Mr. Stansfeld on Tuesday attended a meeting of the Charity
Organization Society, held to consider the best means of checking the abuses found to exist in the system of out-patient relief. He informed the Council that he trusted next Session to introduce a general sanitary law, and though he did not commit himself to any course, seemed impressed with the notion that one organization might deal with sick paupers and the sick poor also. We fear he would find that contributions would at once come to an end, and he himself be left to do all. It is hardly possible to put down the greatest of dispensary abuses, the way in which people who could afford to pay resort to them ; but they could, we imagine, be mitigated by the demand of a small fee, to be dispensed with at tho discretion of the surgeon. Cheap medi- cal aid, not gratis medical aid, is what the poor ask, fearing, as Mr. W. H. Smith said very sensibly, uncertain and heavy bills. Except a lawyer's bill, nothing crushes a poor family like a doctor's, and one unreasonable practitioner will frighten a whole neighbourhood into cheating the dispensary. We do not under- stand why the club system, so general in country districts, cannot be worked in London. The club pays the doctor, and censures or fines any member who makes unreasonable demands upon his time.
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