It was generally taken for granted that the meals, whether free or self-supporting, should be provided by voluntary agencies. The Local Education Authorities sometimes granted the use of rooms and plant,[35] but seldom took any further action. It is remarkable that the Guardians, whose duty it was to relieve the destitution existing, seem to have paid but the scantiest attention to it. Even where they attempted to deal with it by granting relief to the family, this relief was generally inadequate and the children were consequently underfed, with the result that they were given meals by the voluntary feeding agencies.[36] There seems indeed to have been no co-operation whatever between the various voluntary agencies established all over the country and the Boards of Guardians.[37] By an Act of Parliament passed in 1868 it was enacted that where any parent wilfully neglected to provide adequate food for his child the Board of Guardians should institute proceedings.[38] This Act seems to have remained almost a dead letter. In giving evidence before the House of Lords Select Committee on Poor Law Relief in 1888, Mr. Benjamin Waugh, Director of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, in speaking of the Act, stated, "first, that the Guardians do not act upon it to any very great extent; secondly, that the police know that it is not their business, and they do not act upon it; and, thirdly, the public have an impression that they are excluded from taking cognisance of starvation cases because the term used is 'the Guardians shall' do it." "There are cases in which they are habitually doing it, chiefly where ladies are upon the board, but in a very small number of cases indeed throughout the country."[39] The part taken by the State in the matter of relieving the wants of underfed children was thus as yet a small one.[40] Footnote 35: