13 NOVEMBER 1869, Page 3

Just look at the system? The St. Pancras Guardians have

been quarrelling with each other, the Board, and themselves, to the neglect of every duty for months, till the old famine fever has

revisited the parish. The elected Minister of the department, elected by the whole nation to keep such people in order, has warned them, lectured them, censured then, sent ex officio guardians to their meetings to teach them decency, and, at last, has been driven to the desperate alternative of annexing the parish to the Central London Sick Asylum district. If self-government must go on, surely we might allow him in extreme cases to sus- pend it— say for seven years, so as to give the parish a respite from mismanagement. If he used his power on inadequate grounds, Parliament could punish him most effectually.