Chapter I: The Strand (2)

About two years after Mr. Catch's departure, I was surprised by a visit from the medical officer of the Newington Workhouse. He told me that he had called to ask me whether I could advise him what he was to do; that Catch obstructed him in his duty, swore at him, and refused to obey his orders. I told him to go down to the Poor Law Board, but that they might or might not assist him. Unfortunately, at that time, Mr. Farnall was away in Manchester, superintending the special relief arrangements in Lancashire with regard to the Cotton Famine, and there was no one at the Board who could or would advise him. He called on me on several occasions subsequently to tell me of the misery he daily underwent. On one occasion I told him to write down in a journal all instances of obstruction, and if possible get every case verified by a witness. Sooner or later you will catch him, I said. He followed my advice. One day he came to me and told me he thought he had got together sufficient evidence, and should now ask for an official inquiry. Mr. Farnall, one of the most honourable Poor Law Inspectors the Board ever had, had just then come back to town. I got some influence to bear on the Board, and an inquiry was granted. It lasted some time, and Mr. Simmonds proved the obstruction, &c., so completely, that on the last day, and when it was evident how the case would go, Catch followed the doctor and paid nurse out of the Board-room. They stopped in one of the day wards to discuss the case and its probable results, when Catch went to his office and wrote in his journal that he had surprised the pair holding improper relations. This charge coming to the knowledge of the nurse, who was a respectable young woman, she went at once to the physician accoucheur of Guy's Hospital and requested that he would examine her. This he did, when he gave her a certificate that Catch's allegation was untrue. A special meeting of the Board having been called to investigate this charge, it was made absolutely clear that Catch had hatched this foul accusation. The Board immediately suspended him. The circumstances were reported to the Poor Law Board, who called on him to resign. It will hardly be believed that after this, Catch, mainly through the influence of his friends at the Strand Board and the aid of the clerk, got appointed to the Lambeth Workhouse, where for some time he tyrannized over the subordinate officers and inmates, until at last, his cup being full, he lost that appointment also. Hereafter I will give the particulars of this episode, and of the notable trial in the Court of Queen's Bench, where he attempted to clear his character and to get reinstated.

For five or six years after the departure of Mr. Catch my life was a fairly pleasant one. There was no obstruction from the master or the matron, and as there was nothing to ask of the Board things went on quietly, and therefore the daily duty ceased to be onerous added to which I had several pupils whose instruction in the wards was to me a very agreeable pastime. Here let me remark how melancholy it is that the vast field for clinical observation and study which the sick, nursery, and lying-in wards of large urban workhouses afford, should be utterly thrown away. There are certain diseases which can hardly be seen anywhere else, such as of those of young children and of aged persons, and yet they are completely ignored.

I have said that for a time everything went on peacefully, but a rude awakening was in store, for about the years 1862-1865, in consequence of widespread distress in the metropolis, persons were admitted beyond the capacity of the House to hold them. This necessitated a representation to the Board, and, as a consequence, a revival of the antagonism from the so-called economical members of the Board, who charged me with being too squeamish, and with having brought the influx on myself by being too indulgent to the sick. The hostility went so far with one Guardian who considered me so very troublesome that he put a notice on the agenda to reduce my salary. This was renewed by him from time to time, indeed, whenever I made a representation to the Board on this subject.

That there was abundant cause for such representations will be understood when it is stated that, in consequence of the overcrowding and the heated and vitiated atmosphere caused thereby, cases of fever induced therefrom were constantly cropping up, and it was one of my perplexities how to deal with them. In those days there were no such facilities as now exist for sending fever cases away to separate asylums, and we had to do the best we could.

Having, in 1863, had a succession of boys affected with fever sent in from St. Anne's, Soho, I inquired of the relieving officer from where they came, whereupon he informed me that a Mr. Williams, a clergyman in Porter Street, Soho, had opened a home for friendless boys. On interviewing this clergyman, I told him that I had called to protest against his sending these fever cases to the Workhouse, there being no room for them. He replied by asking me what he was to do with them, as at that time he had some four or five boys down with fever; and then he took me into an old, disused slaughter-house, where, on some straw, I saw these lads lying ill. Before leaving him I arranged that he should go over the House and see for himself that there were no vacant beds. On the morning appointed he came, bringing with him a person whom he represented to be his secretary, and who he asked to be allowed to take with him. No objection being made, he accompanied us. I was somewhat surprised at the bearing of this so-called secretary, and still more so at his conduct in the House, when we went through the wards. I thought he was a very intelligent gentleman, and wondered at him occupying the position of secretary to Mr. Williams, at say, L1 a week. I satisfied Mr. Williams that I could not continue to take in his numerous waifs and strays, and on leaving, his companion parted from me with many expressions of thanks for my courtesy in allowing him to accompany me. I had not the least idea who he was, or his name, but I felt pretty sure that he must be a gentleman. It transpired subsequently that he was no other than Mr. J. Alexander Shaw Stewart, and my chance acquaintance became in after years one of my kindest and truest friends. As a result of this interview with Mr. Williams a school was opened, called afterwards the Newport Market Refuge Industrial School, and for several years it was under my medical charge. During the years I was connected with that establishment I never had a case of fever of any kind, although the school was located in a densely crowded and repulsively degraded neighbourhood. It was a striking instance of what could be done in keeping schools free from epidemic disease, if only the persons having control of them adopt, and strictly carry out, judicious sanitary arrangements. During my period of office I made the acquaintance of the Duke of Westminster, Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone, the latter of whom was a frequent visitor there, as well as many ladies of rank, &c.

