the Asylums Committee of the mentally defective of all ages 
and grades; the Pensions Committee* of the aged. They, 
too, would abolish the general mixed workhouse, and in its 
place establish specialised institutions, each for one class 
of persons only. Moreover, the institution for the non-able- 
bodied is to be wholly separate from that for the able-bodied ; 
the four committees just mentioned are to provide for every 
person in their charge the appropriate treatment, either in 
institution, hospital, or school, that such person needs. Mem- 
bers of families would be separated, and what of the sanctity 
of the home and family that Englishmen pride themselves 
upon ? Surely long-headed Englishmen are not going to 
abolish our present Poor-law and dip their hands into their 
pockets for untold millions to set up a social babel such as 
this. 
The Lecturer here pointed out that the Minority Com- 
missioners themselves recognised the difficulty they had 
raised by this proposed handing over of the various members 
ol families to different committeees, for, to dovetail the 
whole, they invent an official hitherto unknown to English 
Local Government. He is to be a sort of official super-man, 
is to be styled the Registrar of Public Assistance, and in 
many respects is himself to exercise all the powers exercised 
by the present Guardians collectively ; in particular, he 
is to sanction the relief grants proposed by the several 
committees — a reversal of the present system that no self- 
respecting committee or body would tolerate for a moment. 
1 he damning criticism of the Majority Commissioners alone 
on these points is sufficient, if not to put the Minority scheme 
at once entirely out of court, to make the sober-minded 
ratepayer pause before he puts his money on such a madcap 
horse as this. Even to-day, one often looks with anxiety 
on the ever-increasing local rates and national taxes, but 
what are the rates and taxes likely to be when these schemes 
get afoot ? Nowhere in either Report is there any estimate 
of the cost in cash of these panaceas for all social ills ; such 
an omission is a fatal one, and one that must be made good 
tie Parliament seriously undertakes their consideration. 
Each of the suggested remedies is revolutionary, and the 
Lecturer distrusted revolutionists and set his hopes upon the 
evolutionists working upon the basis of the present system. 
One point the Reports have brought before the public 
as it has never been brought before, is the root cause, (or 
rather root causes, for they are many), of pauperism. These 
are old-age, sickness and disease, drink, casual labour boy 
