The writer states that the “huge Union Bastile,” as he terms the new Poor House about to be erected, will separate Man and Wife—Children and Parents.
He knows that the separation of Man and Wife—Children and Parents—takes place of necessity in the present Poor Houses to a far greater extent than can be the case in the new House.
He knows that now the children cannot remain even in the same House as their Parents, but that in the new Union House they will be under the same roof, and within the reach of their Parents, at all reasonable and proper times.
He also knows that Man and Wife are invariably separated in the present Poor Houses, and that this separation will not take place after sixty years of age in the new Union House.
The writer states that the cost of the new Union House will be £20,000.
He knows that the cost is limited to £12,000 by the Poor Law Board, and that this amount will be borrowed, and repaid at the rate of £600 per year, with interest at four per cent.
He also knows that the economy of this expenditure will far exceed the annual amount of the instalments; or if he does not know this, it is because he will not take the trouble to examine the results attained in other Unions by the erection of proper Poor Houses. Upon this point Mr. Doyle has proved “that the pecuniary interests of the Union would be materially benefitted by the building of a workhouse adequate to its wants.”
But if the desirability of a new Poor House were not so evident on the ground of economy, it would be so on far higher grounds, since the existing Dudley Poor House is described in a letter to me of the 28th instant, by one of the most respectable of the medical gentlemen of this town, “as the FOCUS of epidemic disease and starting point of Cholera, at two successive periods.”
You, the Ratepayers of Dudley, will, I am sure, weigh well these words, and you will not shrink from showing the estimation in which you hold the writer of a Handbill who thus ignores the most sacred claims of Truth and Humanity.
Nor does the writer confine himself to the Guardian question—he endeavours to make you believe that the Board of Health is administered with great recklessness of expenditure.