The Express.
London, England, 1849-01-12 00:00:00

EMPLOYMENT OF THE POOR.

A public meeting was held yesterday at Willie's
Morns, King-street, St. Jenne's, for the purpose of taking
into cir.siceration tie unprecedented number of mechanics
and workmen now throwr out 3! employ, and the ezniut of
existing destitutian aid distress ; and further, for the pur-
pose of devising means of providing employment for the
prior and diminishing the privations anal sufferings endured
•r the labouring claws. Francis Smedley, the High Bailiff,
flikid the chair. The room was crowned.

The Cnatunan opened the business of the meeting by
acknowledging the receipt of a letter from Mr. Neecombe,
of Lambeth, propounding as a remedy Lecke distresses of the
working classes their employment on railways and e sewhere
in lieu of steam or hone power. The etateme..t of this plan
elicited sense laughter and much disapprobation en the part
of the meeting.
C. LOBIHNOTON, Esq., M.I ~ then rose to move the first
resolution, which ran thus: "That the number of operatives,
medlar ics, and lab meets now thrown out of empheemtmt is
unusually great, and the consequent destitution and distress
which exist on all aides are painfey excessive and deep),
alarming ; that such penury and want, and their attendant
anguish and suffering, inevitably engender sickness, mor-
tality, and crime ; that tne instincts art humanity, as well as
the precepts of our holy religion, enforce the duty of feeding
the hungry, sheltering the heuseh as, forgiving the rep. ntant,
and aiding in every pasible way our destitute fellow-cranny,
to recover and pursue a life of m Aerate comfort, virtue and
sobriety; that such law able objects can to a great extent
be secured by the establishment of institutions in the several
die ricts of the metropolis, and in every town and village
throughout the country, similar to the Mount St. Bernard
Hospice and the Leicester-square soup kitchen, whereat the
pear are sheltered, fed, clothed, and provided with work,
and this meeting urgently recommend the public at large,
sad the clergy in particular, to encourage the pr motion of
institutions of the kind as the most speedy and effectual
meth d o f promoting the physical and social welfare of the
labouring classes, aid there by placing them in a position for
roiling by the meets employed to forward their spiritual
interest." Mr. Lushington expressed his conviction t• et
the wealthier apses only needed to be authentically in-
I termed of the extreme misery. existing among their
ler fortunate brethren, to induce them at once
00 extend to these the fullest aid in their power, and the
' warmest sympatcy. He felt sure that a vast prop Ilion of
the sufferers were the victims of misfortune, not sufferers
from their own crime, and, they fore, he doubly recom-
mended them to the sympathy and practical assistance • I his
mere wealthy fellow citizens. Individual charity, however,
and Individual sympathy,. however cheering and however
wee to the individual recipients, were but as a drop in the
mean, when you considered the enormous mass of
misery that it was essential to remove. The only
real remedy for the great national distress that had
es long been weighing us down, was a thorough
reduction in our national expenditure, and the con-
sequent diminution at our national taxation. (Hear.)
Ilene especially should the people demand a regular cutting
down of the unity upon our army, navy, and ordnance.
(Hear, hear.) lie had last year supporta the maintenance
of our army estimates, because he then felt that the aspect et
things abroad rendered this necessary ; but any such newt.
sky, even if it then existed, had now disippeared. (Hear.)
To effect this vital object thoroughly would require the
earnest efforts of the whole nation, and one great part to
which these efforts must be directed was the increased libe-
ralisation of the House of Commons. (Hear, hear.) The
hon. gentleman then proposed his resolution.
The Rev. J. Jones seconded the resolution.
Mr. Hoooixs supported the resolution. Ile fully ad-
mitted the essential importance of aiming at political reforms
in every direction ; but, with the population starving in
every street, in every city, town, and village of the country,
it was the first business of the citizens who had any means to
apply themselves, heart and hand, to feeding, and
sheltering, and finding employment for, their less
fortunate fellomcitizera. Let there be inancial re-
forms, by all means, whether emanating from Mr.
