The Sun.
London, England, 1849-01-24 00:00:00

them that there was not a case of sore bead in the house.
Dr. Farre and himself were so much surprised at this
statement that they examined 530 of the children, and
in that number they did not discover a single case of itch
or sore head. This circumstance was so creditable to
Mr. Aubyn that he considered:it right to mention it. In
Mr. Aubyn's;establishment the chaplain was paid from
public funds; 6001. or 7001. a year (as we understood)
was contributed from the same source for the payment
of schoolmasters; the house had been visited by Dr.
Arnott with a vtew to its ventilation, and it might there-
fore be regarded in a great measure as a quasi-public
establishment. _ _ _

In reply to the CORONER, Mr. Grainger stated that he
still adhered to the opinion he expressed in the report he
had read on Friday week, that the predisposing causes
of the cholera in Mr. Drouet's establishment were over-
crowding and insufficient food and clothing, combined
with the noxious effluvium arising from the drains in
the neighbourhood of the house.
The evidence being now concluded, the proceedings
were at five o'clock adjourned to seven in the evening.
Mr. WAKLEY then proceeded to sum up. The de-
ceased children, the jury would remember, were under
the care and legal guardianship of the authorities of the
Holborn Union; and the guardians, finding that their
own establishment,wasunsuited to the accommodation of

the inmates, considered it prudent to send a portion of
them to some country asylum. They were rather to be
praised than blamed for that. The confined space at
command in London was not calculated for recreation or
proper education or discipline; but whether they made a
judicious selection in sending the children to this parti-
cular establishment was another question. The guar-
dians stood, in fact, as the legal parents of these unfor
tunate children; and the letters which passed between
the guardians and Mr. Drouet, the resolutions of the
board communicated to him, and conversations which
passed between him and the representative of the
board, constituted a contract which bound Mr. Proust
to maintain the children sent to him from the Hol-
born Union at 4s. 6d. a head. The sum, under the
circumstances, was adequate and liberal; but, liberal
or not, Mr. Proust had no business to undertake the
charge unless he was prepared to do his duty. The
guardians having entered into this arrangement with
him, monthly visits were paid to his establishment to
see in what manner he was performing his duty to their
wards; and the reports on these occasions expressed ap-
probation. It was, however, strongly to be deprecated
that the very natural course was not adopted by the
visiting guardians of calling the children aside, and
asking them, where no official connected with the esta-
blishment could hear, whether they were properly
treated. The visitors appeared indeed to have executed
their duty in a very slovenly, inefficient, and negligent
manner; if it had been performed with energy, and se
as to enable the children to state the naked truth, it was

