INQUESTS QUITE UNNECESSARY.
On Thursday last week, at a meeting of the Middlesex Magistrates:—
"A communication was received from the guardians of the poor of the parish of St. Pancras, stating that there was an increase in the number of inquests held upon the bodies of persons dying in the workhouse, and that a majority of them were unnecessary; but the guardians were powerless to prevent such inquests being held, and were of opinion that if the fees receivable by the medical officers of the workhouses in the metropolis were abolished, a number of such inquests would no longer be held."
The insinuation against the metropolitan Poor-Law medical officers of a charge of obtaining fees under false pretences, does credit to the shopkeepers in limited lines of business out of whose inner self-consciousness it sprang. Of course the inquests held upon many of the paupers who have died in the St. Pancras Workhouse have been unnecessary. There, not very much more particularly than in other workhouses, can the majority of paupers be supposed to perish from special neglect. Most of them, no doubt, die of mere misery.
Victoria and Hahnemann.
"The Queen has been pleased to send a present of game for the patients of the Hospital for Consumption, Brompton."
Similia similibus. Her Majesty treats, by promoting consumption. But the First of Lady Doctors does not "exhibit" infinitesimal doses. Truly Royal practice of homœopathy.