Зображення сторінки
PDF
ePub

these views we beg to add the following testimony, given by members of the medical profession in 1861, as to the need of improvement in the treatment of the sick and incurable."

Here followed the original statement about destitute incurables, and the signatures obtained in 1861.*

At this time another inquiry was also made, by addressing a circular to the master of every metropolitan workhouse, asking for a return as to the number of paid nurses employed; and the information thus conveyed was very valuable. In some workhouses at that time there were absolutely none but pauper women as

nurses.

In the following year, 1866, there was a to 8 o'clock a.m. without food. They also think that more paid nurses should be appointed to attend the sick, and they are of opinion that the neglect of the nurses to change the linen is severely reprehensible."

*The following gentlemen formed the deputation: Sir Kaye Shuttleworth, Mr. C. Buxton, M.P., Mr. Lyall, M.P., Mr. Abel Smith, M.P., Mr. Warner, M. P., Dr. Goodfellow, Dr. Markham, Dr. Sieveking, Dr. Stallard, and Sir T. Watson.

change in the Government, and in March and July, deputations of medical men (unconnected with the society) waited upon the Presidents, Mr. Villiers and Mr. Gathorne Hardy, who, as we know, in the following year (early in 1867) had the satisfaction as well as the credit of bringing in and carrying his Bill for remedying all the grievances which had been previously brought forward.

In 1861 the work of the society was brought before the Social Science Association at Dublin (as, indeed, it was for many years at the different places of meeting), and it met with much sympathy. A private meeting was held at the house of an influential inhabitant, to form a local committee for visiting the two large workhouses, and the work has since been successfully carried on for many years by the ladies of Dublin, as well as at Cork.

In the early part of 1861, a commission was appointed by the House of Commons to inquire

into the administration of the Poor Law, from which much good was anticipated, as many persons well and practically acquainted with the subject were examined, and gave important evidence. This was reappointed in the two succeeding years, and in 1864 it made its report.*

In enumerating the various steps taken in different branches of the work, I must not omit one belonging to the year 1863, as it was the beginning of a plan which is now being carried out on a largely extended scale. The condition of the poor children (for such they really were) sent out to service from the district schools around London, first attracted the attention of some ladies in Marylebone, which parish had one of the largest schools, situated at Southall. Miss Tucker was the first to plan a means of helping them, and her labours of love during many years ought not to be forgotten. A

* See Blue Book, Parliamentary Evidence.

*

"Preventive Mission for Workhouse Girls" was started; the names of all who left for service were, by consent of the guardians, sent to these ladies, who then undertook to visit them in their places, and, in fact, to look after them, and supply their wants, if leaving, or in any kind of trouble.

It is surprising to find that this excellent and apparently perfectly unobjectionable plan did not sooner extend to other parishes and unions also, but we are not aware that it did so, till it developed into the scheme, reintroduced by the late Mrs. Nassau Senior, after her appointment as Inspector of District and Workhouse Schools, and after her death known as the "Metropolitan Association for befriending Young Servants," but chiefly those who have passed through the pauper schools.*

I have spoken of this as the first beginning

*This association has now for its Central Home the house occupied for seventeen years as the Workhouse Visiting Society's Industrial Home, 22, New Ormond Street.

of that branch of the work in London, but still earlier efforts were made at Bristol by two ladies, who previously to the year 1860 had their attention drawn to the friendless condition of workhouse girls, and, with the help of a paid agent, carried on a Preventive Mission for them, by means of visitation, Bible classes, and a registry office. Both these ladies are now connected with the London association, and are on its committee.

Another plan which has since taken root and flourished, the boarding-out system for orphans, was first brought forward in the Journal of the Workhouse Visiting Society, in 1864,* when an

* I find that a previous effort was that made by Mrs. Archer in 1861, when she published the "Scheme for Befriending Orphan Pauper Girls," in which the exact plans of subsequent associations are sketched out. Her paper is so sensible, and so equally adapted to the present time as that in which it was written, that I have added it to the Appendix (No. VII.). It will be found to foreshadow almost literally the plans now carried out by the "Boarding-out Society," which was begun in 1870, when a deputation of seven ladies and three gentlemen waited on Mr. Goschen, the President of the Poor Law Board,

« НазадПродовжити »