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

TILE SUN, LONDON, PRIDAY MORNING, MARCH 18, 1846.

three-fourths of the estimate (the total amount of the esti-
mate being 2,000,00 CI.) The Committee would also report
that the promoters had tendered evidence that such deficient
contract was remedied a delaration under the seal of the
Great Western Company to the amount of 1,625,0001., but it
appeared that the Company was only enabled, and not com-
pelled, to subscribe that amount for the Lcompletion of the
undertaking.

CECICHESI ER AND BOGNOR.
This was the next case called en.
This Bill is sought for by the promoters to enable them to
construct a line of railway from Chichester to Bognor, the
length being VA miles, the estimated cost 60,5001., and the
amount subscribed 45,400/.
The engineer is Edward Lomas, Esq.; the Parliamentary
Agents, Messrs. Deans, Dunlop, and Hope; and the Soli-
citors, J. D. Newland, Esq., Chichester, and C. Constable,
Esq., Bognor.
Postponed in consequence of the absence of a witness.
TIIIDEAND (BIRMINGHAM EXTENSION).
This was an adjourned case.
The Committee declared that the promoters had complied
with the standing orders.
LONDO N AND niaminT MIA= GRAND
JUNCTION, AND IVIIIIicussTER. WAAL.
GANIATIO
The petitioners in this case prayed for powers to enable
them to amalgamate.
The standing orders were decided to have been complied
with.

inEErrizt,33 AND LINCOLNSHIRE

EXTENSION.

The olliect of the above. named Bill is the extension of the
above named line from Leverton to Lincoln. The length of
the extension is fourteen miles, the estimated cost 25Q0001.,
and the amount subscribed I 90,000/.
The engineer is J. Fowler, Esq.; and the Parliamentary
agents, Messrs. Burke, Prat, Venabl;s, and Co.
•
The standing orders were complied with.

SOUTHAMPTON ND DORCHESTER
This case was postponed at the request of the Parliamen,
.ary agent.
CHICHESTER. AND BOGNOR.

This case was again brought before the Committe, and all
the requisite proofs having been tendered,
The standing orders were declared to have been complied
with.
GUILFORD, CHICHESTER, AND PORTS-

COURT OF COMMON COUNCIL.
Yesterday a Court was held for the despatch of pub-
lic business. The piper of business presented a long
list, but the subject of greatest inerest was a proms
motion for the consideration of the propriety of protidirg
better abodes for the working classes. The galleries
were crowded with a most respectable auditory.
The Court was occupied for a length of time in discus-
sing the merits of a petition from the rector, church-
wardens, and parishioners of St. James, Duke's-place,
for aid in the purchase of an organ.
It was contended by those who advocated the F-ti-
tion, that as the churches of the rich parishes of the
City were supplied with organs, it would he invidious to
deny to the poor parishes the advantage of church mu-
sic—a luxury of the most pure and exquisite description,
and not calculated, like luxuries of another kind, to
draw away the mind from the contemplation of the most
sublime objects. By the opponents to the petition it
was objected, that as the parish of St. James, Duk.<2s-
place, was an indigent parish, it would be viry cruel in
the Court to aid it in the purchase of an organ, for the
possession of such a luxury would entail upon the Nor
parishioners a heavy annual expenditure in the shape of
an organist ; that, after all, the music of the human
voce, eloquently uttering the poetry of the Church in
full harmony, far exceeded the music of the pipes and
whistles of the:mechanical instrument ; and that if the
Corporation had eztablished a precedent by acceding to
the requests of the parish of St. Peter's, Cornhill, and
other affluent parishes, for similar indulgences, the cor-
poration had a very powerful arguiaent for their acqui-
escence in the very considerable sums of money paid in
the form of rates, &c.
The petition was reject, d by .54 to 42.
TIIE PUBLIC HEALTH.
Dr. LYNCH read and presented the following petition
to the Court :
To the night Honourable the Lord M./3-or, the Alder-
men, and Commonalty of the City of London, in Com-
mon Council assembled.
The following petition from the Metropolitan Work-
ing C:a.scs' Association for Improving the Public
llealth,
Humbly Showetb,—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 tl 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 prb'e 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 bat 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 street, 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 irquiring 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 been formed, but the poor po-
pulation of St. Giles's has been only wedged in more
densely upon the poor population of of Seven Dials, and
the had made worse.
Your 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, of 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 Corporation de-
votes its funds to the formation of new and magnificent
houses, it will, at the same time, ekefeise its power in
building foe the working classes, at reasonable, and yet
remunerative tents, improved tenements, in numbers
equal to those pulled dowo, and by so doing a benefit
will be conferred, instead of an injury inflicted; on those
whose condition most need iniprovement.
petitioners observe, with much satisfaction, that
new largo main sewers are in course of construction
down the main streets. They regret, however, to find
that the streets occupied by the labouring classes are
sal badly drained; that their hottses are still left un
drained and whilst in the nett' prison, and for the use
of prisoners, an apparatus of the nature of a water-
closet is pro%hded, 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 ally dear and bad supplies of water,
kept stagnant in butts in the yards, exposed to contami-
nation from soot and dust:
u r petitioners further pray, that at the same time
that drains for houses and sewers for streets are provided,
your Honourable Court will omercise its power, and in-
fluence to procure a good constant supply of water, to
make the drains and severs to act, and constantly re
move all aecumulationt 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 petitioner@ 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 rate:; 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) wbo the chairman of the
association was ?