About this time there came an urgent request to go to the House. On my arrival I found a young German woman near her confinement who was in a state of great mental distress. On asking for an explanation, I was informed that the day before a gentlemanly-looking person had called at the house and asked to see the matron. To her he stated that he was a medical man, and had been commissioned by the friends of one of his patients to look out for some healthy young woman near her confinement who might be engaged as a wet nurse by a lady under his care. The master brought down to him this girl, when he instructed her to send her next day to his consulting-room, where the lady's friends might see her. She accordingly went. Shortly after her arrival there she rushed out of the house, stating that she had been insulted by the doctor. Police aid coming to her assistance, the doctor's residence was visited, with the result that he was taken into custody, and brought before the magistrate, who remanded him without bail for inquiries to be made. The publicity of the case led to the bringing of other charges of a similar character, and he was ultimately committed for trial. Having been called upon to attend the German girl, I was naturally called as a witness, and was subsequently subpoenaed to attend at the Old Bailey. I found four other young women there in a similar predicament, all in charge of a police constable, and for three days I spent my whole time in their company, for whenever I got up to walk anywhere the women and the constable got up also and followed me. The situation was suggestive, but by no means pleasant. On the Thursday morning I was informed by the prosecution that I might go away, as the prisoner, who turned out to be a man of good family and an officer in the army, had pleaded guilty to a common assault, &c., &c. As the girl's history was somewhat interesting I sent an account of it to _The Times_ newspaper. It was as follows: She had been living at Chicago with her two brothers, when they received a letter stating that their mother in Germany was very ill, and begged that her daughter would come home. She started immediately, but on arriving at her native town found that her mother was dead. She thereupon sold all the effects, and with upwards of L100 started back again for Chicago. She passed through London to Liverpool to take passage for New York, but the machinery of the steamer breaking down when two days out, the captain returned for repairs. She had made the acquaintance of a young Frenchman on board, who finding she had money, made love to her, and induced her to go back to London and become his wife. After living with her until all the money was gone, he deserted her, and being without friends, she had to come into the House. My letter appearing in _The Times_, some L45 was sent me, which sufficed to enable me to send her and her child to her brother in Chicago. I provided her with an outfit, and arranged with the captain of the steamer to take charge of her, and send one of his trustworthy officers to see her to the station in New York for Chicago, and parting with her to put into her hands the balance remaining. Some months afterwards I had a letter from the captain, stating that he had carried out my request, and had finally given her the L25 or thereabouts. There was every reason to believe that one of the subscribers was Her Majesty the Queen, though it was not so distinctly stated in a letter I received from a gentleman connected with the Court.

