The Express.
London, England, 1866-06-09 00:00:00

ORIGINAL GOLD CHAIN MANUFACTORY,
10. liiIHRIZTrA-8111.11T, CO

GOLD CHAINS

'oHpi

GUARD CRAMS.

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Nor must it be supposed that the workhOnse,
the discipline, or the guardians of the Strand
Union are exceptionally faulty and bad. The
stateminit of the nurse Burro*, which has been
in the hands of the Sick Poor Association for
'some weeks, is said .tb inolixle particulass con-
cerning two other workhouses in which she served
which are quite as shocking as anything yet pub-
lished. At . Botherhitbe, where it is understood
the next official investigation will be made, her
allegations are even more damaging then those
just proved against the Strand Union. Linen and
sheets only washed when the sick people using
them could afford to bribe the washers ; and
a want of necessary accommodation so
flagrant that deaths ensued wider circum-
stances indescribably aggravated and re-
volting ; lax discipline, and a persistent violation
of the regulations of the Poor-law Board, are
among the charges advanced. The statements
concerning the treatment of sick paupers at New-
ington are equally horrifying though lees specific ;
and it may be stated briefly that wherever this
outspoken witness has been in a workhouse she
has brought away evidence of habitual torture and
aggravated suffering, such as it is fair to hope
exists nowhere else in the civilized world. The
great fault is in all cases the same, and the pro-
moters of the association for improving workhouse
infirmaries hit the real blot when they described
the existing establishments as hospitals without
hospital management, and houses in which the
sick and suffering are now subjected to the regi-
men and discipline originally devised for the idle
and able-bodied.
It has been suggested by a contemporary that, as
there are twelve inspectors appointed under the
Poor-law Board, for the express purpose of super-
vising parochial management and preventing the
scandals which now occur with such appalling
frequency, some information is due to the pub-
lic concerning their implied neglect of duty.
But the evils we all complain of occur principally
in the metropolis, whereas the twelve inspectors
are distributed over the country. Upon one offi-
cial has consequently devolved the arduous and
ungrateful task of visiting thirty-nine workhouses,
of making suggestions which can always be ignored,
and of drawing up reports which need never be
attended to. If it be remembered that a London
workhouse numbers as many souls as a moderate-
] sized village, that " inspecting " is but a portion
of the inspector's duty, it will be readily
seen that the active interference of the outside
public has been an absolute necessity. It is
for the Poor-law Board to explain the admi-
nistration of its affairs, and the distribution of the
funds voted by Parliament. This is certain—no
adequate supervision of metropolitan workhouses,
and no proper control of metropolitan parochial
officers are possible under the arrangements it has
sanctioned until now. The country will not be
content to trust to the chance revelations of a
candid nurse, or the spontaneous inquiries of in-
dependent witnesses, for the discovery of such
horrors as are being dragged to light; and a remedy
for the terrible state of things proved to exist mustbe
speedily found. Turn which way we will, the
story is the same. Pressing requirements which
have outgrown all available accommodation—
urgent needs asserting themselves which have
never been suspected_—discoveries, bewilderment,
and dismay. Some weeks ago a circumstantial
statement was published by a local journal, in
which the nurses in Shoreditch Workhouse were
charged with the most brutal and filthy conduct to
an infirm inmate. Ten days since the master and
one of the principal female officers of Bethnal-
green Workhouse wound up a violent brawl by
appearing in a police-court, and mutually
revealing their unfitness for the trust they hold.
Not long ago the pauper, but for whose letter to
the sitting magistrate at Bow-street the inhuman
treatment of Monne GIBSON would never have
been known, made statements concerning the
treatment of an inmate in another workhouse,
which, if true, call for condign punishment upon
its officers. At Islington, the guardians or trus-
tees have just approved of plans for a new work-
house which are opposed to the rules just laid
down by the leading medical authorities, and
which, if followed, will perpetuate the evils of
overcrowding and bad air. These are a few
examples out of many of the necessity for
a supervision which shall be more searching,
and inquiries which shall be more prompt, than
our authorities have yet realised. The details of
improvement may be well left to the Minister to
whom we owe the Union Chargeability Bill and
the Houseless Poor Act, and who is pledged to
bring forward a measure for reform. It is the
crying necessity for counteracting the ignorance,
stupidity, and cruel selfishness of parochial
administration in the metropolis, upon which all
thinkers are agreed, and to which every new tale
of horror points.

OUR CONTEMPORARIES.
(THIS DAY.)

THE WAR.--COM BISMARCK'S DESPATCH.

