“RELIEF" IN AUCKLAND.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume XIII, Issue 546, 6 February 1868, Page 3

“RELIEF" IN AUCKLAND.

A select committee appointed by the Provincial Council to inquire into the mode of administering the fund lor the relief of the sick and the destitute and orphans, amongst other cognate mat tors, has brought up their report which reveals a rather singular state of affairs, as will be the following extract, which we clip from a leading article in the Daily Southern Cross, 3th inst:—

The select committee, on this head of the inquiry, report that “ officials in the employ of the Provincial and General Governments were in the daily habit of receiving supplies from establishments which were instituted for the sole purpose of relieving the destitute population of the province and it will be found, on inquiry, that these recipients of public charity were not in the lower grades of Government employ, but in more than one instance, (Provincial officials,) counted their income by hundreds. Again, we ask, how r does it happen that a daily practice of this kind should have been undetected, although going on within the precincts of the building in which the Superintendent and bis Executive transacted the business of the province, during the whole period the soup kitchen was in operation, the issue of the bread ration only terminating with the general clearing-out of the officials at the end of the present year ? We take it for granted that the Superintendent and his Executive did not “ suspect” their respectable subor dinates; but surely there ought to have been such a degree of supervision as might have led to the discovery of

the practice ? But no efficient super- j vision appears to have existed. And so it was elsewhere. The man in charge of the soup kitchen was supreme. He ordered what increase of supplies ihe chose, and the Relieving Officer, (our remarks do not apply to Mr King,) passed the accounts without any demur at the end of each month. The waste at the soup kitchen appears to have been enormous. The man in charge fed and fattened his pigs, " sold, and ate them,” we believe is on the record ; he maintained his family as nearly as possible; he gave away daily a very ■large number of rations “ without au-

■thorny," amoogst which the issue to the Superintendent’s Office appears. We find likewise that when the present Relieving Officer applied a check at the soun kitchen he discovered that the manager was receiving daily seventy two-pound loaves, fifteen pounds of butcher’s meat, potatoes, vegetables, and Ather supplies in proportion, in .s j _ rpi 4.^ excess oj repaircmtius. i. tu uiT King, this gross fraud upon the public was promptly put an end to by closing the soup kitchen, which, we may remark, ought never to have been opened. The soup book bears internal evidence of the fact, that the same system prevailed during the whole time soup rations were distributed. The province must have been defrauded, in the distribution of the fund for the sick and destitute, aud for the maintenance of orphans, to the extent of .£1,500. We incline to the belief that £2,000 is much nearer the actual loss through the carelessness of some, and the palpable dishonesty of others.