In the early part of 1865 the Guardians appointed a superintendent nurse. She was a young, and very respectable-looking woman. The Guardians had been moved to do this by the evidence of Miss Twining before the Select Committee, and by the general feeling excited by the revelations made in Gibson's case in St. Giles's, and that of Timothy Daley in the Holborn, Union. In the winter of 1863 and 1864, and again in 1864 and 1865, as also in 1865 and 1866 the admissions had been so many, and the crowding so great, as to tax the resources of the establishment to the utmost, notwithstanding that I had moved the sick ward to the top of the building, and gained additional cubic space by removing the ceiling and re-ceiling the rafters; but I could not by any contrivance increase the area. The beds therefore were placed so close together that the patients had to get out at the end of their beds, there being no possibility of getting out at the side. It was a task beyond this young woman's strength to effectually supervise the numerous patients, but she could check some of the graver abuses connected with pauper nursing. This she did to the best of her ability. In the same spring that she was appointed--that of 1865--the late Dr. Francis Anstie called on me. He said he was deputed by the late Dr. Wakley to call and state that he had decided to appoint a commission for the purpose of investigating the state of London workhouses, and he thought I could suggest the best course to follow to obtain admission to them. I told him I would introduce him to the Chairman of the Board, who alone had the power to grant permission to a stranger to enter the Workhouse, unless special application had been made to Board, and leave given. He called on the Chairman, who gave him a letter to the master, authorizing his admission. Before he left, I told Dr. Anstie that when he went over the House I would accompany him. Some short time after, he wrote, making an appointment. I showed him through the whole House, pointing out the defects and shortcomings, and told him of my continued efforts to get the place improved, and of the determined hostility of the majority of the Board to any efforts I had made. I also showed him a list of the fever cases I had attended, and how constantly fever was developed when the numbers increased and the overcrowding was greatest. Dr. Anstie took careful notes of what I showed him, as the sequel proved. Some month or so after, I had a note from him, asking me to look in that week's _Lancet_ for the report of his visit. I did so; when I found that he had exposed the rotten condition of things with marvellous clearness and fidelity, but as he had referred to me and my efforts to clear out this Augean stable, I was perfectly convinced that the least intelligent element of the Board would be incited by their clerk to charge me with having written the article in question. As I anticipated, this came to pass, for I heard that so it had been said at the Board meeting, and in consequence, a most insulting resolution was adopted, in which I was directly charged with trying to bring the Guardians--'who were my masters'--into contempt. So angry was their language and so bitter their hostility, that Dr. Anstie wrote to the Board, stating that he had been permitted by their Chairman to go over the House, and that the observations he had made were his own, and that I had not seen a line of his manuscript, or knew of his report, until it appeared in print; he further challenged the Board to show where, in his description, he had departed from the truth. The storm he had raised was, after a while, allayed. Dr. Anstie continued to visit other workhouses, the condition of which he similarly described. These reports, which appeared in _The Lancet_, were copied into, and commented upon, in sundry daily and weekly journals, and gradually produced a feeling of intense public indignation. Dr. Anstie had acted so generously towards me in screening me from the hostility of the worst elements of the Board, that I arranged a dinner-party, to meet and discuss workhouse abuses. Among the guests was Mr. John Storr, of King Street, Covent Garden, who was one of the wealthiest, as he was one of the most respectable, members of the Strand Board, and who, since his election two years before this, had proved to be my most able advocate and friend. When Dr. Anstie arrived, he brought with him Mr. Ernest Hart, whom he introduced as one of the staff of _The Lancet_, and as one interested in the question of workhouse administration. After dinner a discussion took place as regards the general condition of these establishments.

Ultimately it was arranged that a conference should be held at Mr. Storr's offices, King Street, Covent Garden, at a time hereafter to be named. Our dinner-party was held in December, 1865. In the early part of January, Dr. Anstie, Mr. Hart, and I, met by appointment at Mr. Storr's, when our discussion was resumed. At first it was proposed that we should call a public meeting and denounce the system, when I pointed out that if we only did that the agitation would soon come to an end, and therefore it would be better to form an Association for the purpose of more thoroughly enlightening the public. My suggestion was adopted. Mr. John Storr generously offered to put down L100 to float the Association. He also offered to become its treasurer, and to give us the free use of one of his offices, in which the meetings of the Association could be held. This meeting took place on a Thursday evening, and as _The Lancet_ came out next day, Mr. Hart left us and went down to _The Lancet_ office, to announce in the paper the formation of the society. At our meeting it was also arranged that we should respectively write to those we knew and ask them to join our Association. I wrote, among others, to Mr. Shaw Stewart, who at once joined us, and to Miss Twining, and to many other ladies and gentlemen who had been engaged in works of benevolence. The Association prospered beyond our wildest anticipations, and we were speedily joined by Earl Carnarvon, Earl Grosvenor, the Archbishop of York, &c.; whilst money came in freely. Shortly after the formation of the Association, of which, in conjunction with Dr. Anstie and Mr. Hart, I was one of the honorary secretaries; Mr. Farnall, the Metropolitan Poor Law Inspector, wrote to me, stating that he had been deputed by Mr. Charles P. Villiers, the President of the Poor Law Board, to offer his services in giving information to the youthful Association, and that he had written to me, as I was the only honorary secretary he knew. Mr. Farnall subsequently attended the meetings of the committee, and afforded us much valuable information. No use was ever made of Mr. John Storr's office, as all subsequent meetings of the Association were held in Mr. Hart's house, in Wimpole Street.

