The Express.
London, England, 1866-07-11 00:00:00

IDEN'S VALIJA!

18carat• —CI 3 84
17 carats.. 3 0 2
16 carsso.. 116 7+
15 carats.. 2 13 1
14 carats.. I 6 If
13 carats.. 2 6 0
12 carats.. 2 2 51
11 carob.. 1 13 11
10 carats.. 1 15 4.1
_

TIIRTLE, TURTLE, TURTLE.
Clw, Mist, sad Invalid TURTLE 6013111 always ready.
ST. JAYZITS-Prau, ItEGANT-BTI.IIIT, PIOUDLLLY.
WY. DONALD. Proprietor.

LONDON must have a SUPPER and MUSIC
ROOM for Geottemen.—Remember, we wait for yea at
" RVANW." atter the Covent Gerdes Opera and the Theatres.

the OrpretiO.

TO CORRESPONDENTS
dvertisensents intended for " The Express," London Evening
ill=magic be at the 0111oe, 10, lionverieotrest, by Two
magic
on the day of publication.

_HAYMARKET.

Tim itizas. A RViCAYTIC DAVID
GARRICIL Yews. Bothern, Buckskme, Chippe
CUM Co., *c. ; ChlppeollalA As—LOBD Dl"lrtalfaln
MARRIED AND DOPY FOR.—And A KIM IN THE DANK.

PZINCEINB.

Tars Valium), THE HI7GUILNOT CAPTAIN. Masan Vining
and G. Honey: Misses Neilson, Augusta Thomson, and Drs.
Stirling —And QUIET LODGINGS.

Tall LVIW/110. SIXTEEN ifitlNG JACK—Joe Ladd, Ma-
dame Unladen, F. WUUame, and Master E. Sanders—With
&MIL AM) J&LIaMli Dia3lB. Mesdames S, Mills and L.
Haeartay.

MOB WATTS AT LONDON Earoos
Tin DAT —Morning. OIL 41,.... Alt -mom. lb. OR
To-Ilmow—Mornws, 13 36m Afternoon, 2b. 2331.

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, JULY 11.

THE opinions and intentions of the late Pre-
sident of the Poor-law Board concerning the
treatment of the sick poor of London may, we
presume, be fairly, deduced from the important
Report just published by Mr. FARNALL of the re-
sult of his official inspection of all the workhouse
infirmaries of London.

He wisely starts by accepting as a standard
that which Mr. Viniaas had accepted publicly,
arid which we shall all be disposed to acknowledge
as an authority, the brief statement signed by Sir
THOMAS WATSON, M.D., Sir WILLIAM ?HMI:180N,
Sir JAMES CLARK, Dr. BURROWES, Dr. JAMS; and:
others of the most highly eminent of the
medical authorities, who had set down 1s
minima of what could be accephok.'as
suitable accommodation for sick prams
under any public charge, a brief series of /Squire-
meats, calculated, as Mr. Paint infotiked the
President, on a scale at least one-third loftier in all
respects than that which is recogniadd and em-
ployed in the voluntary hospitals et London for
the casual poor, and in some respects, we may
add, considerably inferior to the recognised
standard for the sick convict. It will certainly be
admitted on all hands that the sick ratepayers and
the poor chargeable on their parish, and legally
recognised as an admitted charge of the State, are
entitled to no leas consideration than this in their
time of sickness and infirmity. These desiderata
include 1,000 cubic feet of space, and 80 feet
of floor space per bed ; suitable construction
and site for hospital wards ; nursing by a
paid and trained staff, not less than three for fifty
patients (the hospital regulation is usually three
to twenty) ; resident medical officers ; classifica-
tion of patients, and separation of lunatics, im-
beciles, and epileptics from the sick and bed-
ridden; and a supply of drugs, in which the medical
ofilcers have no pecuniary interest. Mr. Faorint
reports, as might be expected, that these desiderata
are not to be found united in any workhouse in-
firmary in London ; none combine them all ; and
the majority do not supply any of them. The
average of cubical space is very little over 500
feet—half the supply of sick convicts, less than
half that of sick soldiers, barely a third of that af-
forded to any vagrant, who has no claim upon a
parish and no " settlement," but is carried to the
nearest hospital. Five hundred feet is the aver-
age, 206 feet is the lowest, and is found at
Marylebone, a parish of which the guardians
have been the most energetic and insulting
in their attacks upon those who first laid
these facts before the public. We can state
that there is certainly one workhouse in London
where, during the winter, the women and children
have had less than 200 feet of air, and as 300
feet is, we believe, the minimum which is
permitted even in a common lodging-house in-
tended fur the occupation of healthy people of the
lowest grade by night only, so we conclude that if
these guardians and those others whose estimated
space falls below that terribly low allowance had
kept a common lodging-house for the purpose of
making a private profit out of the most abandoned
characters, instead of administering national relief
to decayed parishioners, they would have been
liable to be indicted for a common nuisance.
Of the forty workhouses only fourteen pre-
sent facilities for rendering the infirmaries
satisfactory in their accommodation, and this by
extensive building operations upon the grounds
which (surround them ; eleven of the rest can-
not be so improved by any means, owing to
irremediable defects of site and construction.
Thirteen could be rendered " available for use " if
" half the beds now in the sick wards could be
" drawn." But, if they were so drawn, where are
the sick occupants of the beds so removed to be
sheltered? The parishes are bound to provide for
them ; and they could only do so by providing
buildings elsewhere. Mr. Faorin.r. concludes
that " the difficulty of carrying out even these
" suggestions regarding space is almost insuperable,
" for it would be necessary to withdraw nearly
" one-half of the beds now occupied by the sick
" and bed-ridden." But even if this could be
overcome, there are other more serious objections
to this kind of patchwork, which have been
already urged, but which Mr. FARNALL now puts
forward as the deliberate result of his long and
careful observation of workhouse infirmaries in the
metropolis.

Pauper nurses are incapable, cruel, and unfit for
the duties entrusted to them. The medical officers
are overworked and underpaid ; the airing-grounds
and general arrangements for idiots, imbeciles,
and harmless lunatics are lamentably and cruelly
insufficient ; there are only three resident
medical officers to look after the 18,000 nick and
disabled persona lodged in the infirmaries. But the