The Express.
London, England, 1866-12-26 00:00:00

HEALTH OF THE PARISH OF MARYLEBONE.

ST. MARTIN'S-IN-TIIE-FIELDS.
Population. 22,030. In-door poor, 430 (last year, 417,) ;
men, led ; women, 24S ; children, 2J. Mass of children at
schools at HanwelL Out-door poor, 24S (last Fear,
men, 25 ; women, 109 ; children. 114. Distributed for
out-relief, _.albs. beef, 110 loaves of bread, 2oz.
tea and 3oz. sugar each. St. Martin's pudding ; 1401 b.
raisins, 751 b. cumults. 131 b. peel. 401 h. sugar, .9b spice,
13 dozen eggs, 2M quarts milk, 1/40lbs. flour, 5 stone sullb.et.
Christmas fare. Soz. roast beef, Ilb. potatoem,
idum-pudding, 1 pint of porter, and tea and sugar to each.
Increa.e oil in-door, ; ou out-door-poor, 10 ; total W-
I crease, 31.

RT. GEORGE, HANOVER-SQUARE.
Extent, 1,172 acres ; population at 11401 census, 07.711.
In-door poor at Mount-street awl Little Chelsea Work-
houses, 1194 (last year 070) : males, Lit ; females, :114;
children, 143 ; children at a separate establishment in
Little Chelsea. Out-door poor, 1,271 ; last rear, 1,07
ren
1 :
adults (able-bodied), 222 ; not able-bodied, 5a5 ; child
under 10 year:, 494. Christmas-day fare : Ilb. roast beef
with potatoes and pint of porter each, and also on New
Year's-day, each inmate llb. roast beef with potatoes, pint
of porter, and 11b. plum pudding. Since the operation of
the Houselesa Poor Act, the number of applicants r for
casual wards considerably increased. ease
on in-doo
i poor, 16; on out-door poor, WO. Total increase, 216.
RT. MART, PADDINGTON.
Area. 1,245 acres ; population at last census, but con-
siderably increased, 75,7:4. Inmates, 459; last Christ-
mas, 305: men, 115 ; women, 170 ; children, 100.
I tut-door poor. tog ; last year, sn4 : adults, 1109 ; chil-
dren, ;1 e 4. Fare yesterday : Roast beef, mashed potatoes,
plum pudding, and a pint of beer each. On Boxing-day
also, aged men 1 in
chpt of ,an
reat on New Year*d the women egg flip. and
tobacco and snuff ; ildbereern, a ts-day ;
outdoor poor, a shilling for each adult, and Cal. each
child, in addition to the regular weekly reliefs. Christmas
i pudding. made of 140Ihs. of flour, MR*. fruit, 1001bs.
I suet, 3,11ba. sugar, since, &c., and weighs about 5001bs.
I l'rice of bread, 14s. 'd. per cwt. ; flour, 435. per sack ;
cheese. 0.4. per cwt.; eg
gs, per 120, Os. ; rice, 164. ; and
oatmeal. 10s. per cwt.: against lls. 5d.. 32a. 64., 524,
Ss. 0.1., L 4., and 1 is. MI. for these articles last year.
EI)VoNTON UNION.
Extent of union, 47,5:40 acres ; population at census of
1:411, 59.32.1. Inmates of union : Men, 11$; women. `nl;
total, 301 'last year, 311). Children at }lnfield School.
Fare: Roast beef. plum pudding, and 1 pint of porter
each, with tea. &e. By subscription: Oranges, apples,
&c. Price of meat, Si. fid. per atone ; dour, 375. per
sack. No return of outdoor poor.
ST. SAVIOUR'S UNION (SOUTHWARK).
Matter no time to give statistics, but says each inmate
has Dora. roast beef 'rump and rounds), llb. potatoes,
1 pint of Barclay and I'erkins, and 12ots. plum pudding—
, a better could not be wished for, with oranges, fruit, and
i Christmas tree for children and imbeciles'. Guardians
I give extra tea, tobacco, and snuff.