Cobden or from any other source, but the immediate ne-
cessity was to feed the people. (Hear, hear.) This meat be
dose; and done, as it must be, by those who had the mesas
of doing it, by the tradesmen, the gentry, the nobility, this
great pressure from without upon property ie its various
gradations would of itself work out financial and politic 1
reform. (Hear, hear.) All undue taxation would be
swept away when the weight of taxation ones fell upon
property. (Hear, hear.) The demand of the starving peer
for food, for shelter, for employment, was the demand, net
for charity, but for justice. (Hear.)
Mr. CAMPBELL said there was nothing of greater import-
ance to the preservation of the peace of the empire, to the
comfort and security of the upper and middle classes, than
the finding some profitable employment for the working
eases. The latter were now and for a long time pest had
been tuft ring privatioas and misery of which the fernier had
no conception, and this despite the aid which they gave each
other in their trade societies, amounting to no less a tam
than one million per annum. The working closes had
no desire to confiscate the property of the rich;
they would net take a fluthing of any man's money
which they had not earned by their labour. All they
demanded was, that they should be allowed the use of their
own property, their labour—that by the sweat of their brow
and the !shams of their hands they should be allowed to earn
their own living in that state of life to which God had called
them. They were patient, they were mucluenduring ; they
had endured much; but let the now ruling classes be wise
in time, and reflect that there is a point at which patience
ceases to be a virtue, to be a possibility. (Hear, hear )
There miet well, in these two countries alone—
Great Britain and Ireland —be raised food enough for
a hundred and twenty millions of persons, yet the land being
locked up as it was in the unprofitable heads of a few,
not a sixth part of this number was now maintained out
of it. Btreet sweeping and soup kitchens were excellent ex-
pedients as far as they went, but the only real remedy for the
massive evil weighing the country down would be to give
the unemployed working classes the MHOS of maintaining
themselves independently and honourably by their own
labour, upon home colonies, for example, self-support-
ing, independent home colonies, not pauper terms.
(Hear, hear.) Until this was done the evil would
be scarcely diminished by any temporary expedient.
Mr. Cobden, for instance, might, perhaps, get the House of
Commons to consent to his scheme for saving 10 millions a
year of expenditure, but the 8,000 or 10,000 employes, sol-
diers, and so on, thus sent forth upon His world, would only
add to the hundreds of thousands of voices who next year
would, louder than ever, raise the cry for food, for shelter,
for empleement. No tinkering would do. There were 16
million acres of good waste land in this country. Millions
of it at the immediate disposal of the government. Lrt the
legislature but place this land within the reach of the labour-
ing classes, upon fair terms, and, if need be, aid the
operatives by loam, and there would be no man, woman,
or child, heard crying for bread throughout the country,
none needing the aid of poor rates, now cursing the hour
of their birth in prison or union bastile. (Hear, hear.)
Mr. KIDD also supported the resolution, entirely concur•
lag with Dar. Campbell's view of the necessity for a compre-
hensive plan of home colonies.
The resolution was then put and serried.
The second resolution, proposed by Mr. CHARLES COCH-
RAN!, recommended the extension throughout the metropo-
lis and the noun ry at large, of the employment of persmis
as street orderlies and sweepers. Mr. Cochrane stated that
the experience already had in that and an adjoining
parish of the employmeutof persons in this way had been
most satisfactory to the inhabitants, and most conducive to
the health of the locality.
The Bev. Mr. %town, of Bethnaligresn, having seconded
the resolution, it was put and carried.

Mr. WALTON proposed a re,olutitot to the ,--------..7y.5s that ja
order to meet the heavy pressure on the operatives andsm.
sensor this country, it wee essential to sure from Me legia
lotus* the immediate adoption of a comprehensive mho*
of self-supporting, independent hone colonies.
This resolution having been seconded by Mr. CAlll'Bll4
was also sarrie4, end thanks having been voted to tat Oak-
man, Use meetimrseporatod.

