The Sun.
London, England, 1846-03-13 00:00:00

MARCH 13, 1846.

equally unknown. Besides, it was to be borne in mind
that fever was only one of many complaints arising from
a vitiated atmosphere. It appeared, from indisputable
calculation, that the class of artisans, instead of attain
ing the average of forty-one years, were cut off at nine-
teen, thus losing fifteen years of existence, and including
in that, the loss of fifteen years of -productive labour to
:society. In the ward of Furringdon Without, the habi-
tations f the poor were in the most deplorable.condttion.
Behind the finest streets, with their magnificent plate-
glass windows, displaying the Most costly productions of
the earth, was to be found a revolting mass of filth and
misery, which it was impossible to describe. In liol-
born they had Field-lane, and its shocking courts. On
the other side they had Phuntree•court, with 600 inha-
bitants in twenty-eight houses, the houses not averaging
more than four rooms each. The rooms were but eight
feet in ighth and width, and the average of occupants
was six persons to each room, while the lospectors of
Prisons allowed a room of ten feet to every individual
prisoner. The houses in the court were built back to
back, and the cellars, which contained an accumulation
of every filth, acre never cleaned out.—(Hear, hear.)
From these nests of pestilence were hourly issuing
poisonous gases, fatal to animal life. They need but
enter a newly-painted room, to find how soon substances
suspended in the air imperceptibly entered and impreg-
nated the fluids of the body. So fatal was the poison
to which he yfluded, that medical men were afraid of
. .

applying a blister to a patient, from the fear it would rui,
into a mortification. The mortality arnoegst children
was apalling ; and the ravages made by a!1 the pre-,
ventible diseases, exceeded what the most powerful Ulla-.
ginstion could conceive. Similar close courts, in an
qually bad state, were to be found off Fleet-street. In
the Old Bailey there were nine courts, all without sewers.
Conta•gion was never absent. In plukllear-alley,wl,4)!
was on!y two iaids wide, .aidlad bit five loti-Ts; ht:
had himself attenc'ed, in one summer, forty cases of
typhus. By the census return the average in England
and Wales was five persons to each house. but in John's•
court, and Crown and Phce:dx-court, Fleet-street, he
found in flirt e-roomed houses eighteen people to each
house. In some of the dens called lodging-houses, he
had found six beds in a room, with two and three per-,
sons in each bed, at twopence a head. In Fetterlane
there were 2,000 inhabitants to 145 houses ; and
in Plough-court, in thirty houses, there was an ex•
.
cess of 400 over the healthy standard, and no sewers
to mitigate the impurities. The number of occupants
in a house might bt• taken as a good criterion
of their circumstances. There were twice as many
residents in the wretched hovels as in the better class of

lanes ; and it was exactly where it was ;lost wanted
that there was the greatest want of every sanatory pro-
vision. Both physical and moral deterioration were
the inevitable consequences of all that misery. The
children grew up of diminished stature, of weaker fibre,
and so devastating was the effect of these injurious agen-
cies that a fourth generation was a phenomenon seldom
or ever to be met within the blasting circle of their in-
fluence. How few of the Court of Aldermen were na-
tives of London ! how few of that Court were the sons
or grandsons of natives I not one-half. London ab-
sorbed the strength of the country in body and mind,
and at the end of the third generation, in came another
influx of new blood to supply the place of that which had
been vitiated and exhausted. That the morals of the
people were contaminated by such means was equally
undeniable. Mr. Adams, the Chairman of the Clerken-
well Sessions, had declared from the judgment seat that
such places were haunts of crime, and that where there
was a large number of poor families crowded together,
every feeling of modesty, of Morality, and even of decency
was utterly abandoned. He preferred sending juvenile
culprits to prison, than to those hotbeds of crime, those
nurseries- of thieves and prostitutes. The Lord Mayor
had shown an anxiety to make the school supersede the
gaol, and by doing so he would render his Mayoralty
more distinguished and meliorable than by any display
of pageantry or profusion with which he could possibly
invest it.. To mitigate the evils so inadequately de-
scribed, they naust in the first place, provide a constant
and unlimited supply of water to the poor. They inust
ehut up the wretched hovels which generated disease,
and appropriate some of their vast revenue to accommO
date the poor with cheap, well-drained, and well-venti-
lated cl.vellings. Of the 125 who died daily in London,
fewer than nine died of old age. The supply of water in
London was a gross monopoly in the hands of a private
company, and their charge was most exorbitant. Dr.
Lynch here exhibited the prospectus of a company, with
Lord Francis Egerton as chairman, and Mr. Baring and
Mr. Jones Lloyd as trustees, which was ready to furnish
the metropolis with filtered water, 40 gallons per diem
to each house, at the rate of twopence a week, or seven
shillings a year. That was no speculation ; it had been
successfully tried in Nottingham, Greenock, Paisley,
Ayr, Glasgow, Preston, Philedslphia, and New York,
and was now ready to be applied to London, if the citi-
zens, or those who acted in their behalf, would only give
their sanction to the undertaking. Amongst the many
wise dispensations of Providence, there was none that
more •clearly indicated its divide. origin than the inti
mate connexion which sub.,isUd between our interest
and our duty. Whatever was best calculated to promote
the well-being of the huroan family, would be found to
be the most economical in the end. On the
contrary, whatever violated a sanatory law, or t nded to
produce suffering amongst any portion of the people,
would be found to operate injuriously upon the rest.
There was a bond of union between the different classes
which rend. red it an act of common prudence, as well
as of humanity, to observe the condition and provide for
the comforts of those who stood
..lowest in the social
scale. Humanity, economy, public duty, good policy,
called upon them to protect the public health. Without
health the labourer must become a pauper. It was his
capital, his stock in trade, his fortune ; and society was
bound to protect it for him. Ancient cities, once the
envy of surrounding nations, had fallen because they did.
not secure their permanency by providing for the hap-
piness and improvement of the masses.—(Cheers.) The
interest of the labouring man ought to be an object of
endearing interest with the members of that Court. By
labour they lived—by labour they had won wealth and
distinction amongst their fellow-citizens. By labour the
country had obtained, within the last fifty years, a
mechanical power equal to the labour of five hundred
millions of human beings. London boasted to be the
centre of civilisation ; the mighty heart of the political
frame, whose siz s and wealth, whose pomp and
commerce, had gathered within its limits all that could
contribute to the wants and pleasures of mankind. He
referred to this picture of its greatness and glory,ln
order to contrast it with the deep disgrace of having
such hovels as homes for the protective classes in the
very heart of the first city of the first empire of the
world.—(Cheers.) lle hoped, however, that they would
now act a part more consistent with their honour ; that
having done so much for the ornamental they would at
length do something for the useful, and lay the founda-
tion of a good work, for which the press would praise
them, the people would bless them, and their own con-
sciences would reward them as benefactors of the poor
and the afflicted.—(Cheers.) Dr. Lynch concluded by
moving that the petition be referred to the Improvement
Committee.

