It is certainly to be regretted that there is not a more active and efficient supervision of the work of chaplains in workhouses, by the bishops and pastors of our Church; for what guarantee is there at present for the due performance of their duties? If the number of visits is entered for the inspection of the guardians, that is all, we believe, that is required, and who is there to tell of the neglects and deficiencies of their work? I could tell of numerous cases where weeks have elapsed without a visit to the sick wards and to dying people, and when the Holy Communion has been actually desired and not offered. It is easy to say such requests ought to be made known, and the chaplain would no doubt go in all cases when sent for; but this is far from being all that is necessary, for how indifferent are the majority of guardians and officials as to these matters, and how unwilling are the poor to make known their requests! When the salaries given to the chaplains are

such as compel other and laborious work and duties to be combined, how can we expect the time and attention that ought to be given to the spiritual care of many hundreds of sick and suffering persons?

Another grievance of a different kind, though it may seem but a trifling one to name, is that of the tea, which is at least frequently supplied, and which is as generally complained of; a defect due, no doubt, to the method of making it, either by the addition of soda, or by the process of boiling. The grievance and hardship is a real one to all who have not the means of making their own cup of tea, a privilege far more valued than even good food by the sick and aged.

The one great drawback to life in a workhouse must ever remain to the decent poor, and that is the unavoidable mixture of character, the bad ones being able to render miserable the lives of the quiet and respectable. This, and

the necessary loss of liberty, will, we believe, ever remain as a check upon any undue desire on the part of the poor to enter these asylums, and so the fear of rendering them attractive by being made "too comfortable" need not hamper us; but that there should be some continual restraint on conduct and language by the presence of persons above the pauper class, we think cannot be doubted. The misery that is inflicted by the unrestrained language and quarrelling where only pauper nurses reign supreme, is well known to all who have the sympathy and confidence of the poor.

We have no intention or wish to deny the many improvements that have been made, but we are compelled to speak as well of the many sad deficiencies that remain. In one London workhouse, where startling revelations once appeared, there is now, through the kind thought of the guardians, a large receptacle placed at the door, asking the passers-by for newspapers

and flowers for the sick inmates. Yet in the same workhouse much is still left to the sole power of the pauper women who act as nurses. In one ward of thirteen imbecile and helpless bedridden women, there are constant changes of the nurse; one, who went out at Christmas for the day, never returned, and a fresh one had to be sought out amongst the very few capable ones of any kind who were in the house. Their trustworthiness and fitness may be guessed at from the fact we have named; yet in this very workhouse, until the last few years, there was no paid person but the master, his wife, and daughter. Now there are five or six such nurses for the sick, who there number as many hundreds. How the difficulty of expense as to providing entirely paid and efficient persons is to be got over, we do not at present see; but this most objectionable plan is being done away with in all the new sick asylums and infirmaries.

* The sick are now removed to a separate infirmary.

*

But we feel that all the minor reforms which we would fain see introduced would surely follow, if the two points to which we have alluded were once reached, viz. a higher class of guardians and superintendents. A woman, more especially, who would have the sense to perceive and the tact to discern all these matters, which essentially belong to her province, would quickly find the ways and the means for all needed improvements. The only hope of this good result being attained is still to urge it, and bring it before that all-powerful influence, "public opinion."

But it may be asked by our readers, in conclusion, how and in what shape does the Workhouse Visiting Society exist at the present time? We have said that its organ of information and communication ceased to be published in 1865, because it was then felt that its work was in a great measure accomplished, and had in fact passed into the hands of those who would be