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

TUE PUBLIC IIEALTIL

. _
to the Conti
To the Right fronourlble.the Lord Mo.yor, the Alder,
men, and Commonalty of the City of London, in Com
mon Council assembled.

The following petition from the Metropolitan Work-
ing Ciacscs' Association for Improving the Public
Health, _ _ _

Humbly Showeth,—That the Corporation have set
the example of applying a large, and, as your petitioners
are informed, a sum of no less than 20,0001. per annum
to the improvement of the City as a part of the me-
tropolis.
That your petitioners ti ink the improvements goad
in themselves ; that the widening of the streets is good
as a means of ventilation ; that your petitioners admire
wide and magnificent streets, and take priie in the im-
proved general aspect of the City and of the metropolis.
But they humbly submit that whilst all is thus made
fair and good to behold without, all should not be left
foul and miserable within ; and that these benefits may
be carried out otherwise than to the injury of the
working classes, which effect has been and is now pro-
duced.

Your petitioners aver, that by every old street occu•
pied by the labouring classes, pulled down to form a
new s:rset, the evil of over-crowding the existing. old
streets, courts, and tenements, near the street pulled
down, is generally aggravated.
Your petitioners know that this effect was produced
by the pulling down of houses to form the Farringdon
Market. They know (and it is in evidence before the
Commissioners for inquiring into the means of improv-
ing. the health of towns) that the like effect was pro-
duced by the pulling down old houses to form the Black-
wall Railway. They know that the like effect has been
produced by the removal of the old and poor houses to
form the new streets which traverse the site of St. Giles.
Good new streets have b?en formed, but the poor po-
pulation of St. Giles's has been only wedged in more
densely upon the poor. population of Seven Dials, and
the bad made worse.

Ycur petitioners see that new lines of railway .are
'proposed to be carried, some into the City of London,
others through other parts of the metropolis, and that
large numbers of old houses are to be pulled down, but
they see no provision made, or consideration given, for
building new ones for the accommodation of the poor
people who cannot remove from their places of work.
Your petitiOners pray, that whilst the Corp Oration de-
votes its funds to the formation of new and magnificent
houses, it will, at the same time, exercise its power in
building for the working:classes, at reasonable, and yet
remunerative rents, improved tenements, in numbers
equal to those pulled down, • and by so doing a benefit
will be conferred, instead of an injury inflicted, on those
whose condition most needs improvement.
Your petitioners observe, with much satisfaction, that
new large main sewers are in course ef construction
down the main streets. They regret, however, to find
that the streets occupied by the labouring classes are
sti:l badly drained; that their houses are still left un -
drained; and whilst in the new prisons, and for the use
of prisoners, an apparatus of the nature of a water-
closet is provided, and a supply of water carried into
each cell; the houses of the working classes are only
provided with disgusting and unwholesome privies and
cesspools, and have omy dear and bad supplies of water,
kept stagnant in but in the yards, exposed to contami-
nation from soot and dust.
Your petitioners further pray, that at the same time
that drains for houses and sewers for streets are provided,
your Honourable Court will exercise its power, and in-
fluence to procure a good constant supply of water, to
make the drains and sewers to act, and constantly re
move all accumulations of offensive matter, and to have
such supplies carried at a cheap rate into every set of
rooms occupied by honest and industrious labouring men,
who are willing to pay a fair and reasonable rate for the
accommodation, whereas the price now charged for bad
supplies is proved to be more than three times the
amount for which the supplies of a better description
might be ensured.

Your petitioners humbly represent that besides sewers'
rates, payment of scavenging, and cleansing rates are
made on account of most of the houses occupied by the
labouring classes. That whilst their houses are badly
drained, and the streets, in respect to which the owners
or occupiers pay scavenging rates, are badly cleansed ;
and that however the service of the scavenger may be
contracted for, and paid for, the duty is rarely, if ever,
properly done. Your petitioners beg leave to bring be.
fore your notice the evidence in this respect of the
medical officers, given in answer to the inquiries made
under the authority of the Government, and appended
to the Report on the Sanitory Condition of the Labour-
ing Population.

