About this time a Select Committee of the House of Commons was appointed to take into consideration the administration of the Poor Laws, and to decide as to the desirability or otherwise of the maintenance of the Central Department. In conjunction with my friend, the late R. Griffin, of Weymouth, who distinguished himself so much by an advocacy of an amended system of medical relief, and the late Dr. R. Fowler, of Bishopsgate Street, I volunteered to give evidence before the Committee. Some time after, being asked by the late Metropolitan Inspector, H. B. Farnall, Esq., C.B., to call upon him at the Poor Law Board, I did so. "I hear," said he, "that you have asked to give evidence before the Select Committee; pray, what are you going to state?" "Nothing," I replied, "that bears on my personal position as a Poor Law medical officer, except so far as I may support my views by reference to my personal knowledge. I shall give evidence for the purpose of urging on the Committee the desirability of abolishing the system, whereby Boards of Guardians for a stipulated sum, often wholly inadequate, bargain with medical men to find all medicines and appliances, because the inevitable outcome of the system is this—that the poor do not get the medicines they require. I feel that the sick of the Strand Union got very little in the way of medicine before I was appointed, and the provision of such medicines was to me in every sense a pecuniary loss, until the Guardians quite recently increased my stipend so as to make the strain less felt."
He at once assured me that he would do his best to put my views before the Chairman, C. P. Villiers, M.P. for Wolverhampton. I did not at that time know Mr. Villiers personally, except by repute, but I came to know him some years later. Mr. Farnall then proposed to put some questions to me and take down the answers. This he did, and as each question was put I replied briefly, giving my reasons for my suggestion. I had to be guarded in my answers, as I was not desirous of bringing the charge against my medical brethren that they systematically failed to supply medicines for the sick, though very many have with more or less questionable candour said to me, "Why do you bother about the supply of medicines? Go in and get for us an increase of our pay."
After Mr. Farnall had put me to the question, he shook me very warmly by the hand, promising that as far as I was concerned the views I held should be brought prominently forward.
Some time after I received a notice to attend, when I found Mr. Richard Griffin and Dr. Fowler in the room. Griffin had come there with evidence that would have taken a month to take down. Fowler was not so diffuse, a couple of days would have got through what he had to say. Appalled by the vast body of evidence offered by these two, the Committee ordered the room to be cleared; on our re-admission we learned that the Committee had decided that Mr. Griffin and Dr. Fowler should put in their evidence, which should be taken as if delivered. I was then called on. I had neither note nor paper, as I relied on Mr. Farnall's promise. The questions were mainly put by Mr. Villiers. I amplified briefly the views I had expressed to Mr. Farnall. This led to my being asked for some additional explanations, which I supplied. Ultimately I was dismissed, but not before I had convinced myself that my day's work had not been thrown away. Poor Richard Griffin had worked for many years with wonderful industry to call attention to the grievances of Poor Law medical officers, and thought he should succeed. But he was destined to fail, for although the Committee had allowed him to put in his evidence, yet the facts he had collected with so much pains were successfully traversed by Mr. R. B. Caine, Poor Law Inspector, who by certain statistics made out to the Committee's satisfaction that medical men had no great cause for complaint. Poor Fowler's evidence was similarly snuffed out; as regards mine, the Committee reported in its favour, but not as to the whole of it. They probably dreaded the cost to the various Union Boards of the provision of all medicines, but they suggested a compromise, to wit, that Boards of Guardians should be required to supply expensive medicines, such as cod liver oil, quinine, opium, &c. Small as the concession was, Mr. H. Fleming delayed the issue of the Committee's recommendation for fifteen months after it had been made, and then sent out a letter couched in such official language that a great many Boards contented themselves with ordering the letter to lie on the table. Some years after, I asked Dr. Lush, M.P. for Salisbury, to move for a copy of the Board's letter and a return of what had been done. I found from that return that about half of those bodies had not noticed the letter at all. Subsequently, twenty years after the issue of the letter, my brother, Thorold Rogers, moved for a similar return, only to show that there were still several Boards where nothing whatever was supplied.
When the letter was read at the Strand Board, a suggestion was made that I should be offered an increase of my stipend and be required to purchase the medicines myself. This I declined. Ultimately it was arranged that I should be allowed to order drugs of a wholesale chemist, but only to the extent of £27 a year: anything beyond that I was expected to pay for myself.
