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THE DEATH OF MR. MCCULLACH TORRENS.
"KISSING THE BOOK" AND LEPROSY.
1149
his name and by which many unhealthy have been cleared and well-designed artisans’ dwell-. ings erected in place of the insanitary dwellings which previously occupied the sites. If Mr. Torrens had left no other record of his work than this behind him the inhabitants’ of large towns, and especially London, would have reason to recollect him with gratitude ; but other questions engageGI his attention, and he was not less successful in his dealings’ with these subjects. His friends may claim for him that" he was among the first to recognise the advantage which would result from the boarding-out of pauper children by Poor-law guardians, and in 1869 he obtained the adoption of this method for London. He took an active part in the legis-» lation relating to compulsory education, and he was largely responsible for the creation of the London School Board, of which he himself became a member. In 1885 he brought in and carried an Act limiting the charge for water rates> in London to the amount from time to time of the publicassessment, and but for which the claims of water companies would probably have been much higher than they are at the present time. Mr. Torrens’ life was one of great and there are not many who can leave a record’ industry, of so much or such useful work as that to which he devoteG1l Act
For the future the "town districts" will include the 100 principal towns, together with all the other registration subdistricts of England and Wales, three-fourths of whose populations, as enumerated at the 1891 census, resided within the boundaries of urban sanitary districts ; the " "country districts consisting of the remainder of England and Wales not included in the above-mentioned category. As a result of the changes from rural to urban constantly taking place in the character of districts throughout the kingdom it is, of course, inevitable that a rectification of boundaries should periodically be necessary in order to maintain as accurately as possible the distinction between town and country. We think that, having regard to the heterogeneous character of the areas involved, the principle of classification adopted by the Registrar- General is in every respect satisfactory. The Registrar- General’s quarterly return is a most important State publication, relating as it does to the births, deaths, and marriages registered in the whole of England and Wales ; and as the return is now issued within a month of the termination of the quarter to which it relates we hope that in its present greatly improved form it will be attentively studied by those who are most directly concerned in the care of the public health.
long known by
areas
himself. ___
THE DEATH OF MR. MCCULLACH TORRENS. THE reign of Queen Victoria will be remembered in the future as a time when, above all others, efforts have been made for the social improvement of the English people. The earlier years of this period have been rich in men who have devoted their lives to philanthropic work, and among them the name of William Torrens McCallach Torrens, who died this week, will not be forgotten. At the early age of twenty-two he was appointed a Commissioner of the Poor-law Inquiry in Ireland of 1835, and from that time he devoted himself to producing measures for strengtheningand developing local administrations. His inclinations naturally led him to seek a parliamentary career, and from 1847 to 1852 he represented Dundalk in the House of Commons. His more important work will always be associated with his representation of the borough of Finsbury, for which he was elected in 1865 and for which he sat during four successive Parliaments. Three years after his election he succeeded in passing the Artisans’ and Labourers’ Dwellings Act, 1868, which was the first of the series of enactments now constituting the Housing of the Working Classes Act. The Act was in more than one sense a new departure, particularly in the fact that it enabled local authorities to proceed against persons having more than twenty-one years’ interest in insanitary dwelling - houses and excluded from these proceedings those having a shorter interest. It aimed at effecting more radical improvement of houses than could be enforced under the Nuisances’ Removal Acts and empowered local authorities to require work to be done in accordance with the terms of specifications prepared by surveyors, and if they thought that improvement was impossible to require the houses to be demolished. Under this Act much useful work was done in districts where local authorities had the firmness to administer it, and its effects were, indeed, more widely felt than in respect of the particular houses which were the subjects of proceedings under it. Owners of houses, in fact, found that sanitary authorities were armed with a more effective weapon than they had previously possessed, and the knowledge that heavy expenses might be incurred by allowing houses to become dilapidated was an excellent reason for enforcing the provisions of repairing clauses in leases. The attention which Torrens’ Act caused to be directed to this subject was not without fruit, for in 1875 Lord Cross was able to carry through Parliament the
I, I
"KISSING THE BOOK" AND LEPROSY. IF any argument were wanting to demonstrate the advantages of the Scottish form of taking the oath in courts ofjustice it might be found in this paragraph which we quotcfrom the Port Elizabeth Teleg’1’apk and Eastern Province Standard of April 3rd last : "The following somewhatsensational incident, which is reported in connexion with the: holding of the Circuit Court at King Williamstown, is an illustration of the dangers attached to the kissing of the. book’ in the witness-boxes of courts of law. An elderly native witness in an arson case-one William Bolendu, of Izeli-was giving evidence, when Dr. Chute called his lord ship’s attention to the fact that the man was a hopeless. leper, and that at the moment he was standing with one disfigured band quite close to the Testament on which witnesses The leper, Dr. Chute added, had been certified were sworn. as such for the past two years. His lordship expressed the hope that the witness-box would be thoroughly fumigatea before the next day’s proceedings of the court, and exhibited surprise that the Segregation Act had not been. enforced in this particular case. He asked how it was. Dr. Chute replied that that was more than he could say; the authorities were at fault. Expedition, however, was highly necessary, as the man’s condition was very bad."
