S.C. HOSPITAL AND CHARITABLE AID BOARD.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2402, 22 September 1892, Page 4

S.C. HOSPITAL AND CHARITABLE AID BOARD.

The monthly meeting of the above board was held if Timaru on Tuesday. Present —Messrs J. Jackson (chairman), Graham, Gillingham, Sherratt, Talbot, and Barker. Messrs Moore & McLaren sent apologies for absence. Thu chairman stated there was not much to report. There were more demands than usual for charitable assistance. Two persons were waiting to state their case to the board, as he had declined to deal with them on his own responsibility. The board’s funds were now £1029 in credit; payments for the day—heavy in the case of the hospital through payments for improvements authorised—totalled £378 7s 9d, leaving £7OO 18s 7d to carry on for three months ; he was afraid they could not avoid an overdraft.

An elderly man, aged 50, waited on the board to prefer a request for help.— The chairman stated the man had been in the hospital six or eight years, and for the past few months he had been out of the hospital, and a source of great trouble at the barracks. Ho thought the man quite able to work, but he would not do anything at the barracks.—in reply to a question Mr Jowsey said the man suffered from stricture of the urethra; he would be very much better if ho would drop the liquor. —The man denied that he drank, and said he had recently been working for his tucker” and a fig *f tobacco a week.—A long discussion took place upon tho case, the members generally considering it a case of imposition. Finally he was told that he could remain in the barracks for a week, with rations, and at the end of that time he must cease to trouble the board, the inclination of the members being to hand him over to the police if he did, A young woman waited on the Board to ask them to pay her passage Home. She m a cripple from rheumatism and deformed limbs, and said she was unable to earn her living. She had two married sisters here who wore unable to keep her, and she wished to go Home to her mother. After a discussion it was decided that the Board could not entain the request, there being nothing to guarantee that the applicant would be cared for at Home, and not shipped back again by tho Poor Law authorities, as had been done with a family shipped Home at a cost of £SO. In reply to a request for other assistance, tho chairman said if she made application in the usual form it would be reported on. A letter from the Masterton Board explained that that board was not responsible for statements appearing in a local paper about inhuman treatment of a woman sent from South Canterbury to Wellington, The Board expressed the opinion that she was a case which had no business to be shunted on to Wellington, particularly from tho known character of the woman.

Curious complications have arisen over a Geraldine case. A young girl was confined £)f 3Ji illegitimate child) waich became a ctmvgC on the board. The Board made arrangement to out the child at 6s a week, under * written agreement. The girl is now married but not to the father of the child. Her husband become 3 legally liable to support the child, but is not compellable to pay for it under the Board's agt'pement, and the person who has the child (iWW 4 years old) refuses to cancel the bargain made with her. The matter was referred to the local members to try and effect some arrangement, A claim from St Andrews for nursing a girl in her confinement, £5 2s, was considered excessive, and it was resolved to offer £3. I’fi connection with this case correspondence adxirgssed to the Defence Minister was read of inattention on the part of the pfljice in discovering and reporting the whereabout of the father of the child. The chairman reported another troublesome case. A man dosorted his wife and four children in Melbourne, and came to Tiraaru with another woman. His wife* followed him with the children, and now wanted the board to pay her passage back to Melbourne, her husband to take charge of the children, which said he was willing to do, or rather to beard them out and bo responsible for their cost. The mother would not prosecute.— It was decided that tin? father must take the children from the barracks by Saturday; the mother to trust to hor own devices. A few minor matters in charitable aid wore disposed of. Hospital accounts, £230 12s 7d, and charitable accounts £147 15s 2d were passed for payment.