Poorhouses in Scotland in reference to a proposal to establish one in Berwickshire : third letter, with memorandum and appendix / by David Milne Home.

Date:
1868
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Poorhouses in Scotland in reference to a proposal to establish one in Berwickshire : third letter, with memorandum and appendix / by David Milne Home. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    {Memorandum made out for the information of in Coldstream.) A Poorlioiise must be constructed and must be managed according to rules and conditions fixed by the Board of Super- vision. The Poor-Law Act—viz., 8th and 9th Vict. c. 83—passed in the year 1845, provides in its 63d section, that no Poorhouse shall be built, or be assessed for, unless the plans have been first approved of hj the Board; and in section C4 it is declared tliat the rules and regulations for the management of such Poorhouses, and for the discipline and treatment of the in- mates thereof, shall he such as shall have been approved by the Board of Supervision. It is only when a Poorhouse has been so constructed, and is so managed, that an offer of admission to it constitutes in law an offer of adequate relief. The Board of Supervision has framed and published the rules by which Poorhouses must be managed. The Inspec- tor of the parish will show to you a copy of these rules. The rules, as any one who reads them will see, are of such a nature as to make abode in a Poorhouse unpalatable and repulsive; and very properly so, because the institution was originally intended only for those who are not fit objects of paro- chial relief (Board of Supervision Circular of 1850). It is quite right that such persons, ivhen it has been ascertained that they belong to this class, should be subjected to penal treat- ment. In a Poorhouse they receive it, and it is effected by means of limited diet, exclusion of visitors, confinement within the walls, prohibition of smoking, wearing of the pauper's dress, cells for solitary confinement, &c. The Poorhouses which the Board of Supervision authorise are, not only as regards management and treatment of the in- mates, but also as regards construction and arrangement, similar to prisons. The one lately erected at Linton, in Had-
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