%Ai; LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.'] Sis,—In your article of January 9th on Mr. Brudenell Carter's letter, there are two passages I should like to say a word on. You endorse Mr. Carter's opinion that the Asylums Committee of the Council contains " the preposterous number of sixty members." It might be as well said that the Council contains the preposterous number of 137 members. I have been chairman of that committee since the Council entered on office, and I assure you the work could not be got through were the committee even a little smaller. The committee has four sub-committees, each of which manages a lunatic asylum, in itself almost a little town, some miles out of London. Each of these must be visited once a fortnight, and the visit takes the whole day. Nor would less than ten mem- bers do for each sub-committee, as at each asylum they have to split up into smaller groups,—one to go over the wards, another to inspect the farm, another to attend to finance, &c. Another sub-committee has to watch a fifth asylum now being built at Woodford,—no light affair, for by the time it -is finished it will have cost nearly half-a-million. The members have also to pay occasional visits to many country asylums, as far apart as Lancaster and Exeter, where London patients are on contract. There are also other permanent, and busy, sub-committees—e.g., the one on contracts—and many which
have to be formed as the occasion arises. This committee is obliged to have offices of its own and a staff of clerks, having among its other duties to feed, clothe, and superintend over eight thousand souls in its own county asylums.
I admit there is one way in which all this work could be done by less than sixty members,—even by the preposterous number of a dozen. This dozen must be always well, must give np the whole of their days—each day at least " eight hours "—to the work, and be paid £1,000 a year apiece.—I am, Chairman of Asylums Committee, London County Council. Ether, January 12th.
[We are compelled, by reasons of space, to omit the latter
part of Mr. Martineau's letter, in which he quits the subject of the asylums. Does he think his committee manages more institutions than the Local Government Board does P- ED. Spectator.]
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