About this time (1862) the matron informed me that on the previous day a very aged woman had been admitted, and that she had sent her to the infirm ward across the yard. On looking at the order I found it was stated that she was 104. I went to see her. She was undeniably of great age, but she still retained her faculties and conversed with me for some time. She told me that she had lived in Chancery Lane between fifty and sixty years, and was forty-five years old when she went there to live. She also told me that she went down the Lane to see Nelson's funeral procession go by, that her children and her grandchildren were dead, and that she had been looked after lately by her great grandchildren, who had grown tired of waiting on her, and that was why she had come into the House. Her eyes were blue and complexion fair. She did not live long after her admission, the change from her own airy room to the close and at times fetid atmosphere of this overcrowded ward was too much for her aged frame. She passed away quietly, and I remember filling up a death certificate for 105 years.
One day, I was informed that a very distressing case had been passed from Canterbury. It was a young woman about twenty-four. She had one child, and was about to be confined again. It would appear that she had married a coach-builder, who was born in St. Paul's, Covent Garden. She told me that he was a very good, quiet man, when sober, and had been very kind and good to her, but that when he took anything to drink he became as one insane, and in one of his drunken fits he had knocked a man down and killed him; that he had been tried and found guilty of murder, and was then lying under sentence of death. I also learned that the Guardians of Canterbury had passed her on to us, away from all her friends. The poor creature was simply broken-hearted. She had a very bad confinement, and remained long sick and ill. When she got better she made an application to the Strand Board for outdoor relief. She was told to come before the Board at the next meeting in Bow Street. It was unfortunately a very wet night, and being thinly clad, she got wet through, and sat in her wet clothes two hours. She also got wet on her return journey. That night she was seized with inflammation of the lungs, and remained for many weeks in the greatest jeopardy. Ultimately, she got better, when I sent her to a Convalescent Home in Hertfordshire. She was so patient and grateful that I wrote an account of her sad story, which was published in The Morning Star. It evoked donations amounting to £25. After buying her some additional clothing, I paid her journey for self and child to Canterbury (the baby had died), handing her as she went away some £20. The Board, at my request, allowed her outdoor relief for a twelvemonth. Some years after, I happened to be in Canterbury, when I found her out. She had been in the same situation some seven years. She had supported herself and child, and had no occasion to spend the money I had collected for her; altogether she fully bore out the opinion I had formed of her. The reason why the Guardian Board had acted so harshly to this young woman was this: If they had allowed her to remain in their workhouse until after the execution of her husband, as a widow they could not have removed her for a twelvemonth; they therefore sent her away at once to avoid this dilemma.
About two years after Mr. Catch's departure, I was surprised by a visit from the medical officer of the Newington Workhouse. He told me that he had called to ask me whether I could advise him what he was to do; that Catch obstructed him in his duty, swore at him, and refused to obey his orders. I told him to go down to the Poor Law Board, but that they might or might not assist him. Unfortunately, at that time, Mr. Farnall was away in Manchester, superintending the special relief arrangements in Lancashire with regard to the Cotton Famine, and there was no one at the Board who could or would advise him. He called on me on several occasions subsequently to tell me of the misery he daily underwent. On one occasion I told him to write down in a journal all instances of obstruction, and if possible get every case verified by a witness. Sooner or later you will catch him, I said. He followed my advice. One day he came to me and told me he thought he had got together sufficient evidence, and should now ask for an official inquiry. Mr. Farnall, one of the most honourable Poor Law Inspectors the Board ever had, had just then come back to town. I got some influence to bear on the Board, and an inquiry was granted. It lasted some time, and Mr. Simmonds proved the obstruction, &c., so completely, that on the last day, and when it was evident how the case would go, Catch followed the doctor and paid nurse out of the Board-room. They stopped in one of the day wards to discuss the case and its probable results, when Catch went to his office and wrote in his journal that he had surprised the pair holding improper relations. This charge coming to the knowledge of the nurse, who was a respectable young woman, she went at once to the physician accoucheur of Guy's Hospital and requested that he would examine her. This he did, when he gave her a certificate that Catch's allegation was untrue. A special meeting of the Board having been called to investigate this charge, it was made absolutely clear that Catch had hatched this foul accusation. The Board immediately suspended him. The circumstances were reported to the Poor Law Board, who called on him to resign. It will hardly be believed that after this, Catch, mainly through the influence of his friends at the Strand Board and the aid of the clerk, got appointed to the Lambeth Workhouse, where for some time he tyrannized over the subordinate officers and inmates, until at last, his cup being full, he lost that appointment also. Hereafter I will give the particulars of this episode, and of the notable trial in the Court of Queen's Bench, where he attempted to clear his character and to get reinstated.