" MEDICAL
v.
LEGAL CORONERS."
UNDER this title Dr. Major Greenwood has contributed tothe Sanitary Record a useful little article summarising the, obvious fitness of members of the medical profession for th& appointments to coronerships. He finds that the discretionary power of the coroner-that is, his power of deciding whether an inquest shall or shall not be held on a particular deathis one that could be much better wielded by a medical man than a lawyer ; that viewing the body to a legal coroner must always be a farce-an unnecessary and unpleasant; survival of custom,-but that to the medical eye the aspect of the corpse might suggest a point worth mentioning to the jury ; and, lastly, that the weighing and sifting of evidence, though more properly a legal than a medical task, are only what every medical man in practice is doing daily and’ hourly, so that there is no reason to suppose that he would not be able to charge his jury as correctly and succinctly as any lawyer. With all this we are fully in accord, for similar sentiments and arguments have appeared in our pages not
1149
his name and by which many unhealthy have been cleared and well-designed artisans’ dwell-. ings erected in place of the insanitary dwellings which previously occupied the sites. If Mr. Torrens had left no other record of his work than this behind him the inhabitants’ of large towns, and especially London, would have reason to recollect him with gratitude ; but other questions engageGI his attention, and he was not less successful in his dealings’ with these subjects. His friends may claim for him that" he was among the first to recognise the advantage which would result from the boarding-out of pauper children by Poor-law guardians, and in 1869 he obtained the adoption of this method for London. He took an active part in the legis-» lation relating to compulsory education, and he was largely responsible for the creation of the London School Board, of which he himself became a member. In 1885 he brought in and carried an Act limiting the charge for water rates> in London to the amount from time to time of the publicassessment, and but for which the claims of water companies would probably have been much higher than they are at the present time. Mr. Torrens’ life was one of great and there are not many who can leave a record’ industry, of so much or such useful work as that to which he devoteG1l Act
For the future the "town districts" will include the 100 principal towns, together with all the other registration subdistricts of England and Wales, three-fourths of whose populations, as enumerated at the 1891 census, resided within the boundaries of urban sanitary districts ; the " "country districts consisting of the remainder of England and Wales not included in the above-mentioned category. As a result of the changes from rural to urban constantly taking place in the character of districts throughout the kingdom it is, of course, inevitable that a rectification of boundaries should periodically be necessary in order to maintain as accurately as possible the distinction between town and country. We think that, having regard to the heterogeneous character of the areas involved, the principle of classification adopted by the Registrar- General is in every respect satisfactory. The Registrar- General’s quarterly return is a most important State publication, relating as it does to the births, deaths, and marriages registered in the whole of England and Wales ; and as the return is now issued within a month of the termination of the quarter to which it relates we hope that in its present greatly improved form it will be attentively studied by those who are most directly concerned in the care of the public health.