In the month of May, 1866, Miss Beaton, the superintendent nurse, informed me that she intended to resign her situation, and apply for another as a nurse at a general hospital; at the same time asking me whether I would give her a reference. Whilst expressing my regret that she was going, I readily promised to do all I could for her, and with that object gave her a letter of introduction to Dr. Anstie, assistant physician to the Westminster Hospital, and to Mr. Hart, who was then connected with St. Mary's Hospital. Dr. Anstie took her name and address, and promised to do what he could for her; Mr. Hart asked her to sit down, and proceeded to question her on the various matters connected with the Strand Workhouse I had mentioned at the committee meetings, &c. Ultimately he dismissed her, but not until he had a promise from her that she would write down all her experience of the wrong-doing she had witnessed at the Strand. She did this. On getting her manuscript statement he sent it to Earl Carnarvon, one of the committee, and asked him to apply to Mr. Villiers for an official inquiry. I had not the remotest knowledge that anything of the kind had been done, nor had my other colleague, Dr. Anstie. In the early part of June Mr. Hart told me that there was to be an official inquiry into the management and the condition of the Strand Workhouse, and that I should be called as a witness, but he did not tell me how it had been brought about. A few days after I received an official intimation that such inquiry would be held, and that my attendance would be required. I had hoped that the inquiry would be conducted by the Metropolitan Inspector, Mr. Farnall; but it was not so. Mr. Fleming sent another member of the staff. The inquiry was held, the first witness called being Miss Beaton. She astonished me by the extent and character of her revelations, of some part of which I was an eye-witness, and therefore knew to be true. Her examination lasted all day. Next morning, the evidence she had given appeared in all the papers, which commented thereon. On the second day I was called. On taking my seat Mr. Caine said, "Oh! we have met before;" I did not know where. I had not long been under examination before Dr. Anstie, who was in the room, came behind my chair, and said, "Take care how you answer questions; this inspector does not mean fairly by you; he is trying to put you in a false position." Forewarned by this, I simply answered his questions, and parried those which were irrelevant and misleading. The next day my evidence, in full appeared in every paper, and all the leading journals denounced the Board of Guardians for their management of the House. It was unfortunate that my Board should have been selected, inasmuch as nearly all the workhouses in the metropolis were in very much the same condition. After the close of the inquiry Mr. R. B. Caine returned to Whitehall, and made the remarkable statement in his official report that the condition of the House was due to my not having made proper representations to the Guardians. I subsequently heard that on his report being submitted to the President of the Board, it was altogether set aside by him, and that he wrote the report himself. It had, however, come to my knowledge that Mr. Caine had delivered himself of this view; when I wrote to the Poor Law Board complaining of his injustice, and pointed out that for some three years he had, as Metropolitan Inspector during the time Mr. Farnall was away in Manchester, visited the Strand, and that he had always entered in the visitors' book that he was completely satisfied with the state of the House. I am happy to say that Mr. R. B. Caine got very little credit out of the whole transaction, for his report was severely criticized by the press for its transparent bias. Just at this time a circular letter was sent by the Poor Law Board to all the workhouse medical officers--some forty in number--in the metropolis. It was issued evidently with the view of entrapping these gentlemen into contradictory answers to the questions which were submitted to them. It was clearly necessary to take immediate action. I therefore sent a letter to each of them, asking them to meet me at the Freemasons' Tavern, Great Queen's Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields. The majority of them came. Having been voted into the chair, I pointed out to them what was the object of the letter, and earnestly urged that we should agree as to the form of reply. This view was adopted, and the answers as agreed upon were sent by all present to the Poor Law Board. On the same occasion it was arranged that an Association should be established of metropolitan workhouse medical officers, so that we might be prepared to deal promptly with any similar departmental trickery. This was done, and I was elected as the first president, an office which through various changes I have occupied to this day. The Association was, during the two following years, enabled to play an important part in the settlement of many vexed questions in the administration of workhouse medical relief, which, without the practical knowledge of medical men, would have been wholly left in the hands of the officials at the Poor Law Board, who at this time exhibited a singular unwillingness to face the facts. My official life after this was a particularly unpleasant one, inasmuch as I was credited with having asked for the inquiry, and having resolved to state that which would bring "my masters" into contempt. I should have survived all this misrepresentation, but unfortunately just at this juncture the Liberal Government was overthrown, and the Derby-Disraeli premiership was established. Earl Derby speedily pointed out that he intended to deal effectually with the scandal that had been brought to light in connection with workhouse infirmary administration, and with that view he had selected Mr. Gathorne Hardy--now Lord Cranborne--as the President of the Poor Law Board, he being in Lord Derby's judgment one of the fittest men in Her Majesty's dominions to put things straight. Mr. Hardy up to that date had been principally known as a Chairman at Quarter Sessions, and an _ex-officio_ Guardian of a Kentish Board of Guardians. One of the first official acts of this gentleman was to punish Mr. Henry Farnall for his conduct in aiding the Workhouse Infirmary Association. He was banished from London and sent to the northern counties. As Mr. Farnall's residence was at Blackheath, where his wife and children were living, this act of Mr. Hardy's was a serious inconvenience to him. The next thing done was to appoint Dr. Markham as a Poor Law Inspector and so-called medical adviser. Dr. Markham up to this date had been the editor of what was at that time an obscure journal. He was not known to have ever been associated with any sanitary work, nor to have seen the inside of a workhouse in his life, and yet out of all the able physicians at the time in the metropolis he was selected. The popular explanation given for this appointment was that he spent the larger portion of the day in looking out of the windows of the Carlton, Pall Mall, and that Mr. Hardy, making his acquaintance, gave him something to do. He fully justified the selection thus made, as will be shown hereafter, as he became in every sense one of the most difficult officials of the Board.

At this time the permanent officials, notably Dr. Edward Smith, promulgated the heresy that the area and cubic space suggested by our Association for the housing of the sick was excessive; indeed, that the area did not so much matter if the roof of the sick ward was carried up high enough. These and other statements having been promulgated by the staff, a meeting of the Workhouse Medical Officers Association was called, to take the subject into consideration. We had the aid of the late Dr. Parkes, the eminent Professor of Hygiene, at Netley Hospital, as well as of my two colleagues in the secretaryship of our Association. Conjointly, we drew up a paper stating what was in our view the minimum area and the minimum cubic space that should be sanctioned. This action forced the hand of Mr. Hardy, and caused him to issue a cubic space commission to determine this question.

