§ MR. RATHBONEsaid, he wished to ask the President of the Poor Law Board, Whether his attention has been directed to the experiment which the Chorlton Board of Guardians is trying of placing orphan pauper children with families of the working classes; and, whether he would be prepared to sanction the pauper children of towns being removed from the less healthy air of their own parishes and placed, as is done in Scotland, in healthy country districts with industrious peasant families?
§ MR. GOSCHENSir, my attention has been called to the experiment which is being tried by the Chorlton Board of Guardians of placing orphan pauper children with families of the working classes. The experiment is being tried not only there, but at other unions, and among them at Evesham, and there has been a correspondence in regard to the system between the Evesham Board of Guardians and the Poor Law Board. It is the intention of the hon. and gallant Member for Evesham (Colonel Bourne) to move for that correspondence, and it will show more clearly than I could in the limits of an answer to a Question the views of the Poor Law Board in regard to that experiment. It is a matter of the most extreme importance. On the one hand, the advantages of the system, if it could be adopted, are very apparent; but, on the other hand, the risks attending it, unless the supervision is most vigorous, and every possible care is taken to see that the 972 children are properly taken care of, are exceedingly great. A very serious responsibility would be incurred if any single case of cruelty to the children should occur. With regard to the second part of the Question, I may say that there are very considerable legal difficulties in the way. There is this difficulty—that the expense of the removal from one union to another cannot now be legally incurred by the guardians; and there is this further difficulty—that the inspection will have to be made by the relieving officer of one board while the children will be chargeable to another union.