Note 667 — Chapter IV · (continued 2)

Mr. Salt, as Secretary of the Local Government Board, on Disqualification by Medical Relief Bill, Hansard, 11th December 1878, vol. 243, p. 630. In 1876 the disqualification had been explicitly re-enacted in the Divided Parishes and Poor Law Amendment Act (39 & 40 Vic. c. 61, sec. 14), promoted by the Central Authority itself, whose Parliamentary representatives continued for years to resist all proposals for its abolition or attenuation. In 1883 it was incidentally undermined by maintenance and treatment in the infectious diseases hospitals of the Metropolitan Asylums Board being declared not to be parochial relief (Diseases Prevention Act 1883, 46 & 47 Vic. c. 35). Not until 1885 did the Central Authority consent to its abolition, as regards persons in receipt of medical relief only, in the Medical Relief Disqualification Act 1885 (48 & 49 Vic. c. 46). Even then the "stigma of pauperism" was preserved, by omitting to repeal sec. 14 of the 1876 Act above cited, so that persons in receipt of medical relief only are still nominally disqualified from voting at an election of a Poor Law guardian, "or in the election to an office under the provisions of any statute."