Volume 4

Annual report of the Poor Law Commissioners for England and Wales.

  • Great Britain. Poor Law Commissioners.
Date:
1835-1847
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual report of the Poor Law Commissioners for England and Wales. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

    111/394 (page 93)
    APPENDIX. APPENDIX (A). DOCUMENTS ISSUED BY THE BOARD. No. I. Copy of the Report of the Poor Law Commissioners relative to cer- tain Charges which have been disallowed by the Auditors of Unions in England and Wales. Report on the Necessity of introducing a Bill into Parliament '* for the purpose of making Parish Rates (or County Rates, as may be thought most advisable) liable to certain Expenses of Constables and others in the discharge of their Duty. To the Right Honourable Lord John Russell, Sfc. 8fc. Poor Law Commission Office, Somerset House, My Lord, Uth May, 183B. In', answer to the communication from Mr. S. M. Phillipps, of the date of the 18th ultimo, wherein he informed us that your Lordship con- siders it necessary that a bill should be introduced for the purpose of making parish-rates (or county-rates, as may be thought most ad- visable) liable to certain necessary expenses of constables and others in the discharge of their duty, the payments for which have been dis- allowed by the auditors, and that you desired our opinion thereon, we have now the honour to report as follows:— The legal principles on which it was necessary to act in the audit of the accounts of the expenditure from the poor-rates are thus stated in our instructional circulars :— *' Your attention will next be required to your duties in the expenditure of the rates and other moneys so collected ; and herein you must bear in mind that usage is of no legal authority in the construction of the statue of Ehzabeth, by which the poor-rates are established. The law has not given to the parish officers, or even to the vestry, any power of charging or of tax- ing their fellow-parishioners, even for useful purposes, at their own mere discretion ; and no charge upon the poor-rates is legal unless it is, in plain words, sanctioned or directed by some statute. In no case, however, except in relief of destitution, will it be safe to make any payments out of the poor-rates, unless sanctioned by the express direction of some statute. In doubtful cases, therefore, the proper inquiry will always be,—Under what statue, or by what regulation, is the proposed charge warranted? And unless the authority can be found in the words of the statue, or in some lawful order or regulation of the Poor Law Com- missioners, it must be presumed that the charge would be illegal. By the 50th Geo. III., c. 49, s. 1, the justices (and, by the Poor Law Amendment Act, auditors) are authorised to strike out of the overseers' accounts all such charges and payments as they shall deem to be unfounded, and to reduce such as they shall deem to be exorbitant, specifying, on the foot of such account, every such charge or payment and its amount, so far