THE CONDEMNED CONVICTS IN MAIDSTONE GAOL.
—The proceedings at the Kent winter assizes were in-
vested with painful interest this year, from the unusual
number of serious cases for trial ; and, as will be seen
front our report, two of the criminals were left for death.
tine of these, Ann Lawrence, condemned for the murder of
her child (notwithstanding that she persisted in accusing
her paramour, Bighorns, of the deed, even after sentence
was passed upon her). has now confessed her guilt. After
the trial she appeared in a very depressed state of mind,
walking restlessly up and down her cell, and taking very
little rest. On Major Danidoter, the governor, going to her
cell on Sunday evening, she stated to him that it was she
who killed the child, and she desired this to be known,
that others might not he falsely accused. She also made
similar admissions to the chaplain, the Rev. Mr. Fraser.
She made no statement as to the motive which induced
her to commit the act ; but the general tone of her con-
versation leads to the belief that she did it while in a
state of jealous frenzy. After her confession she became
much more calm. and she is now evidently thoroughly
penitent Cir her clime, listening earnestly to the exhorta-
tions of the chaplain. and apparently entertaining little or
no hope of a reprieve. With regard to the other criminal,
.James Fletcher, convicted of the murder of a convict
warder named Boyle, although the demeanour of the pri-
soner, almost up to the day of his trial, was most
hardened, it has since become greatly subdued ; and he
also is evidently alive to the terrible reality of his posi-
tion. lie is visited daily by the chaplain, and makes no
attempt to justify his crime. Following the ordinary
course, the execution of the criminals would take place on
Thursday. the 10th of January.—,South Eastern Ga:ettt.
EcLirsEs iN 1867.—Tliere will be four eclipses
in the course of the next year. 1. An annular eclipse of
the sun, March 4, visible at Greenwich, Sh. 17m. morning.
2. A partial eclipse of the moon, March 20, invisible at
Greenwich. 3. A total eclipse of the sun, August 20, in-
visible at Greenwich. 4. A partial eclipse of the moon,
Sept. 13, visible at Greenwich ; begins 10h. 57m. evening.
ADMIRALTY, DEC. 20.—Charles Forbes, Esq.,
M.D., has this day been promoted to the rank of staff sur-
geon, with seniority of Dec. 19, 1844 .—Gozeffe.
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Dr. Whitmore, medical officer of health for this
parish, has just issued his report to the vestry of St.
Mar/14one, for the year 1865. In the causes of the reFerk
he observe:—" With the termination of the year 1865 the
first decennial period of the operation of the Metropola
Local Management Act is completed, and it would
constitute a very profitable and highly important sub-
ject of inquiry to aefertain how far. that act—se
it relates to the promotion of the public health—has
realised the objects and intentions of the legislature, to
what extent the sanitary condition of the metropolis has
been improved, and in which of its provisions for this
object, the act has been found defective in operation.
That it has been found defective is evidenced by the fact
that from time to time modifications in the law relating to
the removal of nuisances have been made, and
even so late as the close of last session of parliament an
act to amend the law relating to public health
was passed, entitled ' The Sanitary Act of 1866.'
