The Sun.
London, England, 1841-10-06 00:00:00

(Titg, ,§1111,5

LONDON:
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 6, 1841.

Sir R. PEEL.' s-necer-to-be-forgotten Manches-
ter fever rettu:ns have excited much attention in
that town, and have called forth the following
petition, though the motive for presenting it
must not be stated in the petition, because that
would be a breach of privilege, and would
cause it to ba rejected. The Press has the
gio...lous privilege of correcting the min-state-
ments and falsehoods which Honourable and
Right Honourable and Noble Members make in
Parliament, though either House, like a self-
willed woman, obstinately shuts its ears to any
even the smallest correction of its most noto-
rious errors. The reader will sec in the petition
a complete confirmation o: our remarks yester-
day on the same subject, us well as of our re-
marks on Saturday:—
To the Honourable the House of Commons in Parlia-

ment assembled.
The petition of the undersignel humbly shorreth—
That your petitioner is a surgeon resident in Man-
chester, and that he has had peculiirly favourable oppor-
tunities of noticing the'e&cts of poverty, destitution,
and consequent mental in depression producing and
;
agravating disease.
... .
That this opinion iweives a valuable illustration
from the M
Reports of the unehester-House of Recovery,
commonly called they ' Fever Wards.'
Th
at
the follOYing is a true copy from the last Re-
Pr-
naut of the Mancheater Board of Health, showing the
nu ~- fer 0 pa tients ' adalitted. and ' died ' in the said
institution fitll3-rio.ff the years Pndtiiv, May 31st :
Years. Admitted. Died. itiostality per cent.
1832 774 88 1189
1833
287 30 10.67
404 36 1834
402 56 9.13
14.28
406
'O5,
502
99 17.40
• .'
120 15.18
799
t 837 240 17-90
1,372
1838
200 18.69
1,042
1839
1840 815 131 16.07
161 16.93
691 -
1841
appears that duriug the four
1832, to May,
That from this table it
Vosperous and cheap years, from allay,t
1,685 patients admitted, of whom
1836, there were only
221 only died, being an average of
the-12 421 cases
yearscvasesan of dofss
deaths per annum ; while, during
dis-
tress mid high prices there were 4,7l9patienctasas and
of
ted,.
of whom 807 died, being an average of 942 cases _
161 deaths per annum..
That during the comparatively healthy
aslthcyje's aear,ntd 6
termi-
nating May, 1841, there have been 691
deaths, being 270 cases and GI deaths more than the
average of the four years of cheap food and good trade;
that the weather during this same year was fo.r the. ,
n
must
part unfavourable to the development of fever -
your petitioner feels convinced that had food been
cheaper, and work plentiful, the amount of disease would
have been considerably less than the average.
That your petitioner believes and is fully convinced
that the proportionate excess of disease actually exist-
ing in Manchester, during the dear years, has been much
greater than this table exhibits..
That your petitioner most earnestly entreats your
Honourable House to set on foot an inquiry, to assert: in
whether or not the opinion is correct that high prices of
food increase disease and mortality, and whether high
prices are not produced by the Corn-laws.
And your petitioner will ever pray,
PHILIP HENRY HOLLAND,
Member of the Royal College of Surgeons, London.
It is now quite plain why Sir ROBERT PEEL,
or his accomplice, in deluding the public, did
not, quote the returns for 1834, 1885 and 18,86
) /
when wheat was down t.) somewhere about con-
tinental prices, the average of the three year
having heel 44.5. Bd. Let the reader bee what

14,

those returns prove. Sir ROBERT PEEL, begin
ning with the year 1837, apd therefor conl.-
paring the health of Manchester in 1841 with
its health in the four preceding years, three of
which were years of most severe pressure, was
able to make the House believe . that at present
the sanatory condition of that town was most
satisfactory. But if he had quoted the three
years prior to 1837, he would have shown the
House of Commons and the public-4hvourable
as the returns appear for his view when the
present year is contrasted with 1838 and
1829 that in fact the number of fever
patients in the present year was 288, or
above two-thirds more than the average of 1834
and 1835. The health of Manchester,
instead of being good this 3 ear, is something
better than in the immediately preceding years
of great distress, but much worse than in the
years of prosperity. The very important truth,
then, that plenty of food is favourable to health,
which we also made apparent yesterday by a
statement of the number of fevers in Edinburgh,
was wilfully suppressed, and a false impression
the very reverse of the "truth, was palmed on
the House of Commons and the public on Thurs-
day evening last.

Another most important fact is shown by these
tables; confirming an assertion we have re-
peatedly made—namely, that the Corn-laws an-
nually cause the death of a great number of per-
sons. Had trade been free there is no reason
whatever why corn should not have been as
abundant and as cheap in 1838 and 1839 as in
1835, or cheaper, for we should have had the
whole world to supply us, and it would, in fact,
only have cost the labour necessary to
make the manufactured articles by which
it was purchased. But owing to our Corn-
laws it was ode-third dearer in 1838 and 1839
than in 1534 and 1836, and the consequence was not
only a great increase of disease, but, a great in-
crease of death. Not only did the number of
fever patients increase in Manchester from 403,
the average of 1831 and 1835, to 1,202, the ave-
rage of 1838 and 1839, or three-fold, but the
proportionate number of deaths among them
nearly doubled, being only 11.70 per cent, in the
former years, and 18.29 per cent. in the latter.
We are by no means astonished, now that we
have seen these returns, that Sir ROBERT PEEL,
or his informant, stopped at 1837, and was not
so.icitous to lay before the public the frightful
proof of the murderous guilt of the Corn-law
makers.