Shortly after the formation of the Conservative Government a numerous and influential deputation, consisting of Earl Shaftesbury, the Archbishop of York, Earl Grosvenor, and many others, waited on Mr. Hardy, when representations were made to him urging extensive alterations on the then system. I was so hurt at the intrigues going on at the Poor Law Board and the attempt of Mr. R. B. Caine to make me solely responsible for the condition of the Strand Workhouse, that I availed myself of the opportunity to tell the President that in any scheme he might lay down for an alteration, I hoped that he would be guided by his own judgment, and not by that of the permanent officials, who would most assuredly lead him astray. This plain speaking was not particularly relished by those against whom it was mainly directed; it doubtless intensified ill feeling against me. I also handed to him a series of Resolutions drawn up by the Council of our Poor Law Medical Officers' Association protesting against the misstatements that had been propagated by Dr. E. Smith, Poor Law Inspector, against the Metropolitan Workhouse medical officers.

Immediately subsequent to this our Workhouse Association engaged itself in drawing up a scheme for a general dietary for all London workhouses, which differed in every establishment; in some being, as at the Strand, when I first went there, niggardly in the extreme, while in others it was absurdly liberal. This question had engaged my attention many years before, and when I introduced an amended dietary at the Strand I was often twitted by the economical element of the Board to the effect that my liberality in the way of dietary was the reason why the House had filled so much, paupers being attracted to the Union by the prospect of being better fed by the liberality I had evinced. This allegation was absurdly unjust. Years before, in 1863, I had, at the time I amended the dietary at the Strand, addressed a letter to the Department urging that they should issue a general order to the London Boards of Guardians enclosing a copy of a uniform dietary to be used in all Metropolitan workhouses (acute cases of sickness alone excepted). Although this suggestion had the approval of Mr. Farnall, who invited me down to the Board to talk the matter over with him, it was set aside. Mr. Fleming, the secretary, objected to everything of a controversial character. About this time, understanding that Mr. Hardy was engaged in drafting his Metropolitan Poor Bill, I wrote to him on several occasions; one of the subjects I urged on him was the advisability of turning the vast field for clinical observations which our Workhouse infirmaries afforded to some practical purpose by throwing the wards open to medical students, pointing out what had been done at the Marylebone Workhouse Infirmary some thirty years before; I also urged that the hospitals he was about to establish should be officered by a resident medical man or resident medical men, but that in no instance should they be left alone in their control, but that their work should be superintended by an extern physician. I understood that my view was overruled through the opposition of certain physicians who thought that the educational opportunities thereby proposed would interfere with the voluntary hospitals they were connected with and the students attached to them.

I also pointed out how desirable it was that pauper schools should be consolidated, and that permanent young pauper children should be separated from those who were constantly going in and out of workhouses. Mr. Hardy always replied personally and with marked courtesy to the letters I sent him. In the session of 1867 Mr. Hardy brought in his Metropolitan Poor Bill. In his speech introducing it he referred to my evidence before the Select Committee, and said that he had resolved to adopt the views I had advocated, namely, the provision of all medicines and appliances at the cost of the rates; but although the Bill passed with great facility and amidst general approval it was a very long time, in some cases four, five, and six years, before the dispensary clauses were carried out. The Bill had hardly become law before Mr. Hardy was transferred to the War Office and Earl Devon became President. This nobleman when Lord Courtenay, Poor Law Inspector, or Lord Courtenay, Parliamentary Secretary, had entirely supported the worst parts of the old system of administration and control. He always yielded to Boards of Guardians, and, when President, entirely deferred to the permanent staff. During the short time that he held office--for the election of 1868 shortly afterwards occurred and with it a strong reaction--he instituted a new order of officials at Gwydyr House--to wit, _Assistant Inspectors_.

Of course it was not to be expected that the evidence given by me at the official inquiry would fail to intensify the bitter hostility of a section of the Board towards me, especially as the clerk to the Guardians never lost an opportunity of putting my conduct before them in the worst light. Consequently, shortly after my evidence had been given an attempt was made to displace me. The Guardian who moved my resignation was a lodging-house keeper in St. Clement's Danes. Having been told that this Guardian contemplated this procedure, I forwarded a letter to the Board in which I gave an outline of all I had done and had attempted to do during the ten years I had been the medical officer, the amount of antagonism I had provoked, and the various resolutions which had been adopted as the result of my endeavours. It was not very pleasant reading for some of them to hear, as there were several still there who had taken an active part in thwarting me at all times, and this letter thoroughly answered them. In spite of all that was alleged, when the resolution was submitted to the vote it was found that I had just as many friends as enemies, and therefore the motion was not carried. I do not know whether at that time the intrigue between the clerk and certain permanent officials of the Poor Law Board had commenced, but it took place not a very long time afterwards, as I found out some twenty months after.

