1868. | The Public Health. 129 
Daily Newspapers. We wish, however, to suggest two practical 
measures. ‘The first is the improvement of the class of persons 
from whom the masters and matrons of workhouses are selected. It 
is quite impossible that the class of people who are now generally 
selected should ever superintend efficiently the large establishments 
over which they preside. As a rule, they are ignorant and con- 
ceited, and often avaricious and dissolute. They in fact spring from 
the very class whom they have now to rule, and the men win their 
positions not by any special adaptation for their office, but frequently 
by failure in business, by success as soldiers or policemen, and 
their wives are appointed matrons without any reference to their 
qualifications at all. 
It is the constant practice to contrast our jails, where we keep 
our criminals, with our workhouses, where we keep our honest poor. 
The jail is a perfect institute as compared with a workhouse. In 
the one all is order, cleanliness, and care for the welfare of the 
inmates. In the other the rule is the opposite of all this. Now 
how do they manage in jails about masters? Why by appointing 
a gentleman, a man of education, and a man who knows what he 
has to do in ordering and directing those who are classed under his 
control. We wonder what would happen to some of our country 
jails if the master of the country workhouse were appointed to its 
control. Yet the management of a workhouse requires more know- 
ledge of human nature, a greater power of adaptation of circum- 
stances to changing conditions, than any demanded of the master of 
a jail. -So much is this the case, that we question whether it would 
not be a wiser plan to appoint at once as master in our workhouses 
a medical man, who should combine the qualities of master and 
medical superintendent. Such appointments are always made in 
Lunatic Asylums, which perhaps in their requirements more nearly 
resemble workhouses than prisons. 
A second suggestion, that we would make as an improvement in 
our present workhouse system, is the introduction of the Coroner’s 
Court to inquire into the causes of death. The revelations which 
first excited public attention with regard to the workhouses of 
London, were the inquiries before the Coroner, in the cases of the 
deaths of Daly and Gibson. It is very clear that some of the ini- 
quities at Farnham would have been prevented had the Coroner’s 
Court been summoned. At that place a girl was actually scalded 
to death by carelessness, and no Coroner summoned to inquire. In 
the workhouse the Master has power, under present circumstances, 
to send for the Coroner or not. The medical officer is under his 
control, and for him to refuse a certificate is to bring upon himself 
punishment or dismissal. One of the most humiliating positions 
for the medical profession, is the absolute power which Boards of 
Guardians and, Masters of Workhouses have over them. The law 
VOL. V. K 