CHOLERA AMONGST THE PAUPER
CHILDREN.
AT ST. PANCRAS VESTRY, Yesterday, the
of the treatment of tie pauper chi dean at the Tootle.,
Asylum came sgaia under cusaiderat on. An extract fro";
report of the General Board of Health was real, in ehieh
the authorities at Uwyd;r Home speak In terms of Wok
praise of the mil and kindnee of the medic.l moo 118.4'
te
'rend on the sick p sup -r ch.ldren. In the course of a dir,
eussioz which 10e:weeds took place, Mr. Hickman, a am.
dial man, said. he thought it right that the p +tone sboalff
know where the blame relative to the treatment of
try
psuper children really rested. He wished to know of the,
chearmsn whether the was satisfied as to the die; and the
clothing of the children, as to whether they were sac
ciently provided with firing, and its to the des wage model.-
tilation of the bu'lding. It typo tred from the reports that
in this establishment there were the enormous number ar
1,400 children, and he (Mr. Hickman) had uedoesteese
that the medico gentleman sent down to Tootine by the
Board of Health had reported upon the history of the disease
that it was nothirg like anything that had ever prod only
occurred in this mun.ry. It became a moat serious questioa.
Some medical gentlemen had stated that it had 'risen frees
atmospheric poison. The term atmoepherie poison was very
vague. It was, in fact, mere twaddle to say that it had
arisen Eons atmospheric poison, unfree the description of ate
mospherie poison was defined. It seas his opinion thata
sort of a•mospheric poison which had produced tail
disease was the animal effluvia arising frees
the overcrowding of fourteen hundred children into
• place not sufficient to contain them—The clusirmaa
eMr. Healey), slid: The diet table he corsidered quite
qual to their own or that of Marylebone for the children, if
not better, and he had no reason to believe that Mr. Dream
did not carry it out. The do, mitories of the sins were better
than them in Marylebone or there, hut those of the boy.
were not so good. Perhaps there might have been a want of
more fires and clothing. It appeared tl at the Pear-Lee
Board had limited the numbers who should 11: r,coived into
Mr. Drouet's establishment, and Mr. Drouet had exceeded
them. They ordered that not more than 3.50 should be in
the boys' school-rearm, and Mr. Drouet had pieced there
500. With regard to the girls it was the same, an a no doubt
the 'ohne' effluvia amongst them were very bad in
consequence. Several of the private domestics of
Mr. Drouet's establishment had been attacked, and
one or two of the nurses tad died. Dr,
Bermingham said there was • great watt of warmth
in Mr. Drouet's establishment. He (Dr. Ideriniagham),
clothed as he was, felt, on passing through the wards as
Tooting, a dieogretable feeling of cold pervade his 'system;
and as this cold was so evident to mature and welbc.othed
persons, they might form some opinion of what the same
atmosphere must be to poor, ill clothed, end half-fed children
from two to twelve or fourteen vi are of age. (II -an.) The
great error of Mr. Drouet, he begged to say, aro, from his
ignorance, not to say incliffm nee, in not having made pro-
vision for the changes of the weather, with reearl to those
children placed under his core. lie not only gave these
poor children no change of clothing, althousth the therm.
meter might fall 20 or 30 degrees in one day, but allowed
them to go out into a told stamp play-ground, with beads
and shoulders uncovered, in the coldest day in winter, in the
same dress they would wear in the hottest day in summer.
He had examined 20 children porsoeally, and he was per-
fectly shocked to see what he witnes ed. Their little
flannel petticoats were so gauzy and thin, that yea
could literally read through them from age. With
regard to the question of atmospheric inisod being the
cause of this outbreak, he believed that the poison was the
exhalations teem thu children's own, persons, and that such
poison, couvled with poor diet, insufficient clothing, and**
cold and dampness of the piece, had caused the dieters.
The boards in some of tit.: girl.' sicepiog wards were so
honey-combed with age, that they absorbed large quantities
of water, and yet, contrary to common sense, they were
washed every day with ntt. r, emitting a told and unhealthy
vapour. The heat or the children.' bodies sleeping there at
night condensed it, and thus great injury was done to their
health.—The Caairman said it there was any blame with re-
gard to sending the St. l'ancras children, it anus' ba attri-
buted to the Poor-law Commissioners, who bad certified,
before the girls were sent, that the place was fit for them.
THZ CASES on Sr. PANCRAS WORKHOUSE were yesterday
reported as follows:—Number of new eases,4o; convalesnat,
11; under treatment, 110; deetha,7; still in a coliapeed s ate, 5.
It as added that the as vent- of the dewye has been increased
by the ill-ventilation of the building where the children
now are—a fault which deps have been taken to remedy.
THE OFFICIAL REPORT OF CASEB AT TOOTING yesterday,
was as follows :