The great interest manifested by all intelligent classes of
the community at the present time on sanitary subjects,
consequent upon a better and still increasing knowledge
of the laws of health and 'disease, can no longer be
ignored, and must necessarily have the effect of stimu-
lating the vigilance of those to whom the practical carry-
ing out of sanitary operations is entrusted ; these
operations will now by the act of 1866 grow into mogul-
tude and importance, and require for their full and 'satis-
factory accomplishment no considerable amount of time,
attention, and personal energy. It is however no uncom-
mon thing, even in the present day, to meet with well-
informed persons who look upon sanitary work as useless,
and a waste of public money, and it is quite possffile to
understand—unless an enlarged and comprehensive view
of the whole question be taken, and the statistics of
disease and death collected from a very wide and extended
area of population—that even reasonable men may be. so
impressed. In a few of the worst districts of this parish
may be found little communities of the poorest
and most destitute classes, who for years have lived
under conditions adverse to health, but who are neverthe-
less singularly free frotheickness, whilst in localities
ood where
the sanitary arrangements appear to be very g, and
where competence provides all necessary comforts, fever
and other epidemic outbreaks are by no means en
large
aunt; again it so happens that notwithstanding the large
amount of sanitary work done during the last few years,
the death rate of the metropolis has not diminished, and
that even amongst zymotio diseases—those which this
work is especially intended to control—there has been no
apparent decrease. Facts such as these are no doubt
calculated to render the sceptic still more sceptical, and
to exercise a prejudicial influence upon the judgment of
many members of vestries, and district boards, when ques-
tions of expenditure for sanitary purposes come
under consideration ; but the concurrent testimony
of the moat acute and experienced observers of
the operations of sanitary laws, supported as it is
by undeniable statistics, leaves no just pretext for doubting
that many of the causes which promote sickness, aggravate
the type of contagious diseases, and increase mortality,
are directly traceable to defective hygienic, conditions of
one kind or another ; but if any further confirmation of
these truths were needed, it would be found in the details
of the epidemic which is now happily passing away.
When the history of this epidemic is told. we shall learn
that wherever the barrier of sanitary precautions was op-
posed to it, there at once its progress was arrested, but
where no such barrier existed, it marched on its devasta-
ting course leaving death and sorrow in its wake. In this
parish some striking instances of the apparent efficacy of
sanitary measures in arresting the progress of cholera have
occurred. On the 9th of last September a peer woman,
who two days before had been engaged in washing linen
soiled with the excreta of a cholera patient died
of the disease ; • child also who slept with her
was attacked and died shortly after. These
deaths occurred in Gray's-buildings, in which there
are twenty-four houses inhabited entirely by the
poorest classes, principally Irish. The permanent
population of this place is 500, which at night is consi-
derably increased by costeemongers and others who go
there to sleep, every house is densely crowded, and the
habits of the inmates dirty in the extreme; indeed it is
impossible to uescribe the filthy and disgusting propen-
sities of many of them. Here, then, it will be at once
apparent, was a spot where cholera would quickly
take root, and • soil favourable to its rapid
growth, and there is little doubt but that its
growth would have been both rapid and de-
structive but for the prompt and efficient measures
taken to prevent it. The furniture, clothes and bedding
of the room in which the deaths occurred, were at once
disinfected and afterwards destroyed, and the whole house
thoroughly cleansed and disinfected ; every other house in
the buildings was treated in a similar manner ; all the
drains and closets were copiously flushed with disinfecting
liquid, as was also the pavement and roadway in front of
the houses. It may suffice to say that no other death from
cholera has since occurred in the place. Some other in-
stances, equally marked and conclusive, might be quoted,
but it would be merely a surplusage of proof to refer to
them. That the death-rate of the metropolis has not de-
creased in the ratio of the improvement in its sanitary
condition must, I think, be attributed to the fact that
the means for providing proper house accommodis-
tion for the poor has net in any degree kept pace
with the growth of population. Of what avaiU it
that nuisances from defective drains and closets are
I remedied, when every room in the houses to which they
belong is overcrowded with inmates—when eight or ten
persons are compelled to live and sleep in an apartment
which only affords fair breathing space for two or three,
and when these evile, alike destructive to health and
morals, are greatly aggravated by the persistent dirty
habits of the people themselves. The construction of
railways through many of the poorest and most densely
populated districts of Loudon has, no doubt, facilitated
public traffic and convenience, but it has also entailed
upon the poor a great amount of hardship and suffering.
