has been issued, all the individuals of both these
classes are relieved only in the house. In the case of their admission,
the cognisance of this distinction, not casually, not specially, because
a guardian may have had his attention drawn to a particular case, but as
a matter of routine, would necessarily lead to a good result. No board
of guardians, when their attention has been regularly and officially
directed to the facts of the case, could compel both classes to herd
together in one common room.

The medical relief list is composed of poor persons who are suffering
from acute disease, and are, in consequence of their illness and extreme
poverty, receiving relief in money or food. Those who are in the receipt
of other relief by order of the board, and who belonged to one of the
other classes, would be excluded from this list. There are two modes of
regulating the medical out-door relief in kind. One mode is to require
the medical officers to attend the meetings of the boards of guardians.
It is their duty to report upon the state of health of each out-door
sick person at specified times, and to state the kind of nutriment
adapted to each case. The board is thus furnished with a sanatory report
from one officer, and a report upon circumstances from the other. This
is a satisfactory system. The other mode is, for the medical officer to
report to the relieving officer in a prescribed form, that A B is ill
with consumption, and requires ---- food per diem. The relieving officer
has a veto. If, upon visiting the case, he is satisfied that the head of
the family can supply the articles recommended, the relief is withheld.
The case is reported to the next board, who issue the necessary
instructions thereon. The first plan is undoubtedly the preferable one,
in all those parishes or unions where the population is large and the
area small. But in all large rural unions, where the medical officers
are many and their labours great, from bad roads and extent of district,
the plan would be inapplicable. As regards the second method, it would
be found to prevail as a rule, that, in the majority of cases, the
recommendation of the medical officer is regarded by the relieving
officer as tantamount to an order. The exception would be in those
unions where the board is infested by persons who know of no means of
estimating the value of an officer excepting by his supposed power of
reducing expenditure; and in those parishes where the