§ MR. FIRTHasked the President of the Local Government Board, Whether it is the fact that Fulham Small-Pox Hospital is now made the receptacle for more than one-third of the small-pox patients of the whole of London; whether the borough of Chelsea, which includes the whole of Kensington, Notting Hill, Fulham, Chelsea, and Hammersmith have volunteered to take charge of their own small-pox patients; whether the Metropolitan Asylums Board and the Local Government Board have not declined to confine the said hospital to such district; whether the Local Government Board do not decline to receive a deputation to urge such limitation; whether, according to the decision in a recent case, a small-pox hospital is not a nuisance per se which may at any time be stayed by injunction; whether he is 142 aware that the inhabitants of Western London, in consequence of such refusal as aforesaid, propose to take legal proceedings to obtain such injunction; and, whether, in order to save public money being wasted in fruitless litigation by the Metropolitan Asylums Board in defending such proceedings, he is prepared forthwith to advise such Board to close Fulham Small-Pox Hospital, and to remit the patients to the care of local authorities, or otherwise to abate such nuisance?
§ MR. DODSONThe Notice of the hon. Member contains no less than seven distinct Questions. I will endeavour to answer them as concisely as I can. In answer to the first, it is not the fact that the Fulham Small-Pox Hospital is made the receptacle for more than one-third of the small-pox cases in the Metropolis. The total number in the hospitals of the managers is 763, of which 217 are in Fulham. I have not received any offer from the borough of Chelsea to take charge of their own small-pox patients. The borough, as such, has no power to undertake such a charge; and the vestries of the several parishes in the borough have not, so far as I have been able to learn, provided any hospital for such cases, although express power was given to them to do so as far back as 1866, and they have, from time to time, been reminded of it. The hospitals of the Metropolitan Asylums Board, of which Fulham is one, were provided for the whole Metropolis, at the cost of ratepayers generally; and so long as there is spare accommodation, admission could not be refused to patients sent from any part of that area. For this reason it appeared to me useless to receive a deputation on this subject. The alleged decision that a small-pox hospital is per se a nuisance, and may be stayed by injunction, is now the subject of appeal to the House of Lords. I am not aware that the inhabitants of Western London propose to apply for an injunction. My reply to the last Question is that I am not prepared to advise the Metropolitan Asylums Board to close this hospital and remit small-pox patients generally to the care of the local authorities, more especially seeing that the vestries and district boards have, as a rule, failed to provide hospitals, as they should have done—at all events for non-pauper cases, which form more than half of the cases admitted.