Manawatu Herald. TUESDAY, MARCH 10, 1891. Pauperism.

Manawatu Herald, Issue III, 10 March 1891, Page 2

Manawatu Herald. TUESDAY, MARCH 10, 1891. Pauperism.

• Sojns months back we drew attention to the very unsatisfactory position that our Hospital and Charitable Aid Acts were in, owing to the almost wreckless manner aid was rendered and the less care taken to secure a repayment from those who had received succour. We urged then that they were encouraging pauperism of the worst kind. With the publication of the balance-sheets of the Wanganui Hospital and Charitable Aid Boards we receive confirmation. During the past twelvemonths, within a district that has no more than 25,000 inhabitants, if it has so many within the Hospital district, the expenditure on hospital account has amounted to £1633. Provisions totalled to £279, drugs £149, salaries £578, and the other items were for fuel, lights, washing, furniture, boarding, repairs, linen and clothing, &c. Out of the population of the colony, one out of less

than one hundred persons received hospital attention. We may say then, that for this expenditure, 260 persons have been attended to at a cost of some £5 per head, yet out of the number so treated there has been only £IGO returned. This one fact points to the lowest kind of pauperism, where a patient is ill he is ready to promise anything, and when weli, will do his best to get beyond reach of the Board. The Boards and the local authorities want to look after these people far better than they do, and they very much need the assistance of a central authority. If any of these defaulting patients owed a private account they would have been found out very much sooner, but money lightly come by, lightly goes, and thus we pile up our difficulties day by day. The time must soon come when those who have been nursed in sickness, at the expense of the public, must learn that on recovery, a reasonable time being allowed, they must pay the debts incurred in restoring them to health. The Charitable Aid account is even more discouraging, as out of an expenditure of £IGO4, the enormous amount of £3 4s 9d has been returned ! This coast, and this district, has evidently a good name with the loafers, and they cannot complain when they have divided some £3,200 for twelvemonths living. We are getting on famously, over the larger part of the colony, previous to 1885 we had no poor rate, now in 1890, five years after, we have one that amounts in this particular district to two shillings and sixpence per head, including the half paid by the Government, but of course originally obtained from ourselves ; and this sum is one-fourth only of the poor rate raised in England in 1889. Surely such facts should awaken inquiry.