_ .
Number of fresh cave, preacreing eholerele symptoms, 7; fresh
cases of diarthcoa, 4; death•, 7 ; wulzr treatment, ina. 41 have been
relieved to cestvaleeecnt wards. The greater swelter of cases tads/
treatment are proee. ding rapidly towardsoonvaleseenee. In Few ems
symptoms of fever of a typhoid character have priventegi themselves.
No sanitary measu Po leave been adopt, d to•rlay rePme:ii.g the ditches
or drains. Many thidk the mining up the mud Irum the hostas
of them, would be the means of producing a great ar.ountot stench,
and of stirring up a. amount of nosh) is material that wou'd be very
injurious and likely to give rise to further increase of docase.—
(Signed) W. J. KITE, resident eurgeon.
In c,naequ.uc.• of the order from the rned,csl superin-
tendent of the Board of Health that no more bodice of the
children should be interred in Tooting churchyard, those
which had died during Wednesday and yesterday w. re re-
moved in hearses sea, from the reap oive p,rishes to which
the children belonged to London for L appeals that
Mr. Wakley, the coroner, has determined on inAnuting a
most rigid inqu'ry i3.:0 all the circumstances connected with
this melancholy affair.
THU CHILDREN AT Tlfil HOLLORN UNION, sad in the
Refuge, Ogle-street, Mar) leheue, are reported as mutt
better.

KING WILLIA3I'S NAVAL ASYLUE.—Some of the
how. connected with .` K .ng William's Naval Asylum,"
at Penge, near Norwood, founded and endowed by Queen
Adelaide, being now complett d, her Majesty h. nominated
to two of them the widow of a commander of 86 years, who
entered the oavy in 1773, and the widow of a m .s;er, who
at his demise lield the office of master attend tee at one of
our royal dockyards. Each widow will afro be entittesl (on 1
certificate s'gned by a beneficed clergyman, that they are of
sober life awl conversation, and members of th• Church of
England) so an annuity of 301., payable half-yearly at
Mt sari. Couttia

RECORDERSHTF or• PONTEFRACT.—Mr. B. Boothby,
of the Northern Circuit, ±u received the appointment of
recorder of Pnntetract.