One result of the evidence I had given as regards the over-crowding was this: I was empowered to send some of the acutely sick to the voluntary hospitals, and I did so to a limited degree, but my action here was again met by the hostility of a section of this Board. It was suggested that I had sent them away to get rid of the trouble of attending to them, and it was gravely proposed that I should have the cost of the cabs in which they were removed deducted from my salary.

As an illustration of the mode adopted by some Boards to annoy their medical officers I subjoin the following: In June, 1867, a person was sent into the Strand Workhouse by the district medical officer, insane. In conjunction with a Justice of the Peace, I examined him, and we certified as to his mental condition, whereupon he was sent to Hanwell. Three weeks after, he was discharged from the asylum, not because he had recovered, but through an informality in the certificate given by the justice. As this latter gentleman was out of town, I took the lunatic before Mr. Vaughan, at Bow Street, who, after examining him for a minute or so, threw up the certificate, and said he would not sign it, the man was not mad. I again implored him to fill up the certificate, as the man had been only sent back to the House through an informality in the certificate. As he again refused, I said, "Then I have to request that Sir Thomas Henry be apprised of the case." This was done, and Sir Thomas advised that he should go back to the House for another week. That afternoon the lunatic was interviewed by three of the Board, who pronounced the opinion that he was of sound mind. Hearing of this irregularity, I wrote to the Commissioners in Lunacy, and asked them to see the man. They attended at the House and examined him, and directed his removal to Hanwell without delay. That night he escaped by scaling a high wall, and was not captured for three days, when the police caught him. In the following September he was discharged cured, when I received a letter from the clerk, informing me thereof, and stating that the Board was of opinion that I had been too hasty in sending the man away, and that too by an unusual course. I immediately wrote to the Commissioners in Lunacy, enclosing the clerk's letter, and asked their opinion, when the secretary, Mr. C. P. Phillips, wrote to me stating that at the time the Commissioners saw him he was clearly insane, and that the Commissioners approved of my action under the exceptional circumstances of the case. I sent their reply to the Board. The evening the clerk read my letter to the Board, the man's wife made an application for his re-admission to the House, as he had a relapse of his insanity. This man went into and out of the asylum on several occasions subsequently. Whenever he was at liberty he made me aware of it by coming to my house between 1 and 2 a.m., and ringing my night-bell violently. Of course I had to put up with the infliction, as the man was not in his right mind. This annoyance went on for years, and only ceased when I left Soho.

The Guardians also authorized my sending some of the infirm women to Edmonton, where the school for the pauper children was situated. This school was a favourite place of resort for the worst members of the Board, and very comfortable parties were kept up there at the expense of the ratepayers. A certain portion of the Guardians went down fortnightly in carriages to inspect the schools, and every scheme was adopted by those not on the School Committee to be asked to go out of their turn by those who were entitled to go. It meant an outing in the country, and a splendid dinner with wine, &c., and tea, free of cost, to all who went there.

Of course the resident officers were always in high favour with the majority of the Board, and to arraign them or their conduct was a hopeless affair, as the least competent element immediately stood forward to shield them.

In the September of 1867 a young girl was admitted, suffering with rheumatic fever; she remained ill some time, but towards the end of the month she recovered sufficiently to be sent to a Convalescent Home, but as the autumn was a cold one I decided that she should be sent to Edmonton, and to secure her considerate treatment I wrote a special certificate, which was addressed to the matron, in which I stated what had been the matter with her, and begged that she should be kept warm and not employed in scrubbing or any damp occupation.

About a month afterwards I found this girl again in the women's sick ward in Cleveland Street with a severe relapse of her rheumatic attack. On inquiry I was told by the girl that shortly after she had gone to Edmonton the matron came into her ward and told her to go to the laundry. On her reminding her that she was still weak, and that the London doctor had directed that she was to be kept warm, the matron abused her and again ordered her there. She went. In a very short time she broke down; the matron, however, persisted in keeping her at work, but at last she became so ill that she was compelled to put her to bed. On the school doctor seeing her it was decided to send her back, to town, some eight miles distant. She was sent in a tilted cart and very imperfectly clad--that, too, on a very cold day. It was altogether so improper a proceeding that I complained to the Board, who made inquiries of the matron, &c., who of course denied the facts _in toto_. This false answer was sent to me. I was so enraged that I drew up another complaint and sent it to the Poor Law Board and asked for an inquiry. Dr. Markham was deputed to go through the form of an investigation, which he interpreted by going, unknown to me, to the sick ward, asking one or two questions of the girl, and sending for the matron at Edmonton to come to his private house in Harley Street. I did not know this at the time. He then reported that I had made a "frivolous and vexatious complaint." I will leave my readers to determine whether this procedure was not a mockery of a Departmental inquiry. This report, thus obtained, was sent to the Guardians, whereupon a man, who had misconducted himself at the official inquiry by coarsely asking "whether mesenteric disease was not something to eat," moved that I be suspended from my office. This was adopted by the Board, only four of the members supporting me, the fact being that the Board had changed very considerably at the preceding election, some of the Board ejected from office two years before having unfortunately returned again. Of course it was necessary for the Board to report this suspension to the Poor Law Board. The clerk asked permission to absent himself from duty for a time. He took with him the minutes of the Board for the preceding twelve years, and busied himself with extracting all the hostile resolutions which the Board had adopted against me, frequently at his suggestion, in return for my continuous efforts to cleanse their augean stable. I do not know who had distinctly intimated to the clerk that it was desirable to get rid of me, but the mover of my suspension stated that he knew the Poor Law Board wanted to get me discharged. That was admitted some time after by Sir Michael Hicks Beach in a conversation he had with a medical gentleman living near him in Gloucestershire.