his (Mr. Wakley's) conviction that the jury would not
have been sitting on this occasion.—(Hear, hear.) Now,
it was only by a verdict of murder or manslaughter that
the jury could make any person legally responsible for
the deaths of these children, supposing the deaths to have
occurred through some culpable neglect or misconduct;
and the question was, whether any one was so respon-
sible. In his (kr. Wakley's) judgment, the guardians
were not; far they paid an adequate sum for the chil-
dren's maintenance, and appointed visitors to examine
them, and as soon as they knew of the outbreak of
disease they spared no cost to place the children in se-
curity instantly. Next, with regard to the Poor-law
Commissioners, they were empowered by the Act of
1834, " as often as they snould see occasion," to issue
regulations for the government of establishments in which
pauper children should be at school or located, and to
annul any contract entered into with persons keeping
such establishments ; but the Commissioners had not
"seen occasion" to issue such rules, and Mr Drouet's
establishment had not really been under their superin-
tendence and control ; they were therefore absolved
from legal responsibility. The next party was Mr.
Hall, the Poor-law Inspector, he acted under the autho-
rity of the Commissioners, and if the master was re-
lieved from responsibility it would not be fair to visit it
UDOLI the agent. But it was very unfortunate for the
children that there should be this loose, inefficient, and
ill defined arrangement with regard to carrying the law
into effect. It was well for them that inquiries of this
kind should occasionally arise, when the ser-
pentine windings and intricacies of the system
were disclosed and brought down public con•
tempt, disgust, and reprehension. He held that Mr.
Hall was absolved from legal responsibility, but he
was bound to say that he did not think that gen-
tleman could be complimented for the manner in which
he had discharged his duties. They must next consider,
the case of Mr. Kite the surgeon to Mr. Drouet'si
establishment. Mr. Kite had not been consulted as to
the construction of the building, or with regard to the'
diet and clothing of the children, or as to whether the
establishment was fitted to receive an additional number
of children. It would be difficult, indeed, from Mr.
Kite's evidence, to imagine any person holding so appa-
rentl3 important an office who seemed to possess so little
real power; but it was his conviction that Mr. Kite was
not legally responsible for the deaths which had occurred
at Tooting. The only other person who could be held
responsible in connexion with this matter was Mr.
Drouet. That gentleman had voluntarily entered into
an engagement with the board of guardians to feed,
clothe, and lodge the children they sent down to his es-
tablishment. He (the Coroner) considered that,
although there was no written contract in terms be-
tween the board of guardians and Mr. Drouet, the
word " maintenance," which occurred in the first ac-
count furnished by Mr. Drouet to the board, sufficiently
showed what the nature of the contract was. The
guardians had fulfilled their part of the agreement by
paying the 4s. 6d. a week which they had agreed to
pay for each child; and it was for the jury to con-
sider whether Mr. Drouet had performed his part of the
engagement. Ile (the coroner) held that, if it should
appear to the jury that the death of these children was
attributable to any culpable negligence in the establish-
ment of Mr. Drouet, the proprietor of that establishment
was responsible in law. Mr. Drouet was bound by his
engagement to provide adequate food, clothing, and
lodging for the children committed to his care. A dietary
table had been submitted by Mr. Drouet to the Holborn
board of guardians, which, it appeared, had been ap-
proved by Mr. White, their medical officer. He (the
coroner) must say that he considered the plan of limit-
ing the poor to a supply of victuals of prescribed weight
was a shocking, an odious, and an abominable system.
Why, when a man put out an animal to feed, he did
not bargain that it should have so many pounds of hay
or of grass; and he considered it an abomination that
such a system should exist with regard to human beings.
The object of the plan might be economy; but when
they considered how much disease was engendered by
this system,—disease of the lungs, of the mesentric
glands. of the joints,—when they considered that it
created a ricketty and scrofulous population, he
would ask, where was its economy? In addition to the
human misery created by this system, it must be remem-
bered that it imposed lasting burdens upon the parishes.
The question for the jury to consider was, whether the
children had been adequately fed, clothed, and housed ;
if not, whether the disease of which they had died had
resulted from a defective carrying out of the conditions
implied in the engagement with Mr. Drouet ; and who
was the party responsible for such defect? With regard
to the cause of death, the great question was, whether it
was owing to something over which Mr. Drouet and
those whom he employed had no control? Much had
been said about drains, but there was really a good deal
or cant upon that subject; a farmer, with his dunghill
close to his house, had his children healthy enough. As
to exhalations from the ditches, the moderate mortality
of Tooting seemed to show that there could be but little
set down to anv such exciting cause in the atmosphere
compared with a predisposing cause, which the wit-
nesses found in insufficient nourishment and overcrowd-
ing. Few things were more dangerous to life than
placing a large number of persons in an ill-ventilated
room: they actually poisoned one another. It seemed
difficult to understand how there could be two opinions
on the question whether these children were sufficiently
fed, and clothed, and lodged; and, whatever the visiting
guardians might see or not see. Mr. Drouet must have
known it. Why, too, should the cholera have prevailed
for four or five days before information of it was sent to
the guardians? It was just possible that the lives of
these children might have been saved if they had been
removed earlier. Out of 156, no case of collapse had
occurred in the Free Hospital after the fourth day from
their removal to it. The first death from cholera oc-
curred on the 30th of December; but no official notice
of the disease was given to the guardians till the 3d of
January. That fact ought to have been explained by
Mr. Drouet, for these children were entitled to the same
consideration, on such occasions, as the children of gen-
tlemen or tradespeople. The jury must consider the
reports of the visiting guardians expressing satisfac-
tion, and the fact that the children might have
given their evidence under the impression that
some wrong had been done them; but certainly
they seemed to speak the truth, and their statement was
uniform as to insufficiency of diet. The sores and erup-
tions were signs of gross and reprehensible neglect
somewhere; and to whom were the guardians to look but
to the head of the establishment? If, in the opinion of
the jury, these children lost their lives in consequence of
neglect of inattention in that establishment, Mr. Drouet,
and no one else, was responsible. The law had held it
manslaughter where parochial officers bad removed a
pauper under improper circumstances, or where insuffi-
cient food had been afforded. The jury must not fasten
upon an individual what belonged to a barbarous, and
cold-blooded, and mercenary system; they must fairly
consider under what obligations Mr. Drouet had come,
and what was the cause of this outbreak of disease. If
it was atmospheric poison, their verdict must be " Na-
tural death;" if they believed it to be owing to defective
arrangements in Mr. Drouet's establishment, and cul-
pable neglect on his part as proprietor of it, they must
be equally firm in a different decison.

The jury retired at a quarter to ten o'clock, and re-
maiaed in consultation for an hour, when they expressed
a wish to see the Coroner. After a few minutes con
versation with Mr. Wakley, the jury returned into the
inquest-room at ten minutes to eleven o'clock, and deli,
jury
vered their verdict :—" We, the impaneled to in-
quire touching the death of James Andrews, unani-
mouily agri e to the following verdict—" that 13artholo-
mew Peter Drouet is Guilty of Manslaughter."
(This announcemnt was received with some manifes-
tations of applause by the spectators assembled in the
room.)
The jury added to their verdict the following observ-
ations :—" In announcing this verdict we cannot refrain
from expressing our opinion that the guardians of the
Holborn Union have acted most negligently in their en-
gagements with Mr. Drouet, and also in their visits to
his establishment. We regret that the Poor-law Act is
quite insufficient for the purposes for which it was in-
tended; and we hope that the time is not far distant
when the necessity for such establishments as Mr.
Drouet's will entirely cease."
The CORONER then inquired whether Mr. Drouet was
present, and. being answered in the negative, he di-