CHOLERA.—The Board of Health loaned the &l-
owing report yesterday: Dronet's Pauper Establish-
meat, Tooting (10th and 11th), 17, 22 fatal; Remits' Ogle-
street, Marylebone, 6; Hackney, 1 fatal; NewtostonWork-
house, 1 fatal ; Wandsworth, 2; Hertford, 2 ; Edinburgh,
4, 2 fatal; Ulasgow, 113, 41 fatal; Old M..nkland, 11, 6
fatal; South Knapdale, 1 fatal ; Jedburgh, 3 fatal ; Mors-
battle by Kelso, 1; Dumfries, 1 ; Old Cumeocb, 1 : total
new cases, 164, 76 dead.s.
BUTCHERS' CHARITABLE INSTITUTION.—Yesterday
evening the 20th lumina meeting of the r hove iustitution
was held at the Freemasons' Tavern; Mr. J. Sharp, presi-
dent, in the chair. The report congratulated the members
on the continued prose. rity of the charity since the data of
the lost annual meeting by an increase of et.bacribets and a
legacy of 501. Th 3 committee had been enabled to
invest an additional sum of 3501, making their funded
property to amount to 10,8691. Three per Cei.ta. The
income for the year, (including a previous balance of
6021. 2...8d.), was—subscriptions 1,1391. 17s ; donations,
1231. 9s. 7d. invested in fund.), and the above-named legacy,
3691. 12s. 6d total 2,1361. Is. Bd., which, after the cape:dil-
-1 lure, left a balance of 5.191 4s. There are now 61 pensioners
on the fund., to pay whom requires 901. per month. The
men receive 20 guineas, and the females 15 guineas each per
annum. The payment to the pensioners during the present
year will amount to m-re than 1,0001. During the past year
ten pensioners. being double the average number, had been
elected. In the asylum at Walharn.green there are at pre-
sent 17 inmates. the report was adopted, end the various
officers for the ensuing year were re-elected, and thanks
being voted to the chairman, the meeting broke up.
SIIOEMAKF.RS' SOCIETY.—A meeting of the mem-
bers of this society was held last night at the Freamasone
Tavern, fir the plume of devising means of raising the
sum of 1,0001., with which, in addition to the funds in hand,
the society intend to erect an asylum for aged members.
Robert Taylor, Esq., in the chair. A series of resolutions
in ac:ordance with the object of the meeting having been
paned, a vote of thanks was given to the chairman, and the
proceedings terminated.
WRECK OF A SCOTCH VESSEL.—Glonokilly, Jan. 8.
—The Ceylon, horn the Clyde to New Yore, was totally
wrecked In Roes Bay this morning. Twenty-eight of the
crew and passengers soved, but only_a little of tee cargo.
ROBBERY ON BOARD AN EMIGRANT SHIP.—A
robbery has just occurred on board the William Hyde, an
emigrant ship, bound for Adelaide and Port Philip, which
left the docks yeaterday.and is now lying in She I well Basin,
about to sail. While the William Hyde was lying off Me
jetty, an " intermediate" c,.bin passonger, on going on board,
found that his c • bin, which lie had left locked the day before,
had been broken open, the locks of his trunks forced. asd a
large portion of his outfit stolen from them, lie estimated
the value of what he had lest at about 16/. Another pas-
senger found his boxes unlocked, though he had le t them
locked a few hours bethre ' • but the thii.ves had probably
been disturbed before they could carry out their intentions,
as he was not able to discover that anything had been taken
from them. There certainly-should be some one appointed
(says an evening papt r) to take charge of passengers' lair-
gage when sent on baud, so unless some responsible person
is appointed to do so, it is difficult to say what fur:her pre-
cautions can be taken than were adopted in this cav, where
the trunks broken open were left locked in a locked. cabin.
THE MAIL, ROBBERIES ON THE GREAT WESTERN.
—The adjourned examination of the prisnners charged with
the perpetration of the robbery on the mail bags takes Ogee
to-morrow (Saturday) at the Guildhall, when further im-
portant di*eloeures are expected to be made. Mr. Peacock
and the Pust.offise authorities are down at Exeter, is
communication with the local officers of pollee, who
have been employed during the week in instituting the
most rigid search and inquiry, haying been put in ionisation
of the numbers of the bank notes, and a des ription of the
valuable securities lest. The applies ion on the part of the
prisoners' solicitor to have uninterrupted commtuticatios
with them during their remand, has been refused
by the magistrates. Further search at the prisoner Poole I
residence has disclosed a quantity of plate and valuable pro-
perty that will, in all probability,identify him with other un-
-