parsimonious boards of guardians to expend money in making both the outdoor medical service and the workhouse infirmaries as efficient and as well adapted and as well equipped for the alleviation and cure of their patients--without the least notion of "the principle of less eligibility"--as the most scientifically efficient hospitals and State medical service in any part of the world. After 1867, indeed, there was developed, for the Metropolitan paupers suffering from infectious diseases, the splendid hospital system of the Metropolitan Asylums Board.[396] At the very end of the existence of the Poor Law Board, Mr. Goschen seems almost to have been contemplating a yet further extension. "The economical and social advantages," he observed, "of _free medicine to the poorer classes generally as distinguished from actual paupers, and perfect accessibility to medical advice at all times under thorough organisation_, may be considered as so important in themselves as to render it necessary to weigh with the greatest care all the reasons which may be adduced in their favour."[397] [389] _See_, for instance, the Special Orders for the Poplar and Stepney Sick Asylum District, 23rd April and 16th May 1868, and 7th March 1871; and that for the Central London Sick Asylum District of 2nd May 1868. [390] Twenty-first Annual Report, 1868-9, pp. 16-18; Circular of 30th October 1869; Twenty-second Annual Report, 1869-70, pp. xxxvii-xli. [391] The "policy of providing workhouses for separate classes of the poor was fully recognised by the Commissioners of Inquiry into the operation of the Poor Law in 1834, who in their Report recommended 'that the Central Board should be empowered to cause any number of parishes to be incorporated for the purpose of workhouse management, and for providing new workhouses where necessary, and to assign to those workhouses separate classes of poor though composed of the poor of distinct parishes.' And in another part of the same Report they say that it appears to them 'that both the requisite classification and the requisite superintendence may be better obtained in separate buildings than under a single roof. Each class then might receive an appropriate treatment; the old might enjoy their indulgences without torment from the boisterous, the children be educated, and the able-bodied subjected to such courses of labour and of discipline as will repel the idle and vicious'" (Twenty-first Annual Report, 1868-9, pp. 16-17). [392] For a Special Order for such an Infirmary, _see_ that of 27th June 1871. [393] Twenty-second Annual Report, 1869-70, p. xi. [394] _Ibid._ p. x. [395] _See_ the statistical inquiries summarised in the Twenty-second Annual Report, 1869-70, pp. xxiv-xxviii; House of Commons, No. 312 of 1865; No. 372 of 1866; No. 4 of 1867-8; No. 445 of 1868; House of Lords, No. 216 of 1866.