Some month after my suspension a copy of the clerk's extracts was sent me by the Poor Law Board, and I was asked what I had to say to it. I acknowledged its receipt, and asked for an official inquiry. This request was ignored, although it was suggested by a minority of the Board, by the Vestry of St. Anne's, Soho, who unanimously supported me, and by many influential inhabitants of the parish in which I had lived and worked. That my suspension would have been followed by the Poor Law Board calling on me to resign my office, without delay, would have been certain, but the President, Earl Devon, was away, although the most terrible distress prevailed that winter in East London. He had gone off to the South of France, and there he remained some three months. On his return, he at once put me out of doubt by removing me from my office. It is very curious, but true, that when I turned on this Department and stated my own case, he made the remark to a friend, who repeated it to me, that he was surprised at my hostility to the Board, as in calling for my resignation no reflection had been made by the Department on my character. At this time a general order was issued by the Department, imposing, without payment, additional and onerous obligations upon Workhouse medical officers. It was to the effect that they should make, from time to time, a return of all that was amiss in their respective workhouses to the Board of Guardians, the doing of which, on my own account, had led to my differences with the Strand Board. It had always been understood that this was one of the duties of the Inspectors, but it was attempted to throw the obligation on the doctors. After Earl Devon resigned, our Council had an interview with Mr. Goschen at the House of Commons, who promised an important modification of this unjust order.

When my compulsory resignation was called for, it was decided by the Rev. Harry Jones, the late Dr. Anstie and others, to call a meeting of the all but moribund Infirmaries Association at Mr. Hart's house, to discuss the matter, and arrange for action. The meeting was addressed by both of these gentlemen, and by several others, and the action of the Department was severely censured by all who were present, except one person. Sir John Simeon, M.P., undertook to put a question in the House, and to move for papers. In due course the question was asked, when Sir Michael Hicks Beach made reply that the Board did not desire to make any reflection on my character, but that I had been called on to resign as I could not get on with the Board of Guardians.

The insufficiency of this answer will be understood when I state that it had been already decided to break up the Strand Board by taking away St. Anne's and joining it to St. James's, in order to make the Westminster Union, and by adding St. Martin to the remnant of the Strand--thereby making it a perfectly new Union.

I have stated that it was arranged at the meeting of the Workhouse Infirmaries Association, called to consider the action of the Department in requesting me to send in my resignation, that the papers connected with the subject should be moved for in the House. This was done, and in due course they were presented. On their appearance, _The Lancet_ commented as follows thereon--

"At last, after months of delay, the Parliamentary Papers concerning the enforced resignation by Dr. Rogers of his post as medical officer of the Strand Union have been published. They amply justify everything we have said as to the unwarrantable character of the action of the Poor Law Board and of the Strand Board of Guardians in the whole affair.

"It is impossible for us to afford space for a detailed analysis of these papers, but we beg to draw attention to the following damning facts. 1. The evidence upon the whole case consists (_a_) of a series of quotations by the Guardians, or rather by a party among the Guardians, hostile to Dr. Rogers, from minutes and other documents extending over many years, these extracts being selected without any reference to contemporary facts which would throw light upon them, and (_b_) of utterly gratuitous and unfounded insinuations that the various leading articles in the general press which were written apropos of the notorious scandals at the Strand were written by Dr. Rogers and his friends. 2. That although Dr. Rogers (backed by a most respectable minority of the Guardians and by the Vestry of St. Anne's, Soho) protested that it was impossible to deal with these charges without an open inquiry, such inquiry was refused by the Poor Law Board. 3. As regards the Edmonton scandal which was the cause of the dispute which led immediately to the suspension of Dr. Rogers, the printed evidence distinctly bears out the justice of Dr. Rogers' allegations. 4. Nevertheless Dr. Markham reported to the Poor Law Board that his inquiries had proved these charges to be false. He does not, however, venture to specify the nature of the inquiry by which he disproved charges which, with unblushing effrontery, Mr. Fleming says were made on the unsupported testimony of a pauper, but which are now seen to be absolutely corroborated by two respectable witnesses (one of them a medical man), besides the direct observation of Dr. Rogers; and either Dr. Markham did not take, or the Poor Law Board has suppressed, the evidence of at least one other impartial witness, the master of the Strand Workhouse, which we have reason to believe would have absolutely settled the matter in Dr. Rogers' favour.

