"SIR,--I am directed by the Local Government Board to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 10th inst. respecting the decision communicated to the Guardians of the Westminster Union in the letter which we addressed to them by the Board on the 18th ult. upon the charges preferred against Mr. Bliss, the master of the Workhouse, and recently investigated by their Inspectors, Mr. Hedley and Mr. Taylor. "The Board direct me to state, in reply, that the charges to which they referred in that letter were the following-- "That Mr. Bliss twice threw water from a bucket over an inmate named Ellen Coleman. "That he kicked a woman named Ann Lane on the back of the thigh [she was sixty-eight years old], the bruise caused thereby was about four inches across. "That he kicked a boy named James Daley twice on the back [he was about thirteen years old, and was a very good boy]. "That he was in the habit of swearing, and of using expressions of an objectionable character when irritated. "That he had exercised no supervision as regards the entries in his portion of the Workhouse Medical Relief Book. "That he had not entered in the Provision Accounts as absent inmates who were in fact absent on leave from the Workhouse. "That he had contravened the Board's regulations by placing Caroline Barber, aged sixty-four years, upon bread and water. "That there had been undue delay in the registration of four births in the Workhouse. "That in the cases of two females, named Caroline Clegg and Elizabeth Jacob, who died in the Workhouse, he did not take sufficient care to give notice of their decease to their respective relatives. "That through want of due care, a mistake was made as to a body sent for burial. "That he allowed Elizabeth Farquharson to leave the Workhouse for four days to go to work, and that he charged in his accounts rations for her during that period. "That his behaviour towards Mrs. Casher, on her visiting the Workhouse to see two girls in whom she was interested, was discourteous; and that he used very improper language to Emily Brown on her visiting the Workhouse to see her husband, an inmate [who was on his deathbed]. "I am, Sir, "Your obedient servant, "(_Signed_) C. N. DALTON, "_Assistant Secretary_."