President of the Board, he held hardly any communication with his Permanent Secretary. It will be well understood, that if it took some fifteen months for the Permanent Secretary to draw up and issue the letter containing the Committee's suggestion as regards expensive medicines, that no hurry would occur in the establishment of Poor Law dispensaries in the Metropolis, which was only an amplification of my original suggestion. And that actually happened; and it was only by our constantly pegging away, that at last the Board commenced to establish them. But whilst no _bonâ fide_ effort was made to carry out this portion of the Metropolitan Poor Act, an absolute epidemic took place as regards the building of asylum hospitals, district hospitals for fever and infectious diseases, asylums for epileptics, idiots and imbeciles, district schools, &c. This arose partly from indifference on the part of the permanent officials, but to a greater degree from their complete ignorance of the necessary details required for economic building. It was never my desire, in striving to amend the system--that is, to substitute for the absence of all system of medical relief to the poorer classes the reverse policy--that architects, surveyors, and builders, should be at liberty to extract all the money they could get from the pockets of the metropolitan ratepayers. As it was, finding that the absence of all efficient control was leading to an enormous outlay, and that the public was naturally getting not only alarmed, but indignant, at the profligate expenditure of their money, I put myself in communication with Mr. Torrens, then M.P. for Finsbury, and asked him to question the President of the Poor Law Board on the subject, and to move for a return of what had been already spent and what was proposed to be spent in such buildings. I also requested him to inquire to what cause the delay in establishing Poor Law dispensaries under Mr. Hardy's Act was due. This action considerably alarmed the permanent officials. More important still, it led to a very considerable curtailment in the amount of contemplated expenditure on buildings, and, with this, an approximation to some control. Soon afterwards the establishment of Poor Law dispensaries was commenced, which was an important feature of the Act. I cannot but relate the close of Mr. George Catch's career.