§ MR. WHALLEYasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the infant mortality of 98 per cent. at the Roman Catholic Orphanage at Carlisle Place, Westminster, as officially reported, Whether it is his intention to cause inquiry as to like institutions where children are taken under Roman Catholic care, at the public cost or otherwise, but not now subject to public inspection or control?
MR. ASSHETON CROSSSir, when this matter was first brought under my consideration some two months ago, I asked the Local Government Board to allow one of its Inspectors to make 176 inquiries into the state of the orphanage. That Inspector was met by the ladies who had charge of the institution, who showed him over the place, and offered to avail themselves of any suggestions he might make for the better protection of infant life. The Inspector made several recommendations with the view of carrying out that object. I thought it right a few weeks ago to ask the Inspector to go again, in order to see whether his recommendations were carried out. I have not yet received his Report, and I do not know what it may be. But it is right I should state, on behalf of those ladies who undertook the management of this purely charitable institution, that I have this morning received a Report from the sanitary authority of the Westminster Board of Works, who had sent their own medical officer to make a report for their own satisfaction. The conclusion of that Report is as follows:—
I cannot speak too highly of the general cleanliness of this institution, and of the devotedness of those ladies who have undertaken to conduct it.As to that part of the Question of the hon. Member which asks me whether it is my intention to cause inquiry as to like institutions where children are taken under Roman Catholic care, at the public cost or otherwise, I have to say that I thought it right in consequence of what was brought under my notice, to ask for particulars not of institutions of this kind conducted by Rom an Catholics alone, but of institutions conducted by persons of all creeds and classes, as far as possible. I may say that of these poor children who are taken into this institution out of purely charitable motives, one-half would have died if they had not been admitted. They are generally taken into such institutions in a state of the most miserable destitution, and are deprived of the proper nourishment they should receive. It is a question whether such institutions may not require to be put under certain regulations, for medical men are of opinion that the bringing together of too many infants in one place is likely to increase their mortality. But that is a question to be afterwards considered. The matter is under the consideration of the Local Government Board as well as of myself, but without regard to any question of creeds or religions.