OFFICIAL'S ERROR

Evening Star, Issue 18998, 21 July 1925, Page 4

OFFICIAL'S ERROR

DEAD MAX'S MONEY WITHHELD FROM RELATIVES. A Poor Law official’s error was mentioned at a Poplar inquest. Evidence was given that Robert Andrews, sixty-eight, of Lingen street, Brqpley-by Row, became ill at a local recreation ground, and died while being taken to St. Andrew’s Hospital, a Poplar Poor Law institution. A verdict of “Death from natural causes” was recorded. A sum of Is' lOd was in the man’s pocket, and a clerk at the hospital told a relative who asked for the money that, if the amount had been less than one shilling, it would have been banded over, but, being above that sum, application would have to be made to the guardians. The money was paid to the treasurer and banked.’ Mr Whitworth, the hospital steward, explained that the regulations provided that when a person died at the institution, and the amount of money exceeded one shilling, the money had to he hold by the guardians, to whom relatives could make application. In the present instance, as the man had died before admission, the position was different, and his clerk had been in error in retaining the money, but witness accepted the responsibility. The coroner said it was a serious matter to detain the money under such circumstances, and the officials had no right to do it. Ho advised more care in the future. Tlie steward promised that it would not occur again.