
“The Directors of the Infirmary for the City of Portsmouth, herewith present a report of their official action during the year ending March 1, 1872.”
“The expenditures for the relief of the poor may be classed under the following heads, with the amount in each class:”
Subsistence: $643.30
Coal: $587.30
Salaries of directors and physicians: $525.00
Burial expenses: $226.80
Transportation: $59.40
Incidentals, blank books, etc; $44.30
Total: $2086.10
“In expending this amount, we have distribute 317 loads, or 5072 bushels of coal to 131 different families. Subsistence has been furnished to the same number of families, in addition to single persons in some cases. We have buried 29 bodies, children and adults, at an average cost of $7.75 each. We have aided many persons in pursuing their wanderings to other places, as well as in removing paupers from here.”
“Last year there were distributed 211 loads of coal to 75 different families, and subsistence to about the same number.”
“This increased pauperism and consequent expenditure, is mainly due to two causes; 1st, the unprecedented severity and length of the past winter, throwing a great number out of employment, and otherwise diminishing their means of support, forcing persons to apply for public assistance who never applied before. Secondly, the ruling of the County Infirmary Directors, by which a large expenditure is forced upon the city which should be borne by the county. These rulings, instead of making the County infirmary a place, or a means for the support of the poor of the county, pervert the object of the institution, and places it in antagonism to the township institution, at least to that of this city, while the city nevertheless pays one-half of the county taxes. By authority of the City Council, granted September 1, 1871, the city board instituted legal proceedings against the county board in one case, before the mayor, and judgement was rendered in our favor. Under that authority we design to commence further proceeding, with a view of obtaining from the courts an authoritative interpretation of the law, thereby relieving the city from a heavy expenditure now imposed unjustly, as we think, upon it, and to serve in the future as a rule by which the county board must be governed. All of which is respectfully submitted.”
“Levi C. Barker
Robert Montgomery
Francis Cleveland
Directors of the Infirmary Portsmouth, April 4, 1872.”1