ABSTRACT
Not the least curious feature of this very curious Board of Governors and Directors of the Poor was its methods of collecting the rates. Bermondsey folk were in the bulk very poor people, and in common justice the cost of collection required to be the lowest possible. Instead, it was the highest. The convenience of the persons who had to pay the rates should have been studied in every way, but quite the opposite plan was in practice when I found my way to the Board. The rates were not payable at the Town Hall; in order to pay your quota to the common fund a call had to be made at the private house of the collector on such days and at such hours as he might determine. Each of the four rate collectors was left entirely free to make these arrangements just as his own convenience dictated. One bad result of this was to be found in the fact that the number of summonses issued each quarter was greatly in excess of what it would have been had more frequent and convenient opportunities for payment been given. The Board cared only for the comfort and affluence of their overpaid collectors, and apparently regarded the ratepayers as being mere hewers of wood and drawers of water for the officials’ benefit.