Viewed in the light of its sanitary advantages to the metro-
polis, one cannot look upon the wholesale demolition of
the wretched houses situated in these districts without
something like a feeling of satisfaction, since it lays open
to the purifying inilueuces of light and air extended areas
of space which for many years have been hotbeds of die-
ease, and in which thousands of human beings—daily
poisoned by noxious and fetid exhalations—have dragged
on a brief and sickly existence ; but this feeling
is alloyed by the sad reflection that, although the poor
are routed out from these pestilential spots, they are driven
,to seek shelter in others equally and even more
pestilential, for with them the only choice ie either
the open streets, or the possession of a miserable room,
or part of a room, in a house already le
where the poisonous gases exhaled from the
lungs of so many human beings daring the long winter's
nights, slowly perhaps, but surely undermine" the
I health, stints the growth of children, and deprives them
' in manhood of that bodily strength and vigour which
constitutes the richest inheritance of the labouring
man. Up to the present time the districts in St. Mary-
lebone, inhabited chiefly by the per rpopulation, have been
but little disturbed by railway irruption ~ had it been
otherwise, I should hardly have regretted it. In this
wealthy parish there are scores of dreary streets and bye-
ways, where the houses are so dirty and dilapidated, that
the heart sickens at the sight of them, and the energy
that would strive to amend their sanitary condition be-
comes paralysed by the utter hopelessness of the task.
The most urgent social and sanitary want of the metro-
polis, at the present day, is house accommodation for
the working classes, which shall combine the indis-
pensable requisites of good sanitary and domestic ar-
rangements. Various modes of improving the dwell-
ings of the poor have been proposed, one of which has
to some small extent been ali early adopted. I refer to
1 the erection of model lodging houses. These buildings
have much to recommend them ; the rooms are for the
most part lofty and well ventilated, the arrangements in
them for cooking, washing, and other domestic purposes
are good, whilst the water supply, drainage, &c., are ill
that can be desin d ; in most of them the terms of occu-
pancy are—necessarily I think—somewhat stringent, and
to a large section of the poor, whose habits of life are
offix.sed to all rules of order and decency, they are
decidedly objectionable. In this parish we have four
of these erections, and I have ascertained that the inmates
of them are generally healthy, well satisfied with the com-
fort and convenience they provide, and with the rules and
regulations which they are called upon to observe ; in the
event of an outbreak of fever, small-pox, or other con-
tagious disease occurring in either of these buildings, it
might be a question worthy of consideration whether the
accumulation of so many persons under one roof—for some
of these lodging houses will accommodate as many as 20 or
30 families— between whom there is constant personal inter-
course, would not help to promote the spread of the contagion
amongst them. Suburban villages for the labouring classes
have also been proposed, and strongly advocated by many.
The name is attractive, and suggestive no doubt to the
poor man of pure air, green fields, neat garden
plots, and a host of other little comforts denied to him in
his dismal London home ; but the class of dwellings which
could be let at so low a rent as to be within the means of
the working man, and at the same time pay a fair interest
on the outlay in their construction, must necessarily be
small and cheaply built ; to such buildings as these I see
many sanitary objections ; the rooms are tee small, and
too low roofed, to admit of proper ventilation ; in wet
weather the damp penetrates through badly cemented
walls, or rises from the surrounding earth, producing
°olds, rheumatism, and other kindred affections ; the
bowie drains—being diminutive and ill constricted—soon
get out of order, whilst the buildings themselves are con-
stantly in want of repair. A third scheme proposed is
the removal of cow-houses and slaughter-houses from
the metropolis, and the erection of dwellings for the poor
on the sites. One very great merit of this scheme is, that
it gets rid of an existing abomination, and for that reason
alone—if for no other—it deserves public support. It is
greatly to be desired that the earliest attention of the
legislature should be given to this all-important subject ;
the wretched dens in which the destitute poor of this me-
tropolis are compelled to live, or rather slowly to die, is a
disgrace to our civilisation ; for whilst our increasing
wealth, intelligence, and refinement.are manifest in a thou-
sand ways amongst the upper and middle classes of society,
they have effected but little towards the amelioration of
the social condition of the poorer classes ; who, in all that
relates to house comforts, and the wants of domestic life,
are but little better provided for than if they had lived a
century ago."