TOPICS OF THE DAY.
A WORD TO THE POOR-LAW COMMISSIONERS. Tnn conduct of the Poor-law Commissioners in respect to the inquiry at Andover Union Workhouse may in part be attributed to those who have lavished abuse on the " Three Kings of Somer- set House" : it is no wonder if they have been hardened against censure ; but their fault is, not to have perceived that there are occasions on which insensibility is not creditable.
The reader has already been put in possession of the main facts of the revolting case. Mr. Macdougal, the Master of the Work- house, is accused of many practices, any one of which would dis- qualify him for his situation,—of drunkenness, peculation, nepo- tism, defrauding the paupers of their food, and habitual immo- rality towards the female paupers. There was also a complaint that the paupers, employed in „olinding bones, were accustomed to quarrel for those bones, putrid or not, and to eat the remnants of flesh or marrow. The charges against the Master were sup- ported by evidence, not perhaps very conclusive either in its nature or in the character of the witnesses, if taken bit by bit, but so accumulated as to make out a case needing the most abso- lute disproof. According to the evidence, the Master's conduct may be thus described. He periodically indulged in tippling, and in his drunken fits exposed himself to the paupers under his care in ludicrous or disgraceful situations,—staggering home urged by the revilings of his wife, saying prayers twice over, hiding beer in the pulpit, staining his hands with the blood of his wife, and so on. He stinted the paupers in their food ; a charge that gives a very odious colour to the alleged practice of gnawing putrid bones. He defrauded not only the paupers but the rate-payers, and gave away the parish-property to his own relatives. The female paupers were so constantly pursued by his solicitations that it became the common talk : and even the in- different success which attended his suit helped to enhance the scandal ; for otherwise there might at least have been such de- corum as results from the repose of satiety. If you imagine Don Juan, grown too old for successes, appointed to be master of a workhouse, you have just such a picture as that given by the witnesses.
That was the case into which the Commissioners were chal- lenged to inquire. Not a moment should have been lost in set- tling the doubts on the subject : but the circumstances have been of a kind to imply that the Commissioners thought it most discreet to lose every moment that could be lost. They sent down, as As- sistant Commissioner, a gentleman who has done no credit to their discrimination in selecting ; for his whole demeanour has been such as to encourage waste of time, idle quibbling, and per- sonalities : he could not resist opportunities of making smart answers and repartees, more like the poor verbiage that the in- ferior sort of barristers enliven their dulness withal than the grave impassiveness of a judge ; while in his apparent reluctance to admit evidence against the Master, and eagerness to catch the ac- cuser tripping, the judge became a thorough partisan. Gross and discreditable irregularities were committed in the course of the proceedings on all sides ; but those irregularities were encouraged by what cannot be called any other than the flippancy of the presiding judge ; which was not counteracted, but rather marked the more strongly, by frequent self-remembrances, and by some- what abrupt and arbitrary attempts to enforce authority. It is possible that the Commissioners may have mistaken the character of their subordinate ; but two days exposure of it ought to have enlightened them : it is possible that he may be a very useful officer in some branches of business ; but it is abundantly clear that he is utterly unfit to conduct such an inquiry as that de- manded at Andover.
Nor does the conduct of the Commissioners themselves at all escape very ugly suspicions—suspicions which perhaps can be explained away, but which will tell strongly against them until so explained. They are responsible for the behaviour of the deputy whom they continue in office. They made a parade of fairness—a public inquiry, with counsel admitted on both sides : but it is to be questioned whether a more summary process, ma- naged with a more genuine spirit of fairness, would not have been more satisfactory. They have acted on a mistaken and lite- ral application of the legal dogma that a man is to be presumed innocent until he be proved guilty ; and they attempted, most unworthily, to throw the onus and the expense of the proof on the accuser. The question at issue was not the guilt of the man Mac- dougal, but the fitness of the officer whom they employed to ma- nage the workhouse ; and they ought to have facilitated inquiry— not reluctantly, or at least passively, to have admitted it. Many things having no sort of connexion with guilt might have dis- qualified the officer. Some attempt has been made to throw dis- credit on the accuser, Mr. Westlake, for irregularities of his own, and for his delay in making the charge. Such counter-charges are idle. It cannot be a personal matter between him and the Master. If he fell in with irregulatities, let him be called to ac- count ; but still some allowance should be made for the servant who first denounces the misdeeds. It must also be remembered, that as Medical Officer he was virtually a subordinate ; and his averment that he expected to lose his situation if he complained is at least probable. But the whole question as regarded Mr. Westlake was the truth or falsehood of his complaint : if true, whatever his motive, the Commissioners would have owed him gratitude for exposing what must bring the Poor-law into discre- dit ; if false, it would have sufficed to prove the falsehood and to discharge the wrongful accuser. The investigation has been protracted, suspended, renewed, and readjourned ; delay, vacillation, and the want of impartiality, characterize the whole conduct of the affair. The Commissioners seem to mistake their paramount duty, and to think that it is not to administer a law for the relief of the really indigent, but to " support their officer "; as if the interests of a workhouse master were superior to those of all the poor and of all the rate-payers. The Poor-law is stern enough already, without virtually enunci- ating the rule—that if people have charges of peculation and immorality to make against the master of a workhouse, merely because, like a dishonest ostler, he stints the human animals com- mitted to his charge, and converts the women's apartment into his harem, those charges are to be made at the peril of the utterer. Such a rule would tend to silence the most just and necessary information ; the want of which is the great working difficulty for all centralized authorities. A Government-reporter now attends the investigation, and it is to be hoped that Sir James Graham will give the Commissioners a few hints as to their wisest course.
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