afford adequate accommodation for the