The petition, after quoting the evidence of several ex-
perienced and scientific persons, concludes with praying
the immediate attention of the Court to the object of
the petitioners.
Mr. KING requested to be informed, by one of the pe-
titioners who stood at the bar, who the chairman of the
association was ?

The petitioner replied that the chairman was the
Bishop of London.—(Cbeers.) He gave equally satisfac-
tory answers to other questions.
Dr. LYNCH stated that as the petitioners were work.
ing men; and had been in waiting on three or four occa-
sions, in. the expectation that a question so vitally con-
cerning their interests would arise, and he thought the
Court would neon the present occasion excuse the at-
tendance of more than one or two of their represen-
tatives.

Several members expressed their entire satisfaction at
the arrangement.

Doctor Liercie expressed a hope that the appeal made
to the Court would receive their countenance and sup•
port. It was a subjeci of congratulation with every re-
flecting mind to see the working classes struggling to
improve their social condition. It was one of the most
gratifying results of the diffusion of useful knowledge,
and one of the best signs of the times. That laudable
endeavour had originated with their clear-headed
brethren in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Dundee, where
public meetings were called and resolutions adopted,
which showed how well they understood the evils, and
the means kit calculated to remove them. The deter-
mination to form similar associations in each of the great
towns of this country had met with encouragement
from the highest, the noblest, the most pious, and some
of the most scientific in the land.—(gear, hear.) Ap-
pealing to the municipalities, to whom the guardianship
of the public heed' essentially belonged, the petitioners
alluded with gratitude to the noble streets constructed
in the City, and he would take that .opportunity to
acknowledge his obligations to Mr. R. L. Jones, and the
Court of Common Council, for the generous spirit in
which they had seconded his exertions in behalf of tl e
suffering poor. To return to the petitioners, howver.
They stated, with great truth, that the wants of thepoor
who were dispossessed by the alterations had been en•
tirely overlooked in the new arrangements.—(Hear,
hear.) That was a great evil, and had a strong ten-
dency to aggravate all the evils arising from the ne-
glect of proper sanatory regulations, and affecting the
comforts and even the lives of the working classes to an
extent that would appear quite incredible, if it were not
for the searching and well-digested investigations
of the Parliamentary Commission for inquiring
into the health of towns.—(Hear, hear.) No
public man should be ignorant of the facts disclosed
by the labours of that Commission, or of the invaluable
suggestion
by which it proposed to alter a state of things
melancholy and alarming• Within the last
half century the proportion of the . agricultural and
the manufacturing population had been more than re-
versed. Half a century ago the proportion of agricul-
turists to manufacturers was as two to one. At present
the portion of manufacturers to agriculturists was almost'
three to one.—(Hear, hear.) Although with that in-
crease there had been a concurrent increase of wealth,
and although every other class had been benefited by the
march of science, no provision had been made for the
benefit of the working classes. The result was that one
half of the children barn in Great Britain died before
sta4is the averageng
the young
athnedythreeaoclhdedtogfievtehe3r.e,atri:enotf3a„gseix;
yaretadr,
at which people died in London, and seventeen in Li-
verpool. Five thousand died annually of diseases which
might be prevented by proper precautions. Typhuse as
Mr. Chadwick justly observed, carried off every
year more than fell at the battle of Waterloo.
—(Hear, hear.) In the middle ages six millions
of peeple had been carried of in fiVe years by the plague;
a bad form of typhus, but by the drainage of swamps,
the adoption of sewers, and other improvements, that
evil had been arrested. The gaol fever used to carry off
the prisoners by hundreds, as if the angel of death bad
smote them ; but by better arrangements that disease
was extirpated, and the adoption of the plans suggested
in the petition would soon mu& typhus a disease