THE REPORT OF THE METROPOLITAN POOR-LAW SCHOOLS COMMITTEE.
1002
[
’have arrived at a very definite conclusion as to the practicaldevelopment, capacity to grasp and retain the teachings of i failure of Poor-law schools to meet the necessities of pauper school life, and general mental culture. The children have infant life as they are seen to arise, and that they propose by this means been removed from the association of pauper to bring about the requisite amelioration of the present I and have been placed in a position from which condition of affairs by relegating to a central and newly they have been grafted into the general social system fitted constituted body the powers now exercised by central and to their station, and have thus escaped the pauper taint
existence
local authorities-to wit, the Local Government Board and boards of guardians throughout London.
That the recommendations of the committee will have great weight we do not question, coming as they do from
only
persons to look
of
acknowledged authority.
at
the
a marked extent against the future chances of their less fortunate fellows. We do not here touch on the educational phase of the matter, important as it is, nor do we treat of the financial
which has militated to such
question save to state that the scattered homes and of boarding out are of the economists ; neither have we space
We
have to feel assured of this. names the chairman, Mr. Murrnr.4, by
aspects
The report is signed by Sir JOHN GORST, Mr. LYULPH STANLEY, the Rev. BROOKE
of the
results of in favour in which
to set forth the statements of the committee
LAMBERT,
such
half-time
Mr. VALLANCE, Mrs. BARNETT, Mr. NLTTT,rsmr, Dr. J. G. FITCH, lately chief inspector of and F.R.C.S., schools under the Education Department, names which
points
those who have been confined to the monotonous round of the school curriculum. Nut only on the youthful and
they might
as
on
employment, apprenticeship, and the only now refer to the specific recom-
We can mendations at the end of the report. These desire vouch for the trustworthiness of the document. We are told the establishment of a centrally constituted body having of fifty meetings, of seventy-three witnesses examined (in- full financial and general control of all the London ’ciuling Government inspectors, guardians, school teachers, institutions for Poor-law children, with a common expenses medical officers, and philanthropic experts), and of surprise fund ; the total exclusion of all children over three years visits paid by the committee here and there for the purpose of age from the association of workhouses ; the gradual of testing the normal working of the school system in abandonment and immediate reduction in scope of the individual parishes. In these and in other ways we are large school system, with increase of scattered homes, assured of the thoroughness of the work detailed in the and especially an extension of the boarding-out system; report. All these facts add weight to the conclusions the establishment of certified homes, of ophthalmic and " arrived at. Briefly, it is seen that the "barrack school" other hospital schools, with uninterrupted education of their system inaugurated fifty years ago, real as was the advance inmates ; the special treatment of the feeble-minded in made by the system at the time of its conception, has houses and voluntary homes ; the provision of special schools failed in many respects to recommend itself to the majority for the tending of vagrant children ; improved industrial of those connected with the work. The medical witnesses training ; the provision of training ships; the encouragehave been unanimous in condemnation of the system, not ment of emigration ; and the appointment of an adequate only on the ground of its direct bearing on the health of the inspectorial staff, including medically qualified women children, especially as regards the ever prevailing ophthalmic inspectors. In these and other ways the committee would cases, but also indirectly by reason of the tendency to hope to see the very desirable end accomplished of disaffect injuriously the mental, moral, and physical growth of sociating the children from pauper surroundings, so that like.
take their
in the world untrammelled
place
by
their antecedents.
inmates has this effect been noticeable, but omcers and teachers have felt in large degree the dull monotony of the surroundings to which they have been The depression that has resulted more or less restricted. has had undoubted effect on the capacity of the children to -act the part which is played by their colleagues placed 4n happier circumstances, and alike in play, in scholastic ’.attainments, in the learning of trades or the exercise of domestic duties the school system has been abundantly ’proved to have had a baneful effect on those compelled to undergo its ceaseless round. Ophthalmia has become endemic despite every effort to eradicate it, and ringworm and skin complaints in general have been handed on from child to child until the sufferer chanced to be placed in one of the scattered homes, or, better still, boarded out. It is, in fact, this alternative system of "boarding out" of children in the cottage homes of reputable folk that the
involuntary
Annotations. "Ne quid nimis."
THE
committee recommend the evils attendant
large degree to check the barrack school principle. It again and again, even apart alto-
as
on
likely in
a
has been demonstrated gether from the evidence adduced before the committee, that the boarding out of children has had the most beneficial results, both as regards health, physical
REMUNERATION
A REQUEST
OF
MEDICAL WITNESSES.
March
12th to Sir Matthew the Home Secretary, asking him to receive a Ridley, from the United Kingdom Police Surgeons’ Assodeputation ciation. Their wish was to confer with Sir Matthew White Ridley on two points : (1) the appointment of police surgeons in districts where none had as yet been made; and (2) the desirability of revising and increasing the scale of fees now awarded to medical witnesses in the police, sessions’, and assize courts. Sir Matthew White Ridley has declined to receive the deputation on the grounds that he has already drawn the attention of such police authorities as have not yet appointed police surgeons to the desirability of doing so. With reference to the second point he observed that being fully in possession of the views of the Association he does not think it would serve any useful purpose for him to receive a deputation to discuss it further. The Home Secretary’s decision is, we think, to be regretted. Since tha reception of the last deputation
White
was
sent
on
THE PERILS OF PRACTICE.
