The Sun.
London, England, 1848-01-20 00:00:00

SANITARY REFORM.
t' n
Last night a public meeting on this subject, called
=Was held in
by the National Philanthropic Associo ,
the Hanover-square Rooms. The advertisementlf-past seven stated
that the chair was to be taken at half-past
o'clock ;nut it was eight before the me.mbers of the
sociatio and their friends made their appearance
on the platfrom. At that time the meeting was very
thin, but it gradually increased, till the room was
about half full. On the motion of Mr. Cochrane,
Mr. Wakley, M.P., was called to the chair. Among
the gentlemen on the platform, we observed Mr.
Wyld, M.P., Sir C. Aldis, Mr. G. A. Walker, Dr.
Scott Alison, Dr. C. T. Aldis, Dr. Hector Gavin,
Rev. Mr. Mangin, Mr. John Randolph, &c.
The CHAIRMAN said it was with great pleasure he '
occupied the chair on that occasion, because he felt it
was a meeting assembled for a very useful purpose.
It -was not a matter of speculation or of theory
which engaged their attention ; they were met to
consider the best mode of removing practical evils
which pressed heavily upon a large portion of the
population.—(Hear, hear.) If it had been a mere
speculative matter, he should have had no desire to be
there, for he always wished to employ his exertions
in removing grievances of acknowledged existence
and of a pressing kind.—(Hear, hear.) The subject
of sanitary reform appeared at first sight to be
bveerya
minute and narrow subject. It appeared toa .
was it was a
matter of mere defective sewage and drainage of dirty
streets and dirty houses ; but the fact.
t. _
of the people. It
very large question indeed, and was inmately con
oerned with the social condition
industrious
involved to an immense extent the happiness of mil-
lions of the most useful, because the most,
thatsanitary reform
portion of our fellow-countrymen.—(Cheers.) For
his own part if he did not believe
-would improve the condition of the working. classes
generally, if he did not believe it would improve the
Condition of their dinner-tables, he would care very
little about it.—(Applause.) His desire was to see
the b ard-working artizan well fed, well housed, and
well. clothed; be wanted to see him do less work and
receive higher pay, and it was because he believed
that sanitary reform would lead to this improved state
of things that he wished to see every reformer in the
kingdom taking a deep interest in the question. The j
object of the National Philanthropic Association
in ceiling that meeting was to endeavour to induce
the public to assist Government in carrying
into effect a really effective measure of sanitary
reform. The Government had many obstacles
to contend against on this question in the shape'
of viested interests and otherwise. Whole masses of
people were suffered to linger in misery, because cer-
tain aldermen would not willingly lose a single basin
of soup in the year.—(Laughter.) The fact was,
that the people who raised the cry of " vested _ in-
terests" were generally persons in possession of the
elective franchise, and hence the Government were
induced to be more gentle with them than they ought
to be. It should be the duty of the public, therefore,
to tell the Government not to be afraid to do what
was necessary for the welfare of the community, in
spite of vested interests ; and if they saw the Govern-
ment coming forward with a just and comprehensive
measure to remove the evil, to raise their voices as one
man in its support.—(Hear, hear.) The Government
should pay no attention to the opposition of the
aldermen of the city ;'of London—who seemed to
like to live among dirt—who appeared as fond of dirt
as they were of turtle.—(Laughter.) The question
was one which affected the whole country, and nc
local authority should be allowed to rise up and
say that their interest should not be interfered
with. • The present condition of society was
actually deplorable, owing to the want of proper
sanitary regulations. The loss of life which occurred
in consequence was incalculable. It had been esti-
mated that 30,. 40, or even 50 per cent. of human
beings were annually sacrificed from this cause. li.
the performance of his painful duties, he was ii
daily witness of the misery which was occasioneu
amongst the poor in this vast metropolis from want
of sanitary'regulations. He frequently found from 5
to 12 persons living in a single room not more than 12
feet or 14 feetsquare, with hardly any accommodatioi
suited to human beings. In such abodes of misery
there might be seen two or three in one corner
huddled under a rug, labouring under one disease.
