The Temuka Leader TUESDAY, APRIL 22, 1890. CHARITABLE AID.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2036, 22 April 1890, Page 2

The Temuka Leader TUESDAY, APRIL 22, 1890. CHARITABLE AID.

It is doubtless no use to eater any very strong protest against the actions of the bouth Canterbury Hospital and Charitable Aid Board. We have done so on former occasions, but the only thing which resulted from it was to make enemies for ourselves. Still we cannot allow the most recent development of the Mrs Egan case to pass unnoticed. The board expended £45 on Mrs Egan, and now they have resolved to recover the money from her husband. Now this is really shameful. Here is a poor man who has no means of obtaining a livelihood except the precarious one of a day laborer. He has had the misfortune of his wife becoming very ill, and, according to a letter which he wrote to this paper, he spent all the money he had on her before taking her to the Timaru hospital. It is not necessary for us to recount what took place there, further than to say that the hospital | commissioners spent £45 on Mrs Egan, and that now they want to recover this sum from her husband. So far as we know, Mr Egan has no means of paying this except his day's work, aDd against this he has a wife and family of three children to support. In the present condition of the labor market men find it rather difficult to make both ends meet when they have such encumbrances, without any such,burden as that which the Charitable Aid Board now proposes to exact from Egan. We cannot see how he can pay it, and if the Charitable Aid Board took our advice they would not render themselves contemptible by demanding it. The funds for charitable aid purposes come out of the pockets of tea-drinkers, who pay a special tax for it, and coasequently the cry of saving the ratepayers money is mere nonsense. But even if it did come out of the pockets of ratepayers we do not think the board ought to have taken the step they took last Friday, The sum of £45 distributed amongst all the ratepayers of South Canterbury would not amount to the one hundredth part of a farthing in the pound, and no one would ever know whether it ever had been charged or not, The share of the largest ratepayer in the district would not amount to half a farthing. On the other hand if the board exacts it from Egan he will have to starve his tamily to pay it. Our advice to him is not to pay it, and if the beard likes to prosecute and send him to gaol for it let them do it. The board will have to support his wife and family out of charitable aid money while he is in gaol. Money is provided by the Government, and by the special tax on tea, for the purposes of charity, and Egan, having by unavoidable misfortune become an object of charity, has a perfect right to a share of it. The amount claimed by the board is quite different from a debt due to a private person, and we therefore advise him not to pay it.