The Express.
London, England, 1849-12-07 00:00:00

OT.

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amount remains applicable the deft! meet Isf?_10,
isterest on the capital I xpeOed out tine Wilding" -7-1
The Live rpool Baihs and Washhouer s, which were
the first erablistod in England, are also financially
-iinecemfol.' The original edifice in that town woo •
smal building, incoi.veni. nlv situate. Nevertheless
It siml veered. Io coneeque,-t cu of its success, a second
and a much handsomer building was constructed. So
well has this succeeded, the, a thud set of baths and
washbouses are at this time being erected in Liver-
pool, solely at the charge, as in both the former in-
stance", of the borough corporation.
Liverpool was thus leaving the great nobtropf olis of
Eoglat:d in the rear, as regards the provision o these
mos. desirable estelltahments fur the poor. At d yet
toere are peculiar reasons why London should be
foremost in making this provision. It does so happen
that Sir HaNBY DUKITWIELD'a valuable Act is not
available to the citir ns of London. That Act is a
Parochial Act. It contemplates the erection of blebs
and w:shhouses out of moneys to be nisei
on the security of parish rates—such baths
and waahhenses to be primarily useful to
the poor of the parish in which they may be situated.
But the parishes of the City of London are, with few
exceptions, vety small parishes. Strike an average of
their population and they will be found not greatly to
exceed 1,500. For the most part the poor are greatly
scattered thruueh them perishes. They may be found
in the COWS and alleys and back pat ts or houses in
close streets, but there are few places in that pad of
London over which the City authorities exercise their
jurisdiction in which the poor are to be found
collected in large masses. Toe ratepayers of each and
almost every C:ty parish, therefore. may justly ray
that there is no reason why they, peculiarly, should
be called on to erect baths and washhowes. .And yet,
taking the aggregate population of the City, it has its
full share of poverty with other places,—poverty, too,
which can advance a very particular claim to be per-
mitted to share in the advantages which baths and
washhonses afford.
For, take the world through, and you will find no
move densely picked locality than ibis City of Lou-
don. Here the tall warehouses seem almost to jostle
land nod against each other in the crowded lanes, and
to be thronged along the river's brink, as if with a de-
termination that as little air and light as possible shall
penetrate If the poor in suburbs and open spots where
1 green fields and trees are visible find laundries
awful and baths conducive to their health, by how
much more must they not need them when forced to
live and breathe and have their being in oar dark and
close and crowded alleys? It is by thus packing the
City—it is by thus making use of every square inch of its
property, that the corporation of London has amassed
its wealth. Surely it is a duty deeply incumbent upon
it to provide for those urgent wants which it has thus
created. Surely the City ought not to permit its pior
to be driven to Whitechapel or to SL Martin's-in-the-
Fi. Ids, to supply a remedy for an evil for which the
City itself is alone responsible.
Another excellent reason which Mr. Alderman
SALOYOIIB assigned in favour of City baths and wash.
nooses touched very closely on the increasingly im-
portant question of our metropolitan supply of water.
I olt is the undoubted fun.tion of a corporation," said
Ike worthy alderman, " to establish pumps, reservoirs,
aced fountains, for the convenience and use of the
Ipeople whom they govern.* Where are the pumps,
reservoirs, and fountains of London ? They exist
alone in the records of the pest. Where is "the
fountain in Chepe," that used to run with Rhenish
or Bourdeaux, in honour of a coronation or a Lord
Mayor's day ? Sacrificed to the genius of monopoly,
in the shape of a water company. It is the peculiar
duty of those who have allowed this destruction of
such ancient ornaments and conveniences to see that
at least the poor are not the sufferers " I coaterd,"
said Mr. Alderman SALOMON 3, " that in providing
baths and osehhouses, you ore only providing for the
distribution of water in another form."
It is in this spirit and on these grounds that the
worthy alderman for the ward of Cordwainers asked
the Corporation of London to supply baths and laun-
dries for the London poor. He recommended
them as utilitarian,—if you please as philan-
thropic—institutions. But he was careful to
avoid commending them as charities. On the
contrary, he urged that one advantage of Whir and
' laundries founded as a corporate institution over
baths and laundries established by private contribu-
tion, consisted in the fact that all appearance of cha-
rity wasthen got rid of. It is a good sign of the time
to find the wealthy and the powerful thus enforciv
the true principle upon which the poor ought to '
dealt with, and thus labouring to b.nefit the class
whom it is of all others the interest of the c immu-
nity at large to protect and to encourage—the most
active and industrious of our population—the hard-
working artificer : in a word, the labouriog poor.