Mr. ANDERTON stated he seconded with the highest
pleasure the motion of 1)r. Lynch, after whose admirable
speech it could not be expected that he could say much.
In all that had fallen from the lips of the mover, he most
heartily concurred, and he hoped the proposition would
be unanimously adopted. He had, within the last eight
weeks, visited, several of the wretched places which the
professional occupation and the indefatigable exertions
of Dr. Lynch had made that gentleman familiar with ;
and he confessed that his astonishment was only equalled
by his compassion for the unhappy inmates.—(Hear,
hear.) He rejoiced that such an appeal had been made
to the Court on behalf of the poor but powerful claim-
ants upon, their consideration ; but notwithstanding the
vivid description which they had just heard, they must
accompany Dr. Lynch on his " circumnavigation of
charity," to form a proper estimate of the arrors by
which they were surrounded.--(Hear, hear,) In order
to get rid of crime they n:ust assail it in its hot-bed, the
densely crowded habitations of the poor. It was there
that crime was engendered, and there they must go to
rendei permanea service to those who were destitute of
the means of in the slightest degree, improving their
condition.—(Hear,' hear.)
Mr. Kix° differed altogether from the gentleman who
had just addressed the Court. He considered that the
petition vas one which the Court could not for a mo-
ment entertain. It was, in fact, completely farcical to
present
it, with the expectation that anything like a
compliance with its prayer could be given--(Murmurs).
People were in the habit of taking credit to themselves
f)r the inclination to do good. Although he was not one
of those people, perhaps he was not less disposed to do
good than any of them. He did not consider that his
approbation of the measure proposed would be by any
means evidence of his intention to render service to the
Petitioners ; for, in fact, he looked upon their appeal as
ridiculous and nonsensical.—(Laughter, and murmurs.)
Why what could be more absurd than for these poor
people to ask the Court of Common Council for places to
dwell in ? They might very reasonably aptly to Parlia-
ment, but what on earth could the Corporation do ?
(Cries of "Hear, hear," and murmurs.) They required
that part of the 20,0001., which had been voted
for distinct and specific purposes, should be given to
make dirty people clean, to make wicked people holy, to
bring about a millenium—to reform, in fact, the populous
neighbourhood of Farringdon Without.—(A laugh, and
loud expressions of disapprobation.) How could the
Court think of entertaining a petition with such an ob-
ject? He was determined, for the sake of common sense,
which was outraged by such an appeal, to give it his
most strenuous opposition.—(A few cries of " Hear,"
drowned in strong expressions of dissent.)

Mr. STEVENS said it was important to the working
classes that the Court should manikstits sympathy with
them.—(Hear, hear.) What the Court might be
able to do was another thing. It had been mentioned
that the petition had a visionary object. When it was
said that cleanliness could be produced if the inmates of
these wretched habitations were supplied with watt r,
was that, he. would ask, .merely visionary?--(Hear.)
Was it Merely a visionary good, if the tottering and
miserable hovels which bounded the City wore pulled
down and substituted by cottages in which cleanliness
could, according to the statement of Doctor Lynch, be
supplied at so cheap a rate?—(Hear, hear.) Whatever
the Court might ultimately be able to do, it was at all
events the duty of the Court to treat such an appeal,
not with:silence, but with respect and attention.

Mr. STACY said, that although he was not very
sanguine in the expectations that all the petitioners
asked for would be granted, still he trusted it was in
the power of the Corporation to make an essential im-
provement in their condition.—(Hear, hear.) The
Comthisaioners, of whom the benevolent Mr. Peacock
• was the chairman, were, he knew, deeply interesting
themselves for their poor fellow citizens.--(Cheers.)
iTe hoped and he believed that they would take up the
question in their way, and according to their capabilities,
It was allowed on all hands that an abundant supply of
water would eff_.ct a saii of revolution in the densely
crowded lanes and alleys of the City. If the Commis-
sioners of Sewers would begin by directing their labours
amongst the inhabitants, in supplying them with the one
great necessary of health, the good example would-be
speedily followed, and all classes of the community
would feel the blessing of the benefits.—(Erear, hear.)
Sir JAMES DUKE (the Alderman of the Ward) paid
the highest compliment to the talents, energy, and virtues
of Doctor Lynch, and expressed a hope that the petition
would be unaniinoudy referred to the Committee.
After a few words in reply from Doctor Lynch, who
was greatly cheered, the petition was agreed to by an
unanimous majority, no more than three hands having
been held up against it.