and nurses, an emporium for their sale, known
as " the Brimstone Hotel," flourishing within
the workhouse walls; and a standing proposal
to reduce the doctor's salary brought forward
whenever he made an effort for reform. These
were the proved facts.

The wretched jocularities of human brutes as
to mesenteric disease being " something to eat;"
the ironical suggestions for " arm-chairs and
drawing-rooms for paupers," both occurred at
the official inquiry here; and that killing
consumptive paupers with carpet-dust has been
discontinued, and that the nursing and
discipline have been partially amended, is due,
not to our Poor Law Board or its
officers, but to independent inquiry and the stern
comments it evoked. It fortunately happens
that since these comments were made, a
return from the Poor Law Board to the House
of Commons, dated " 7th August, 1866," and
signed " H. Fleming, Secretary," has been
obtained. Let us ask Mr. Hardy, is this a
sensational document? Are the following statements
by Dr. Rogers, the medical officer of the
union which was sympathised with by the responsible
head of the Poor Law Board as the object
of attacks in the newspapers — are these
sensational? Speaking of the Strand Union
workhouse, Dr. Rogers writes: " In the first
summer following my appointment, an outbreak of
fever took place, owing to excessive overcrowding
and deficient accommodation. . . . The ward
then used for the reception of persons admitted
on nightly orders, called ' Pug's Hole' by the
inmates, was a cellar (without area), and of the
most objectionable kind, and the hotbed from
which fever was largely propagated. . . . .
Having repeatedly noticed that the suckling
women became consumptive, or suffered from
diseases of an exhaustive character, and that
many of their children died, I found, on
inquiry, that the dietary of the lying-in ward
(over which I had then no control, and was not
supposed to enter without the request of the
master or midwife) was very insufficient, as it
consisted only of gruel for nine days, and that
when discharged to the nursery they went at
once on the common diet of the house. . . . .
In the year 1862, a severe outbreak of fever
took place in the building, due solely to
overcrowding ; twenty-five cases occurred in quick
succession. . . . . On or about this time I
suggested to the visiting committee an alteration of
the dead-house, the grating, &c., from which
opened beneath the windows of the women's
infirm wards. . . . . From this grating foul
emanations from the dead frequently arose and
filled the wards, and in the summer large blue-
flies flew in and out of them from the dead-
house. . . . . In 1864, overcrowding having
again taken place. . . . . a malignant fever broke
out in the house. . . . . In May, 1865, the
Poor Law Board addressed you (the Strand
Union guardians) on the subject of pauper
nurses, and strongly advised you to engage
paid and responsible persons. . . . . you,
however, engaged one, and by the terms of the
advertisement limited her attendance to those
patients only who were in the two sick wards,
amounting to about forty persons, and yet the
house contained, as you are aware by the
weekly returns, four hundred sick, aged, or
permanently disabled persons."

"When Belsham, the pauper nurse, was
removed at my instance, for robbing the sick, the
master, in consequence of a suggestion by me,
undertook to bring the question forward, and
applied for paid assistance, as the circumstances
were such as admitted of no delay. The total
refusal, as he informed me, of the visiting
committee, and the recommendation of one of the
guardians to employ a broken-down potboy
whose antecedents he so well knew, was a
proof, coupled with what I have above referred
to, that it would be a mere waste of time to
make any further communication to your board
on the subject.

"At the early part of the year 1864, the late
Mr. Jeffreys moved that my salary should be
increased. I waited upon him, and others who
I knew were favourable to me, and urged them
to get your board to provide medicines instead,
as I wished to establish the principle that in
such a large house as the Strand, all the drugs
should be found at the cost of the ratepayers,
thereby evincing that I had some other feeling
in the matter save that of getting a little more
money. Your board assented to the proposition
tion, but limited my outlay on this head to £30
only in the year."

Finally, after recounting his efforts to have
those abuses remedied, Dr. Rogers's testimony
thus concludes: " I have regretted many
times, and deeply, that these efforts, instead
of receiving the cordial sympathies and
assistance of (the guardians), have entailed upon
me much annoyance, hostility, and undeserved
insult."

Was it sensational, let us ask again, for an
inspector from the Poor Law Board to conduct
an inquiry into the malpractices of this shameful
workhouse, as if he held a brief for the
guardians; and to attempt to crush their medical
officer as one of the troublesome fellows clamouring
for reform?

Passing to published records of the death of
the wretched Timothy Daly, let us see what
is sensational here. We all know that

     The dog, to gain his private ends,
     Went mad and bit the man;

and Mr. Hardy would, doubtless, tell us that
Daly died obstinately and sensationally for
malicious purposes of his own, and with an eye to
posthumous celebrity. This poor man was found at
his lodgings, in want of the common necessaries
of life; and though he frequently implored the
parish doctor to procure him food and nutriment,
the latter omitted to do so, on the supposition
that Daly's pride would be wounded at receiving
them from parochial sources. He had nothing
but a little milk and gruel for two or three days,
and was so weakened when it was decided to take