Reports on the sanitary state of the labouring classes : as affected chiefly by the situation and construction of their dwellings, in and about the metropolis ; extracted from the fourth and fifth annual reports of the Poor Law Commissioners.

Date:
1840
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Reports on the sanitary state of the labouring classes : as affected chiefly by the situation and construction of their dwellings, in and about the metropolis ; extracted from the fourth and fifth annual reports of the Poor Law Commissioners. 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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    been supposed to be legal, and liave frequently been continued in perfect co fidence of their correctness. The Commissioners are aware that many of t] charges thus illegally defrayed out of the poor-rates were incurred lor usel public purposes; but all such illegal charges they are bound to disallow, ai they have accordingly issued directions to the auditors to disallow them in t quarterly audit of the accounts. The Commissioners have directed the followii instructions to be issued,'to prevent you from incurring such charges unwitting and to save you from the consequences of their disallowance. Amongst the charges which have been unavoidably disallowed are many whi increasing experience proves it necessary to submit for the sanction ol the Lei; lature for their allowance. The chief charges which we feel it our duty to reco mend for allowance are— 1. Those charges found necessary for the prevention of burthens upon t rates, occasioned by the desertion of children by their parents, or by the refu of natural relations to contribute their proper charges ; and those charges caus by nuisances, by which contagion is occasionally generated and persons redu< to destitution. _ . . 2. Those charges necessary for the protection of parish property from injury t destruction. , . . 3. Those charges found necessary for the protection of officers engaged m i administration of the law. To these may be added miscellaneous charges for useful purposes, the pe niary burden of which, as in nearly all the instances referred to, is mconsiderat whilst the inconvenience to the public and consequent discontent at the unavt able disallowance is great and extensive. 1 The most prominent and pressing of the first class of charges for which sg provision appears to be required, are for the means of averting the charges the poor-rates which are caused by nuisances, by which contagion is genera and persons are reduced to destitution. . , , In general, all epidemics and all infectious diseases are attended with char) immediate and ultimate, on the poor-rates. Labourers are suddenly thrown, infectious disease, into a state of destitution, for which immediate relief musl given. In the case of death, the widow and the children are thrown as pauj on the parish. The amount of burdens thus produced is frequently so gieat a render it good economy on the part of the administrators of the poor-laws incur the charges for preventing the evils, where they are ascribable to ph\s causes, which there are no other means of removing. The more freffue^ C01 has been, where the causes of disease are nuisances, for the parish-officers indict the parties for nuisance, and to defray the expenses from the P00r'rat®** During the last two years the public has suffered severely from epirteir At the present time fever prevails to an unusually alarming extent in tie me polis, and the pressure of the claims for relief in the rural Unions, on the gro of destitution caused by sickness, have recently been extremely severe, bu the course of the investigations into the causes of destitution and le co of the pauperized classes, carried on under the operation ot the new a > especially in the course of the investigations of the claims for relie aiisnia the prevalent sickness, extensive and constantly acting physical causes „ ness and destitution have been disclosed and rendered fearfully man ires . reference to the claims for relief on the ground of sickness, in the me ropo . have directed special inquiries to be made of the medical officers o , Unions. We have also directed local examinations to be made, m parts .oi metropolis where fever was stated to be the most prevalent, by 1 r. Am Dr. Southwood Smith (the chief physician of the London Fever Hospital),^ bv Dr. Kav, our Assistant Commissioner. The more important oomnnn of'the medical officers are comprehended in the medical report pi-cparof Kay, with the concurrence of Dr. Arnott. We have given theirD°Pg tllV Supplement to this Report;* and also the report made to us by 1 • Smith,•!• on the sanitary condition of the district insWi Green and Whitechapel. From this last report we select ti e ”d by of the condition in which several neighbourhoods, densely p 1 t, labouring classes, have been found : * Suppt., No. 1, p. 11. Suppt., Nos. 2 and 3, PP. 31, 38..