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of the children in the Asylum he found it most disheartening that , after
eleven years of colonial management , one individual , like Coverdale ,
inexperienced and professedly ignorant of sanitary science, could defy
the decisions of a Board of Management and two whole Commi ssions of Enquiry .
More than that , he questioned the very principle of a Board of Enquiry ,
considering it labour thrown away for commi ssioners to spend months in
obtaining evidence, only to have their recommendations ignored, or
overruled in the interests of economy ; moreover , commi ssions in themselves
\'/ere suspect , since the many erroneous and mischievous statements given
to them as evidence could not be reported by the press , and consequently
corrected or denied until it was too late, after they had already been
incorporated into the report . 2 1
Yet, apart from the influence he exerted in the Benevolent
Society, Hal l's only weapons of attack against social injustice were his
letters to the press and his evidence to Commi ssions .
Disillusioned
thugh he was at the apparent ineffectiveness of the £cards , he,
nevertheless, did not hesitate to participate when invited to do so as a
representative of the Benevo lent Society at yet another Charitable
Commission which was appointed by the Government on April 11, 1871, to
inquire into several of its institutions and into the system by which its
out-door relief was administered.
This Commis sion, composed of T.M. Innes , J. Aikenhead,
A. Doug las , A. Kenner ley, D. Leld s, J. R. Scott and J. Whyte \'las the fourth
and last before which Hall appear ed. His mature and considered statement ,
the result of many years ' experience as a doctor , a welfare worker and a
SQcial reformer, \'las a s.ignificant analysis of the fundamental social
issues requiring solution after eleven years of colonial management ;
by inference, it revealed, too , where he himself had failed to achieve the
results for which he hoped.
In his opinion drunkennes s, immorality and
the desertion of fami lies \'lere still the three cardinal sins of the city ;
to prevent the worst features of these, he suggested that more indoor
relief , rather than outdoor relief be given, as ituas impossible to get
the children of the recipients into schools and out of their evil ways .
Much of his evidence was concerned with the inadequate guardianship and
supervi sion of apprentices .
In a long and eloquent plea for the better
protection of the helpless children sent out from the institution at the
21
Mercury, April 19, 1871.