long known by
areas
himself. ___
THE DEATH OF MR. MCCULLACH TORRENS. THE reign of Queen Victoria will be remembered in the future as a time when, above all others, efforts have been made for the social improvement of the English people. The earlier years of this period have been rich in men who have devoted their lives to philanthropic work, and among them the name of William Torrens McCallach Torrens, who died this week, will not be forgotten. At the early age of twenty-two he was appointed a Commissioner of the Poor-law Inquiry in Ireland of 1835, and from that time he devoted himself to producing measures for strengtheningand developing local administrations. His inclinations naturally led him to seek a parliamentary career, and from 1847 to 1852 he represented Dundalk in the House of Commons. His more important work will always be associated with his representation of the borough of Finsbury, for which he was elected in 1865 and for which he sat during four successive Parliaments. Three years after his election he succeeded in passing the Artisans’ and Labourers’ Dwellings Act, 1868, which was the first of the series of enactments now constituting the Housing of the Working Classes Act. The Act was in more than one sense a new departure, particularly in the fact that it enabled local authorities to proceed against persons having more than twenty-one years’ interest in insanitary dwelling - houses and excluded from these proceedings those having a shorter interest. It aimed at effecting more radical improvement of houses than could be enforced under the Nuisances’ Removal Acts and empowered local authorities to require work to be done in accordance with the terms of specifications prepared by surveyors, and if they thought that improvement was impossible to require the houses to be demolished. Under this Act much useful work was done in districts where local authorities had the firmness to administer it, and its effects were, indeed, more widely felt than in respect of the particular houses which were the subjects of proceedings under it. Owners of houses, in fact, found that sanitary authorities were armed with a more effective weapon than they had previously possessed, and the knowledge that heavy expenses might be incurred by allowing houses to become dilapidated was an excellent reason for enforcing the provisions of repairing clauses in leases. The attention which Torrens’ Act caused to be directed to this subject was not without fruit, for in 1875 Lord Cross was able to carry through Parliament the
I, I
"KISSING THE BOOK" AND LEPROSY. IF any argument were wanting to demonstrate the advantages of the Scottish form of taking the oath in courts ofjustice it might be found in this paragraph which we quotcfrom the Port Elizabeth Teleg’1’apk and Eastern Province Standard of April 3rd last : "The following somewhatsensational incident, which is reported in connexion with the: holding of the Circuit Court at King Williamstown, is an illustration of the dangers attached to the kissing of the. book’ in the witness-boxes of courts of law. An elderly native witness in an arson case-one William Bolendu, of Izeli-was giving evidence, when Dr. Chute called his lord ship’s attention to the fact that the man was a hopeless. leper, and that at the moment he was standing with one disfigured band quite close to the Testament on which witnesses The leper, Dr. Chute added, had been certified were sworn. as such for the past two years. His lordship expressed the hope that the witness-box would be thoroughly fumigatea before the next day’s proceedings of the court, and exhibited surprise that the Segregation Act had not been. enforced in this particular case. He asked how it was. Dr. Chute replied that that was more than he could say; the authorities were at fault. Expedition, however, was highly necessary, as the man’s condition was very bad."
" MEDICAL
v.
LEGAL CORONERS."
UNDER this title Dr. Major Greenwood has contributed tothe Sanitary Record a useful little article summarising the, obvious fitness of members of the medical profession for th& appointments to coronerships. He finds that the discretionary power of the coroner-that is, his power of deciding whether an inquest shall or shall not be held on a particular deathis one that could be much better wielded by a medical man than a lawyer ; that viewing the body to a legal coroner must always be a farce-an unnecessary and unpleasant; survival of custom,-but that to the medical eye the aspect of the corpse might suggest a point worth mentioning to the jury ; and, lastly, that the weighing and sifting of evidence, though more properly a legal than a medical task, are only what every medical man in practice is doing daily and’ hourly, so that there is no reason to suppose that he would not be able to charge his jury as correctly and succinctly as any lawyer. With all this we are fully in accord, for similar sentiments and arguments have appeared in our pages not