§ MR. CHRISTIErose, pursuant to notice, "to ask the right hon. Baronet opposite whether the attention of the Poor Law Commissioners had been directed to the case of Elizabeth Butcher, tried at Salisbury on the 12th day of March, for the murder of her infant child, and acquitted, the child having been stripped of its clothing on the mother's leaving the Cricklade 693 and Wootton Bassett workhouse; and to the case of Harriett Bowkett, tried at Hereford on the 30th of March, for the exposure of her infant child, with intent to murder, and acquitted of the intention to murder, the child having been stripped of its clothing on the mother's leaving the Ledbury workhouse; and, whether the stripping infants of the clothes which had been supplied in the workhouses, where the mothers had no other clothing for them, when they are taken out of the workhouses, was ordered or sanctioned by the Poor Law Commissioners?"
§ SIR J. GRAHAMI am very glad that the hon. and learned Member has, by favouring me with three days' notice, afforded me an opportunity of giving an answer to this question, which I hope will be satisfactory to him and to the House. The subject to which this question refers did attract the attention of the Poor Law Commissioners, and they therefore lost no time in addressing a letter to the clerk of the guardians of the Cricklade and Wootton Bassett union, where the case occurred. Now, with the permission of the House, I will read the substance of the letter, at least so far as it relates to the supply of clothing for children. These are the terms in which the Poor Law Commissioners have written upon this subject:—
The Commissioners think it right to state to the guardians, that if a woman delivered in a workhouse of a bastard child, desires to leave the workhouse, and has no provision of clothing for the child, she may apply to the board of guardians, or to the relieving officer, and they make her the necessary allowance, as for a case of emergency, under the first exception to article 1 of the general prohibitory order. The guardians may likewise, if they think fit, empower the master of the workhouse to furnish clothing for the child, in cases of this sort, when there is not time for the woman to make an application to the board of guardians or the relieving officer.The House will now perceive that, so far from any impediment being thrown in the way of furnishing clothing in those cases, every reasonable facility is given; and whatever cases have occurred, they certainly have not arisen either out of the existing state of the law, or in consequence of any order issued by the Commissioners: it will also be seen that, in cases where there seems to be anything contrary to the practice of furnishing clothes, the letter points out the course to be taken by the officers of the union.