The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE Published every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday Morning. Tuesday, November 27, 1883. AN IMPORTANT MEETING.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 227, 27 November 1888, Page 2

The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE Published every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday Morning.

Tuesday, November 27, 1883. AN IMPORTANT MEETING.

Be Just and fear not; Let all the ends thou alm'st at be thy country’s, Thy God's, and truth’s.

The annual meeting of the members of the Hospital and Charitable Aid Board is to be held to-morrow, when we have no doubt there will be a discussion on the serious questions which have recently been referred to in our columns, and we hope that discussion will lead to satisfactory results. Tho danger of a poor rate being directly levied upon them ought to be sufficient to induce the ratepayers to watch these matters carefully, and show a a great deal more interest in them than has been done in the past. Unfortunately further legislation seems the only way to avoid a grave trouble in tbe future. There seems to be no present escape from a heavy and indefinite burden unless it can be managed by contesting a decision' already given. We are bound at present, so tar as we know, to pay for the support of destitute families who have been in the district six meutbs, and hare no other guarantee that the

cases are deserving ones than the demand for payment which is handed in. When a person has been in a district for six months and then tries to impose upon the charitable bodies, he mar, as a rule, be detected by reason of his character beingfound out, —and yet this is not always an easy task—but when ho changes quarters to some other district they neither know, or perhaps care, what may have been the antecedents of the person applying for relief. The members of our Charitable Aid Board have got a difficulty to meet, and they will have to apply themselves to it in a very different manner to what they have done in the past year. In fact, everything has been done in a most unbusinesslike manner which must on no account be allowed to continue. Some of the local cases treated savor too much of a kindly nature on the part of those who have authority to give orders, rather than of the keensightedness and enquiry which should be made before the public funds are so freely disbursed. We again strongly urge that an executive be appointed and instructed to carry out the duties in a way that there may be no ground left for apprehension in the public mind. If a poor rate has to be struck—and present appearances indicate that such a course may yet become absolutely necessary—the ralepayers will first require a radical change to be made some way or other. The meeting takes place at three to morrow afternoon, in the Borough Council Chambers. It would be well if the public generally viewed 'h-se matters in their most serious aspect, instead of waiting until they are brought home to them in a much more forcible, but equally unpleasant, way.