"It is well-nigh incredible, but we have heard it on authority which we cannot discredit, that although the so-called inquiry on which the Medical Inspector of the Poor Law Board based the unfavourable report, which gave the Strand Guardians courage to make their onslaught upon Dr. Rogers, included an examination at Dr. Markham's private house of the Edmonton officials chiefly inculpated by Dr. Rogers' charges. Dr. Markham never asked Dr. Rogers one single question. Volumes of comment could not add anything to the ugly emphasis of this fact."

Sir Michael Hicks Beach has been recently afflicted. I would ask him if he does not consider that his sufferings would have been intensified if his sleep had been disturbed by the noise of carpet-beating--if he had been waited on by infirm and drunken women, and broken-down potmen--if the air he breathed had been poisoned by the dust from the beating of carpets, and utterly vitiated by over-crowding? And yet, because I had protested against this hideous wrong-doing, and had done my best to get it altered, he had to get up in the House of Commons and do his best to justify the action of the Board.

The Department thought I was disposed of; it was not long before I showed them the contrary, as some of them did not subsequently hesitate to admit.

I have stated that it had been decided, owing to the all but unanimous application of the ratepayers of St. Anne's, Soho, to the Poor Law Board, to take that parish out of the Strand Union and join it to St. James's, so as to constitute the Westminster Union, and within a very brief space of time after my compulsory resignation this was done. As there was no returning officer for the Union, the Poor Law Board directed that the Vestry clerks of each parish should act as such for this time, consequently all books and papers relating to St. Anne's had to be handed over by the clerk, of Peterborough notoriety, who was the friend of Catch, when a notable discovery was made, to wit, that the proxy book, as it was called, was altogether illegal, and had been so for years, as by the efflux of time the power to vote by proxy in most instances had expired, and yet this clerk had gone on year after year issuing voting papers to persons, though he must have known that they had no right to vote. We had often wondered how it happened that we could not oust the Guardians who sat for St. Anne's: they had been returned by illegal proxy votes for years. Although the Guardians who had recently represented St. Anne's in the old Strand Union had lost the kindly aid of the clerk, it was so necessary to some of them that they should still be Guardians, that they again got themselves nominated, only to meet with a unanimous rejection on the part of the ratepayers, as the following letter from an ex-Guardian for St. Anne's, Soho, who was a supporter of Dr. Rogers, but precluded from again standing through serious illness, of which he subsequently died, will show--

"TO THE EDITOR OF _The Daily News_.

"THE STRAND UNION AND THEIR LATE MEDICAL OFFICER.

"SIR,--It will be gratifying to the friends of Dr. Rogers, who was
suspended by the Board for his continued advocacy of the rights of
the sick poor, to know that at the election of Guardians of St.
Anne's, Soho, which took place on Saturday last, the whole of those
who voted for his suspension, &c., were rejected by an overwhelming
majority of ratepayers.

"I am, Sir,

"Yours obediently,

"JOSEPH GEORGE.

"81, DEAN STREET,

"_April 11, 1868_."

The story of two of these men I will here relate. The first had been appointed Assessed Tax Collector for St. Anne's, Soho, but two or three years after my resignation of the Strand he was discovered to be a defaulter to some hundreds of pounds, which his sureties had to make up. He was one of the most active of my opponents. The second had commenced life as a milkman. Very shortly afterwards he began to take tenement houses in the worst part of St. Anne's, Soho, which he let out from garret to cellar to the very poor. His lodgers lived under the most insanitary conditions, and my local knowledge induced me always to protest against this man as a Guardian of the poor. He was always the most energetic of my opponents at the Strand Board. At last retribution came upon him. It was in this wise: he was a freemason, and, though very illiterate, he had managed to obtain a high position in the masonic brotherhood, so much so that he was deputed to preside as the returning officer in an important election. There were two candidates, one a Guardian of the Strand Union, who was his personal friend--in fact, that very person who had recommended the broken-down pot-man as one of my nurses--the other was to him a comparative stranger.

After the ballot had been taken, this returning officer gave the election to his friend by such a majority of voting papers that the unsuccessful candidate, who had been promised support to a large extent, suspected foul play, and made an application to the Prince of Wales, as Grand Master, to order a scrutiny. His Royal Highness assented, and directed the Earl of Carnarvon to hold it, when it came out clearly that this ex-Guardian of St. Anne's, Soho, had knowingly made a false return, and he was sentenced to a deprivation of all his offices in the brotherhood, and exclusion from his Lodge for three years. He was at this time holding various offices in St. Giles, also in St. Pancras, but the different parochial Boards' requested him to send in his resignation forthwith, as they refused any longer to associate with him or allow him to remain a member of their respective Boards.