As negotiations may be considered at an end,
Count Bismarck, the Times observes, feels it needless to
do himself further violence by using the ordinary language
of diplomacy, and accordingly writes a despatch breathing
the very spirit of war. No wonder that when it became
known, General Galsleast's' ordered to retire from Holstein.
It is the peculiarity of the present state of affairs
that it may end at any moment or be indefinitely pro-
longed, but even though matters should seem to move
slowly for a while it would be imprudent to cherish hopes
of a favourable issue. For Italy to draw back would be
fatal, and we may expect to find the Prussian government
exposed to the strongest solicitations of its ally. If any
gleam appears on the dark horizon, it is to be found in the
temper and behaviour of the Prussian and other German
populations. But an act of hostility on the part of Aus-
tria, such as the entrance of •Marshal Benedek into
Prussian territory, might make the people forget their
hardships in hatred of the enemy. Meanwhile every
power is interested in checking a war which may spread
over the greatest part of the continent. Even the out-
lying portions of the Turkish empire are not so secure that
we can afford to dispense with the supervision and guar-
dianship that the great powers have exercised. If those
powers are engaged in war, an ambitious empire like
Russia may attempt a return to a policy that has been only
temporarily abandoned.
If the publicists correctly define war as that state
in which we prosecute our right by force, the
war, says the Daily News, has begun, though
prudence may dispose both the powers to withhold a
recognition of its existence. If it he true that the French
government has impressed upon the middle and minor
states the importance of remaining completely neutral,
Austria has a strong reason why she should make a formal
breach with Prussia depend on its withdrawal from
federal duties rather than on any injury zustained by
herself, and so attach the middle states as firmly as pos-
sible to her interest. Count Bismarck's despatch is
piece of downright railing and vituperation— the Prussian
minister stopping at no imputation to produce the belief
that the ferocious Austrian lamb will not kt the Prussian
wolf live in peace. It is further remarked by the Daily
News that the questions to be settled are broader and
deeper than those which have hitherto figured in the
quarrel. If the cabinets can so conduct the war as to
bring it to an early issue, the governments may escape ;
but a long war would certainly call into play revolution.

THE COIIIIIIICIAL FAILMIZEL
It is observed by the Times th►t a cursory perusal of the
provisional report of Messrs. Turqusnd and Harding is
sufficient to show not only that no considerable pea-tint of
the paid-up capital of Overend, Gurney and Co. will ever
be recovered, but that no company ever ought to have
purchased the come= at all. The truth is that Messrs.
Overend and Gurney bad not a sound business
to dispose of on the 31st of July last, and,
instead of receiving 500,0001• for the goodwill
of it, should have beerr •thankfnl to pay a handsome
stun to any company which should take it off their hands.
We have in the report one secret of commercial failures,
and an intelligible answer to the question so often asked
of late—" Where does the money go ?" The money goes
in loans, at high rates of interest, to contractors and com-
panies who may ultimately be able to repay it, but who
cannot repay it at short notice. It is locked
up in works that require years for their completion,
and, for the purpose of meeting a sudden call, it
might just as well be at the bottom of the sea.
So many embarrassments did Overend, Gurney, and Co.
inherit from the old firm it could hardly have weathered
the storm of last month, even had the " bean" not con-
spired to undermine it. The can of the Agra and Master
man's Bank, in which the families of so many Indian offi-
cers had invested their savinp, appears to have been very dif-
ferent, and the downfall was, it seems , directly brought about
by unprincipled speculators who had made time bargains
upon its shares. It is for those who are familiar with
stock-jobbing transactions to discuss the expediency of
making any contract for the sale of shares void at law
where their numbers have not been specified in writing.
It is our duty to point out that, unless some remedy be
adopted, the London Stock Exchange will soon acquire a

ehUneful notoriety in Europe.
The Herald does not believe, with Lord Overstone, that
the principle of limited liability is Imo visions as to reader
its prolonged existence a calamity to be deprecated for the
Mk& of honest dealing and legitimate commerce. We
accept it as a necessity of the times, and as an expedient
well calculated to meet the tendency of modern
trade to centre in comparatively few hands. We
do not hold the new principle responsible for the
failure of Earned's, of Masterman's, of Overend
and Gurney, or of the other cues in which a
long and apparently prosperous career of private
trading has oome to a disastrous end after a reconstitution
as • joint-stock company. The fact is undoubtedly true
that in the foregoing, and in many similar instances, the
hope of success from taking over an old-established busi-
ness, has ended in dire disappointment and disastrous
downfall. But this rather teaches that the element, of
unsoundness were present before the change took place,
and to this conclusion several of the lately published
balance-sheets distinctly point.

PARIS.

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