In another corner other two three might
.be seer
lying under a sack, or resting upon straw, suffering
from a different disease, while in another part of the
same room there might be a corpse in a state of
decomposition; and yet of all this the possessors o 4
wealth in the immediate neighbourhood were quits
ignorant until the disease which originated in those
miserable abodes had extended to their own families.
when they then found it necessary to institute
an inquiry into the cause of the evil ; but until thei
they seldom thought of instituting a single investiga
tion with a view of mitigating the misery of the poor
in their neighbourhood, or of preventing its recur
renoe.—(Hear, hear.) Several benevolent persons
he was happy to say, had long applied their minds t,
this subject, and had acted as pioneers in the goo(
cause ;'and to:these the thanks.:of the public were:espe-
cially_due. Amongst these there were two gentlemei
then on the platform who deserved honourable men
tion. He alluded to Mr. Cochrane and Mr. G. A
Walker.—(Hear.) He knew very well that a grew
deal had been done on the agitation of this questim
by a body he very much disliked,—he meant toile Poor-
law Commissioners. The members of that Commis
sion had discovered that everything affected Immat
life and human comfort except low diet,—that disa-
greeable smells and unfavourable drainage were exceed
ingly detrimental to a man's constitution; but that if he
was fed three; times a day on water-gruel he would no!
suffer at all.—(Laughter.) He (Mr. Wakley) die
not agree with the discovery of the Somerset-hour,
officials. His opinion was that the sanitary reforn
would be a farce, a delusion, a mockery, if it did nol
lead to an improvement of the condition of the people
generally, not only with regard to their physical state,
but with regard to their sociarfand moral state as well
—(Hear, hear.) Was the present:condition of tint
working classes one thatiought to last ? It was not.
Let any one pass through Regent-street, in the im
mediate neighbourhood of that meeting, and see the
splendid shops in that locality, with the wonderfu
displays of ingenuity which the windows exhibited
`Where were the makers of these goods ?—(Hear.
hear.) In cellars, in garrets, in holes and corners, m
places absolutely not fit for the occupation of human
beings. To witness those things, and to be indiffe•
rent to them, was a state of things in the highes
degree discreditable to society. He called upon the
meeting, therefore, to stimulate the Legislatur to di
something towards its removal.
Letters of apology for absence were read from the
following Members of Parliament : Lord Johi
Russell, Lord Ebrington, Lord Dudley Stuart, Mr.
Osborne, Dr. Bowring, Mr. Mackinnon, and Mr. G.
Thompson.
Mr. COCHRANE was then requested to move thk
first resolution. He commenced by congratulating
the meeting •on having secured the services of a
chairman who had such a practical and thorougl:
knowledge of the present question. He was the mort
induced to congratulate them on that point when hi
remembered the meeting which took place in that
room some weeks ago, under the auspices of the Health
01eTowns Association, when arguments were used on
subject of a very peculiar kind, which evidently
showed_ that the parties were very little acquainted
wun public opinion.—(Hear, hear.) The resolution
which he
occasion.bad been requested to propose on the present
Tbatwlt!.ta follaws :
denannstrai"edb for a series of years been clearly
legislative and abyo commissions connected with the
vernment departments, and power-
fully enforced byoe
u
.t") practical evidence from the National
Philanthropic As
and other benevolent so-
cieties instituted for ttb,!
reform, that the slake tp2Pose of promoting sanitary
effective
point of view,
in a moral, physical, and pecuniary
to an alarming extent,
thesieee law
e for the protection
from the absence of an e
sailadare peculiarly to
of public health d
house drainage,
be traced to deficient sewage
perfect street-
scanty. and deir water suppiyn
and ventilation
and the imp°.
,cleansing, and a wretched construction:l
of the dwellings of the poorer classes'',
sition of a tax on windows."
It had been calculated that between 50,000 and
60,000 unnecessary deaths took place annually
consequence of deficient legislation in regard to
sa-
nitary measures ; that between 1,500,000 and
2,000,000 sicknesses occurred from the same cause,
and that from 8,000,000/. to 14,000,0001. sterling
was lost in this way. The great; opposition to sani-
tarveform proceeded from the vestries and corrupt
municipalities throughout the country, and not
from the people at large—in proof of which he
referred to the opposition which had been of-
fered to the Bill of last session, especially to the
original Bill, which embraced the city of London—
which the Ministry found they durst not proceed with,
except at the
of risk f
hear.) He re Lord John Russell losing his
erred also, at some length,
and with considerableineetinewarmth, to what had occurred
at the vestry
Friday. He congratulatedof St. Martin's parish last
having been takenup the meeting on the subject
by the Bishop of London,
in his letter to the clergy,
correspondence with the clergy and
described his own
the London City
Mission, detailing the efforejsgYof ektt.theb National Phi-
ecwtion.
and lanthropic Association—its soap
dormi-
tory—to which he invited theirinsipe
crowded in
to the manner in which the poor
tobeir miserable dwellings, he stateddre
a single he
Referring
as many as &keen living in had seen
that within a stone's-throw of Buckingham e room, and
which the Government architect, Mr. lore
e de-
clared not large enough to accommodate a family,
contended that ignorance of the question, and e e
sition to plans of improvement, were not found
amongst the people ; the resistance was in the paro-
chial bodies, the vestries, and corrupt municipalities.
