8 
family needing other things should have to get them at the 
hands of Boards of Guardians and become a pauper. Why 
should he, if as an individual he had to apply to a Board of 
Guardians for some kind of assistance that came out of the 
same rates that his children got their medical inspection and 
treatment out of, immediately become a pauper ? 
Since 1834 all kinds of public services had grown up. 
Here in London all the main drainage system had grown up 
within the life-time of many hundreds of men and women 
now living. In many places they were still in their infancy 
with regard to sanitation and public health. There 1 
should be no dividing line drawn between one section of 
sick people and another. He wanted to make the Public 
Health Authority of every district responsible for the entire 
health of the district, and the principle upon which they 
should act should be that of prevention, and that 
a patient in need was never left untended. In this 
connection it was also the business of the Sanitary Authority 
to see that the home was decent. The Guardians were not 
such an authority, and therefore they gave their relief to 
homes quite unfitted for human habitation. If the Public 
Health Authority were charged with the duty of administer 
ing the Public Health Service in such a way as to give 
assistance to all people needing assistance quite freely, then 
they would be obliged to see that the relief and assistance 
was given under proper sanitary conditions. There could be 
no answer to the argument for getting rid of the Boards of 
Guardians so far as public health was concerned and re 
organising the Public Health Service on the lines suggested. 
In connection with women he thought there was one 
thing they were bound to insist upon. That was, that whether 
the man was worthy or unworthy, whether the woman was 
worthy or unworthy, at times of child-birth she must not be 
left untended and without proper nursing. It was scandalous 
that they should even be discussing the matter at this time of 
day. In Scotland a woman was denied any assistance what 
ever under any conditions if her able-bodied husband was 
living with her. Here in England and Wales they had to 
demand that whatever was done afterwards, at times of child 
birth there should be for every woman quite freely and with 
out stint everything needed in the matter of medicine and 
nursing and food. He made that claim for her simply because 
she was a human being and a woman. Whatever question 
arose in regard to the man let it be after treatment, and not 
let it be a bar to the woman receiving all that she needed. 
In London all who suffered from diphtheria or other 
infectious diseases could go to the Metropolitan Asylums 
Board and be carefully looked after in hospitals. Poor people 
and rich people were treated alike. The same kind of thing