FRANCE•

PARIS. THURSDAY, 5 30 r x
The Oasette de Prance of yesterday evening says .
" The Minister of Finance presented this morning to
the Council of Ministers a bill for the imposition of a
stamp duty of four centimes upon the journals. The
euncil decided, in conformity with the prescriptions
of the constitution, on sending the bill to the Council
' of State foe *zaniest ion, and presenting it at an early
period is the Assembl-,..“
In the Chamber yesterday was discussed the elec-
toral law—en organic law uit is called here—which
hese, with two or three other., the complement of the
seeetitution, and gives power to divide into four elee•
Ural eircumectiktions any given canton ; there is an
exception to the rule in the acme law, which orders
that the vote must be given at the chef lieu of every
canton. M. Fouquier d'Heronel's proposal is that the
exception of the electoral law should become the
rule, for it has been shown that the distance is often
merest to the chef lieu, that numbers of voters do
oat some to the poll. General Cavaignac and General
Belleau, who spoke yesterday on the subject—one,
tubed, which threatened to produce another of those
scenes of which the Assembly is SS often the
theatre—ad
reposed notchange urge ,
sty
enlarar4td gumentsupon t agaheir
ecru inst
thetai s lest the constitution should be vio-
la M. Emile Barrault had already placed
the question upon that ground, and though M. Gas-
lands, reporter of the committee, said that in most
instances at present the exception had become the
rale in almost all the departments where each canton
had been already divided into four, the debate was
adjourned amidst great agitation.
There can be no doubt that the vote by communes
is the best, and General Bedean himself admitted that
Ihe thought so. But it must be admitted that the
I change that would ensue from M. d'Heronel's plan
justifies scruples, for, supposing the 2,846 cantons of
Prance divided into four, the ele..4oral districts could
not be more than 11,384. Now, every one knows
that there are no less than 37,184 communes in
France, and, as the Press* truly says, "in the present
condition of the electoral law, a little more than a
quarter of the communes are chef lieu: de canton.
The debate on this 'whine was resumed to-day,
and several amendments had been rejected up to post

boar.
Letters of the 18th nit., from Athens, announce the
arrival there of IL. Thouvenel, the French Envoy.
DOUME.

►ar Aooollot.

Patin, Dee. Par
Nancy. Opening IligheeL

. Lowest. Clash(
1 --- ---.
9 per Cents. ..... 91 39 0 0 0 0
6 Tor OWL. —..— 111 TO n n 0 0
3 do. lbw 1446& a * r•
parChnis.... N * *
•4
4 pit CEOs ......-- N n n .. n
unclean, as Loortos: 36.1.11, 33 50; 90 .leys,ls 33
"law... 5940 .„,_ 97 yaw. Nature Sures .. 91 50 Money
[lO. 5. NU
Do.
Do. tit
Beress..—St Dermal% 393: Tersailin (right bank), 210; Verladll
(lea bask), 36 25 ; Were, 750; Boon, NO; Havre, >35; Mar-
-4 4o
le. 102 30; Onstre. 313 ; Boulogne, 130; &edema,
40i 34, Nast% 940 25 ; Iltralloang, 347 30; Tours and !Wales, 377 30;
Nanterre% 110.

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PRE B, FRIDAY EYENiNG, DECEMBER. 7, isn.