The Sun.
London, England, 1849-06-28 00:00:00

WORSHIP-STREET.

IMPORTANT APPLICATION.—Mr. ti:utfield, one of the
Middlesex county magistrates, and chairman of the
managing committee of the London Hospital, accom-
panied by the Rev. Thomas Ward, the chaplain, Mi.
Birch, tee resident medical sneer, and Mr. William
Nixon, secretary to that iustitution, attended to request
the advice and assistance of Mr. Hamelin in a matter
seriously affecting the pad, nts of the hospital and the
general health of the inhabitants of the neighbourhood.
Mr. Birch stated, that having adopted every means in
their power to obviated the necessity of their present
application without success, he and the gentleman who
attended with him felt it their imperative duty to seek
the interposition of the magistrate for eff ming the abate-
ment of a complete nest of destructive nuisances which
existed in the immediate neighbourhood of the institu-
tion to wh eh they were attached, and the continuance
of which, in the present heated state of the atmosphere,
was productive of the most s riot's consequence s. The
evil in question consisted of a congregation of various
factories and other premises, in which almost every
business that was of a noxious and deleterious character
was carried on, comprising no less than nine bone-
boilers', and numerous animal charcoal burners', colour-
makers', knackers' yards (at one of which, directly facing•
the hospital, an average number of 100 horses were,
slaughtered weekly), and a patent concentrated manure.
manufacture on a most extrusive scale, in which ex-
crementitious matter, soot, and other materials were
agglomerated into a compost, and disposed of in
large quantities. The whole of these premises
were clustered closely together, and so completely
surrounded the hospital, tha union workhouse,
and the parish schools, which respectively contained,
the first 400 permanent inmates, the second 1,000, arid
the third 500, upon the average, teat in some instances
a distance of searcele 30 yards intervened between thew
and the wells of the buildings. From all these premises
the most injurious and effeneive vapours were incessantly
exheling, which had such a pernicious effect upon the
health of the inmates of the institution be had men-
tioned, that no fewer than 50 cases of diarrheea had oc-
curred almost simultaneously a short time since in the
woe khouee, the master of which had also that morning
informed him that eight other inmates, chiefly children.
had just been attacked with the :same disorder. In ad-
dition to the baneful eff cts the t ffluviutn so generated
had upon the health of the patients under his own imme-
diate care, whose several diseases were greatly aggra-
vated in intensity, and not untrequently fatally termi-
nated by erysipelas supervening though its agency, the
inhabitants of the surrounding neigribourhood, which
was most densely populated, were constantly attacked
by diseases from inhaling these noxious gases; and
one street in particular, Queen Anne-street.
chiefly inhabited by the lower class of Irish,
was never tree from typhoid fever in its most virulent
form. As an instance of the deleterious effects of
these manufactories, he might mention that the district
where—they exiled stood considertinly higher in the
scale of min tatty than any other in the metropolis; and
the perfect impunity with which these nuisances were
permitted was curiously illustrated by at, advertisement
which appeared in several of the morning papers a few
days since, in which the writer, in setting forth the un-
usual advantages offered by his premises, stated that in
that locality any kind of business might be carried on,
as nuisances were freely tolerated.
Mr.'Stutfield else entered into many particulars en-
tirely corroborative of the statement just made by Mr.
Birch; and the Rev. Mr. Ward, whose residence closely
adjoins the hospi al, complained that he was compelled
to keep his windows constantly closed to exclude the
vapours arising from these factories, which were of such
a mischievous description that two members of his fa-
mily were at that moment suif ring from an incipient
attack of cholera, by which he had also himself been
affected for several days:
Mr. Birch then celled a poor woman tenanting a house
next to one of the bone-boiler's premises, who described
if e stench emanating therefrom as being of so powerful
a nature that she could not frequently use the greater
part of her habitation; and Mr. Birch intimated that he
had a number of other persons in attendance to depose
to the same elf ct ; but
Mr. lIAMMILL considered it unnecessary at present to
hear their evitiei cc, and directed Inspector Ells to put
himself into immediate communication with 1)r.
Leiheby, the eminent professor of chemistry, arid Mr.
Byles, the surgeon of the district, who tendered their
services in effecting the suppresaion of these grievances,
and whose joint representations, in conjunction with,
the hoard of guardians, would, no doubt, have the de•
sired effect.