He approved the step of destroying the many boards
of sewer commissioners, And censured the exemption

T U E

of the city of London ron measures of reform. Th
might judge of the practical knowledge these boar ds
had of the system they managed, from the fact iat
the chairman of the City Sewer Commission was . a
baker. He combated the objections made by t
axe
Lord Mayor at a recent interview with him to 't. he
Philanthropic Society's plan of relief by sol ap
kitchens; his Lordship alleged that the relief so giv. en
drew a great influx of poor into London, and, by
bringing them together in numbers, tended to pro: n. -
gate disease. Yet, at the same time, his Lord
p
admitted that the windows of the Mansion-ho use
itself were repeatedly broken by destitute _p:r4A3o.o ns
n-
who wished to gain the shelter of a prison.
eluded by moving the resolution.
should
the English public, so ready to
Dr. ALMS seconded it, expressing
LhnitsrisbluPuterieteot..thahet
off
diseliee'alluden
care or e
tohfinhuos
Igs
offensive to t'
to the impunity with which trades
.
supportpsoitaliltstlfeorof tphreevelinrtien
d • cro e d
sensestze
and the health could be came odn wLe
localities, the shortsupply of water, an the
want of
light and air, as evils calling aloud for remedy. He
ed the meeting there was no cause for any alr trio
ass
the cholera ; as a member of three public insti-
tutions he could state that up to the present limo
there had not been a single case ; but they ought not
to allow themselves to be taken by surprise, o-s to
become callous to those disorders which always rexisted
among the population.
Sir C. ALOIS briefly supported the resolution, which
was put and carried unanimously.
Mr. G. A. WALaut proposed the second resolu-
tion :
" That the practice of burying the dead in places
surrounded by the abodes of the living has been
attended by a disregard of Christian decency, and a
violation of the sanctity of the grave. That the fre-
quent exhumation of human remains has engendered
a feeling of disrespect for the dead, whilst the constant
disturbance of earth saturated !with the decomposing
gasses emanating from the dead is seriously destruc-
tive of the public health, and should be prohibited by
law."
He entered into a statement of the opposition with
which he was met when endeavouring to expose the
horrors of the Spafields burial-ground in 1845. There
1,500 bodies were interred within a year in the space
of an acre, though,. by calculation it could only take
26. In some graveyards in the metropolis as many
as 2,000 or 3,000 bodies were buried annnally in an
acre of ground. Under Enon Chapel, in a vault 69
feet by 29 feet, 3,500 bodies had been buried within
seven years, literally in a cellar I In the room above
bells were given, and there was dancing over the
dead ; yet the authorities of St. Clement's never com-
plained of the place till he (Mr. Walker) took steps
to stop the abuse. He was sorry this dreadful prac-
tice was maintained by the clergy; but Parliament
must put an end to it. He :urged the necessity of
determination on the part of the public ; if they were
apathetic, the abomination would go on and increase
tenfold.
Mr. J. GEORGE seconded the resolution, and in
doing so spoke strongly against the window-tax, as
an impost most destructive in its effects to the health
and comfort of the community. He stated that in his
own parish of St. Anne, Soho, 95,000 interments had
taken place in the space of 155 years in a burying-
ground consisting of about five-eighths of an acre,
being at the rate of nearly 700 bodies in the year, and
about 1,100 bodies per acre. He had found lately,
that in a grave fourteen feet deep twenty-eight
bodies had been interred within a space of two
months, which he presumed could only have been
done by exhuming and destroying soma of the earlier
bodies to make room for the latter. This system
would assuredly continue to go on, unless a powerful
effort was made to arrest it.
Mr. ROGERS, in support of the same resolution, de-
tailed a number of shocking circumstances which had
come to his knowledge, in connexion with the prac-
tices of various metropolitan burying-grounds.
Thel resolution was then put and carried unani-
mously,
Mr. Wm), M.P., in moving the following resolu-
tion—
" That this meeting pledges itself to support her
Majesty's Government in any just and comprehensive
measure for the removal and extinction of the evils
deprecated in the preceding resolution,"
took occasion to remark, that he thought the observa-
tions of Mr. Cochrane upon her Majesty's expendi-
ture on Buckingham Palace exceedingly ill-timed ;
and if their attention were to be diverted from the
object of sanitary reform by such remarks, they
would never gain that great and important measure.
—(Cheers, and expressions of dissent.) He begged
also to say, that sanitary reform would not be com-
plete unless it embraced a system of medical police for
the poorer classes.
Mr. H. CLARKE seconded the motion, which was
unanimously carried.
The thanks of the meeting having been voted to
the chairman for his ready attention at all times to the
interests of the people, and for the able and impartial
manner in which he had presided over the meeting,
`'he meeting separated.