It would be well, too, if Boards of Guardians would remember that their duties have not ended when they have disposed of the cases on each board-day. They have to do with pauperism, not only as it exists to-day, but as it may exist next month or next year; and therefore they have to do with its causes, as well as its existing results. This truth is just now occupying the minds of statesmen, and it is to be hoped that it may receive the attention of Boards of Guardians. Sanatory regulations will decrease pauperism. Many men have been destroyed, and their families pauperised, by uncovered sewers in thickly populated lanes and alleys; and much disease has been engendered by the want of facilities for cleanliness. And so also has much pauperism been engendered by the drain upon the resources of the poor man during a long illness. Could not this be remedied, and that without weakening the feeling of independence? And why might not a Board of Guardians be allowed, or compelled, to contribute a given sum to any dispensary or medical club which may be governed by certain rules duly certified?
We must now refer to the churchwardens and overseers of the several parishes of this rural Union. The question with respect to them is, do they receive the applications of the poor in their respective parishes, and deal with them in the same way as the relieving-officer? It would not be a sufficient answer to quote acts of parliament, or lists of duties. It is doubtless of importance to know that, according to law, the duty of relieving in cases of sudden and urgent necessity is still reserved to the overseer. But it is of equal importance to ascertain whether, in those extensive or thinly populated parishes where the relieving-officer may reside many a weary mile distant from the cottage of the destitute, any check, or hinderance, or heavy discouragement has been offered to the overseer in his attempt to perform his duty. We can easily conceive the farmer overseer, before 1834, riding over the fields of his parish, and meeting one of the poor cottagers, at once relieving him with a piece of money, and taking no further note of the circumstance than was necessary to prevent his forgetting to repay himself. And we can understand how the same overseer, under the new system, when men to whom he has been accustomed to look up with deference are united with him in the administration of relief, may not trouble himself to inquire into, or care to exercise, the rights reserved to him. Or he may find that he has something more to do than merely to enter the amount in his pocket-book. He may have to report the case to the relieving-officer, or to defend it at the Board--neither of which acts his literary habits, his opportunities, his patience, or his ability to speak before the magnates of his district in Board assembled, may dispose him to perform. In other cases, where these considerations may have no weight, the overseer may be of opinion, since paid officers have been appointed to do the duty, and are paid to do it, that they are the proper persons to perform it.