PARISH RIGHTS.
THE Marylebone Guardians are determined that their parish shall not be omitted in the trial which our representative institutions are said to be undergoing. They have waited upon the First Commissioner of Public Works, who happens also to be Member for the Marylebone Parliamentary district, to extort his support of the Guardians against the Poor-law Commission. The spokesman of the Guardians seems to have been Mr. Hodges ; who took the " downright " tone, and began by insisting that Sir Benjamin Hall should give "a straightforward answer—would he support the Guardians against the encroachments of the Poor-law Commissioners, or not?' Sir Benjamin claimed the right to inquire what reason the Commissioners had. to interfere in the parish. On looking to the record of the public proceedings, he found that women had been flogged in the workhouse in the presence of the Master ; that lunatics had been treated with cruel violence ; that the Guardians had supported the officers who had thus misconducted themselves; that they had delayed redress ; had neglected to provide proper room for schools; and in fact had not managed the workhouse, but had made it the scene of abuses, cruelties, and disorder. This state of things had lasted for months. The Poor-law Board inquired, and the Guardians actually turned out the Assistant-Commissioner. If these things were remedied, Sir Benjamin said that he would request the Poor-law Board not to take any further step. But this was not the "straightforward answer" which Mr. Hodges wanted : would the Member, or would he not, "resist the encroachments of the Poor-law Board ?" The Guardians have been guilty of encroachments on humanity, on the right of the paupers at least to lawful treatment, on the public opinion of the parish—for many of the leading parishioners are against them. But, said Mr. Hodges, with a naïve insensibility, "we do not want you to speak of the flogging of women."
The Yankee claimed the right to " larrup his own nigger"; the Guardians insist upon their right to flog their own women, to torture their own lunatics ; and if a Member of Parliament hesitates to uphold them in that parochial burlesque of State rights, they are outraged at his infidelity to "local self-government." The Board of Guardians insists upon the right of being its own helot ; but it also insists that neither the public nor Government shall apply the moral of the exhibition.
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