We think that we have, by publishing Mr.
HOLLAND'S petition, and by these remarks,
made out a clear case of wilful deceit somewhere.
We will not, like the Morning Chronicle, accuse
Sir ROBERT PEEL of having wilfully suppressed
part of the table sent to him, for the suppression
might have been the. exclusive act of his accom-
plice ; but as the printed Reports of the Hospital
contain all the numbers stated in Mr. HOLLAND'S
petition, as well as those quoted by Sir R. PEEL,
it is quite plain that they were wilfully sup-
pressed by some person who was well aware of
their bearing and their importance. That Sir
ROBERT PEEL'S accomplice had this knowledge
we cannot assert; but we can assert he possessed it,
for both on September 30th, and during'a debate
on a preceding day, he referred to the years 1835
and 1836 as years of great, though factitious,
prosperity. That the returns were garbled for a
dishonest purpose, then, is plain, and Sir RO-
BERT PEEL may settle with his informant to
which of them belongs the discredit of having
wilfully endeavoured to delude the House of
Commons and the public. For our parts,
knowing nothing of Sir ROBERT PEEL'S accom-
plice, and having closely watched his Par-
liamentary career, we feel quite confident, what-
ever share the other may have in the trick, that
Sir ROBERT PEEL—the head of the Starvation
Ministry—will never be wholly cleared from the
suspicion of having knowingly and wilfully, in
order to generate a falsehood, garbled the in-
formation he pretended with great solemnity to
give the House of Commons and the public.
When we look back to the debate, and find
Sir ROBERT PEEL impatient to lay this garbled
information before the House, bristling up with
well-assumed indignation because Mr. GrusoN
interposed and prevented him, " a Minister of
the Crown," for a single .moment, from laying
before
.the House the conciliatory information
he had to give, we are almost surprised—though
pretty well acquainted with Sir R. PEEL'S charac-
ter—at his assurance. We cannot, however,
do justice to his conduct by any description, and
we must allow him to describe it in his own
words. It will be remembered that Sir ROBERT
PEEL brought forward the garbled returns on
Thursday last, and that, as he was about to
make his statement to the House, Mr. GIBSON
interposed, and objected to the Right Hon.
Baronet, who is said by Lord STANLEY to know
how to dress up a case for the House, making a
statement with a view to refute something said
in a former debate, without first making the
Member who said it acquainted with his inten-
tions. Mr. Giasosr grounded his interrnptio
on the rule of the House that a.- former debate
is not to be referred to; whereupon Sir ROBERT
PEEL, as an introduction to the information he
was anxious to lay before the House, used this
: imposing language
He considered that it was absolutely necessary that
he should make the statement he was about to have
made. When it was asserted in that House that with
respect to Manchester, thousands were deprived of em-
ployment, and thousands suffering under typhus fever,
from want of sufficient food—he would appeal to the
House whether it was right that a Minister of the Crown,
hearing a statement so appalling as that, could refrain
from making inquiry—(Cheers)—and from communi-
cating, in some way or other, the result of that inquiry
to the House ?—(Cheers.) .He left it to the House .to
judge wLether it was wise that the enforcement of tech-
nical rules should permit this country, and the other
countries of Europe, to labour under the hnprestion that
thousands were actually suffering in this country under
typhus fever, produced by want of food, and that when
a Min'ster of the Crown merely attempted to administer
consolation and satisfaction to minds grieved by such
statements, an Hon. Member should get up and appeal
to a rule of the House which prevented reference to tho
debate in which the assertions were made.— (Cheers.)
Ile had thought that the lion Gentleman himself, from
his connection with Manchester, would bear with satis-
faction the statement which be was about to make:—
(MUch cheering from the. Tories.)
After that solemn and much-cheered exordium,
Sir RonEwr PEEL proceeded to delude the House
and the public. A more consummate and solem:.
piece of hypocrisy was never enacted in the time
of the Commonwealth. A common mounte-
bank, who deludes and swindles the ignorant
multitude, is a much-despised man; but lie is,
in our estimation, one of nature's nobles, CORI-.
pared to the statesman who—to justify a great
system of plunder—tries, being trusted and con-
fided in, to delude. and swindle the Parliament
and the nation.

We must say in conclusion, not so much with
a view of expressing our own feelings of satis-
faction, as of adding to the proofs we have al-
ready accumulated against Sir ROBERT PEEL,
that we are assured, on high authority in Man-
chester, that the observations we made on Sa-
turday, on the improved healthfulness of the
houses and streets of Manchester, owing to the
greater diligence and care of the local authori-
ties, are wry correct. The wealthy classes of
Manchester have found the last year, we are in-
formed, one of unusual salubrity ; and that the
poorer classes do not enjoy a greater degree of
health than in 1834 and 1835, is owing exclu-
sively to their want of the necessaries and com-
tbrts of life.

Sir ROBERT PEEL must make haste to pro•
rogue the Parliament, otherwise he will be
obliged to inquire into the effects of the Corn-
laws, and be obliged to abolish them, in spite of
his colleagues' unwillingness and his own suppli-
cations for delay. Again last night the perse-
vering Earl of RADNOR brought the subject
under the notice of the Lords, and by quoting'
several facts; proved that the Ministers ;would
incur an awful responsibility if they did not
speedily take the subject into consideration,
with a view of doing justice to the people. The
sensible, manly, straightforward speech of the