Note 47 — ON THE OPERATION OF THE ENGLISH POOR-LAWS.
Reading edition
"By sudden and urgent necessity, the Commissioners understand any case of destitution requiring instant relief, before the person can be received into the workhouse; as, for example, when a person is deprived of the usual means of support, by means of fire, or storm, or inundation, or robbery, or riot, or any other similar cause, which he could not control, where it had occurred, and which it would have been impossible or very difficult for him to foresee and prevent."—Eighth Report of the Poor-Law Commissioners. App. A.; No. 2.