1003
from this association by Mr. Asquith many assizes and defendant proposed to perform was to break down the sessions have been held bringing with them additional hard- adhesions, but he denied that there had ever been any ships upon police surgeons and other medical witnesses. fracture. The hand was now a success so far as it could Mr. Asquith freely admitted that the scale of fees framed by be after such a wound, but the action arose from the Sir George Grey many years ago and fixing the remuneration alleged negligence in failing to discover the fracture. The of medical witnesses in the sessions’ and assize courts at .Slls. defence was that there never was a fracture, therefore there per day was not an adequate one for the loss of time incurred was no negligence. The case appeared to rest for some time by professional gentlemen. But he naively added that all on the statements of the plaintiff and his witnesses as his predecessors in office, although repeatedly appealed to on to what this medical man said and what the defendant the subject, had declined the responsibility of revising the said in reference to the injury. Mr. Southam, surgeon to the scale of fees and that he felt no disposition to burn his Manchester Royal Infirmary ; Mr. Robert Jones, surgeon to fingers. Evidently Sir Matthew White Ridley feels no more the Liverpool Royal Southern Hospital ; Mr. Berry, senior desire to go through the finger-burning process than any surgeon to the Royal Albert Edward Infirmary, Wigan ; and of his predecessors. But how much longer is this injustice Dr. Robert Prosser White, also surgeon to the Royal Albert to members of an honourable profession to continue7 The Edward Infirmary, all testified to the fact that there was duties of medical witnesses for the prosecution of offenders no evidence now of there ever having been a fracture, against the law are sufficiently onerous and are attended with Mr. Jones telling the jury he had never seen a fracture inconveniences enough without the additional injustice of specimen in a museum in which some evidence had not been not being remunerated at all or even of being actually left of its having been a fracture. The plaintiff’s advoout of pocket. That this is no exaggeration has been cate stated in opening the case that they could not afford to repeatedly shown in THE LANCET and will probably appear pay for medical evidence. Later, however, he announced again. In Scotland medical witnesses receive two guineas that Mr. Roocroft was present, and the judge and jury wishfor each day they are cited to appear in the circuit court of ing to hear him the defendant’s counsel consented that he the town in which they are residing and three guineas if the should go into the box. He stated that he found an ununited court is held at a distance. There are also, we believe, fracture, and he broke down adhesions and placed it on a, allowances for travelling and other expenses. Very different splint for two or three weeks. He handed a notebook to the is the scale of fees and allowances in England and Wales. judge which contained notes of the case, which the judge However distant the assize town or city may be the fee is the read, and after the address of the counsel for the plaintiff he same-one guinea per diem, one railway fare there and back asked Mr. Roocroft when he made the entries in his book, Even first and two and Mr. Roocroft replied that they were made about a week (not always class), shillings per night! this last item, which was a positive insult to professional or two ago from his notes taken at the time, but his lordship gentlemen, has, we are informed, been discontinued. We observed he should like to have seen the original notes. His would urge all medical witnesses, whether they be police i, lordship, in summing up to the jury, said it was a very surgeons or not, to send full details of their most recent ex- interesting case, and made the humorous remark that fortuperiences at assizes, especially at a distance from their own nately before he was made a judge he belonged to a prohomes, showing, on the one hand, the expenses they were com- fession and whether he was negligent or not no action could pelled to incur during their absence from home, including the be brought against him. He told the jury they could decide services of a locum-tenent, and, on the other hand, the exact the case without deciding whether there was a fracture The question was whether the defendant treated amount of the inadequate remuneration they received. or not. Members of the medical profession are proverbially long- the case skilfully and whether they were satisfied on suffering, especially on the subject of fees, but there is a the medical evidence that the medical man was guilty of limit even to their endurance and there are manifest indica- negligence. The jury, without leaving the box, found for tions that this limit has now been reached. If the authorities the defendant. This case is a very important one and shows in England and Wales decline to remunerate medical wit- the risks run in surgical practice. We sympathise with Mr. nesses with at least some approach to a reasonable acknowWright in the annoyance and anxiety he has suffered and ledgment of the value of their’services they must not be congratulate him on his successful defence of the action. surprised if the duties of medical witness for the Crown come to be declined by many who now undertake them. THE REPRESENTATION OF EDINBURGH AND ST. ANDREW’S UNIVERSITIES IN THE PERILS OF PRACTICE. PARLIAMENT.
Liverpool Assizes, on March 17th, a claim was against a medical man named Wright, practising in Wigan, for S250 damages for injuries to the plaintiff arising from his alleged negligence as a medical man. The case was heard by Mr. Justice Vaughan Williams and a special jury. The plaintiff was a club patient of the defendant, and at 5 A.M. on May lst, 1895, was taken to his surgery with a contused wound of the right hand, in which the tissues were lacerated to the bone longitudinally over the fourth metacarpal bone for about two inches. The defendant took great pains with the treatment so as to prevent cellulitis, and the hand progressed well, but owing to some contraction of AT the
made
the tendons the patient’s mother wished him to see another medical man. On May 31st he consulted Mr. Mitchell Roocroft, who told the patient, so the plaintiff and his witnesses said, that the bone in the hand was broken or had been broken and he would require to give him chloroform and refracture it and put it right. Mr. Roocroftt treated it till early in July, when he thought the plaintiff was fit for work. The operation which the
WE understand that owing to the coming elevation of Sir Charles Pearson to the Bench a vacancy will occur in the Parliamentary representation of the Universities of Edinburgh and St. Andrew’s. The tongue of rumour has been busy with the name of Sir James Crichton Browne as a candidate for the seat, but we are able to state with certainty that he will not offer himself for election. Strong efforts will, we believe, be made to secure the seat for Mr. Dickson, who, it is probable, will be the next SolicitorGeneral for Scotland. The representation has been practically confined of late years to members of the legal profession ; in fact, three gentlemen holding the office of Solicitor-General have in succession represented the Universities. In the case of the representation of a university in Parliament it is, we think, a thousand pities that mere politics or party considerations should prevail. A university consists of men of science and learning in various faculties, and it is only fair that no one faculty should monopolise the privilege of sending a representative of the whole university to Parliament. There can surely be little difficulty in finding