The petitioner replied that the chairman was the
Bishop of London.—(Cheers.) He gave equally satisfac-
tory answers to other questions.
Dr. LYNBII stated tnat as the petitioners were work
ing men, and had been in waiting ou 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 reptesen-
tatives.

Several members expressed their entire satisfaction at
the arrangement,
Doctor' Litictit expressed a hope that the appeal made
to the Court would. receive their tountentinde and stip-
port. It was a sitNent of edn4fatuiblio3t With etwy re-
flecting mind to see the working classes struggling to
,
improve their social condition. It was one a the most
gratifying tbStilts of thb diffusion of Useful knowledge
and oat I 3 the best signs of the times. That laudable
endeavour had originated with their clear•headed
brethren in Bdittburgh; Glttagoili, and Diitidbe, Where
public meetings were called and resolutions adopted,
which showed how well they understood the evils, and
the Means best td ilitove them.. The deter-
inination to form suniiar associations in each of the great
towns of this country had met with encouragement
from thb highest; the noblest, the most pious, and some
of the most seWntitio in the land:—(Hear, hear.) Ap-.
pealing to the municipalities, to whotil the guardianship
of the public health essentially belonged, the petitioners
alluded with gratitude to the noble streets constructed
in the City, and he would take that opportunity to
acknowludge his obligations to Mr. R. L. Jones, and the
Court of Common Canned, for the generous spirit in
which they had seconded his etertions in behalf of tie
suffering poor. 'to return to the petitioners, however.
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 aggfavate 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 thb Ilarlhimentary 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
which it proposed to alter a state of things
t once melancholy and alarming. Within the last
half century
the proportion of the agricultural and
a
m
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.—(Bear, 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 born in Great Britain died before
they reached five years of age; and, taking the young
and the old together, twenty-six years was the average
at which people died in London, and seventeen in Li-
verpool. Five thousand died annually of diseases which
might be prevented by proper precautions. Typhus, as
Mr. Chadwick justly observed, carried off every
year more than fell at the battle of Waterloo.
—(Beer, hear.) In the middle ages six millions
of people 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
hundreds,ste as if the angel of death bad
render typhus a disease
r arrangements that disease
adoption of the plans sugaested
smotetiwnhae
s the
i petitiontsthiorenpi prisoners
extirpated,
dbbu
at
nv
dbo yu thdbeet a
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 yeari, 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 Farringdon Without, the habi-
tations of the poor were in the most deplorable condition.
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. Ji Hot:

born they had Field lane, and its shocking courts. On
the other side they had l'ltimtree-court, with 000 inha-
bitants in twenty-eight houses, the houses not averaging
more than few rooms each. The rooms were but eight
feet in heighth and width, and the average of occupants
was six persons to each room, while the Inspectors 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, viere never cleaned out.--e(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. 130 fatal was the poison
to which he alluded, that medical men were afraid of
applying a blister to a patient, from the fear it would run
into a mortification. The mortality amongst children
was spelling ; and the ravages made by all the pre-
ventible diseases, c xceeded what the most powerful ima-
gination could conceive. Similar close courts, in an
equally bad state. we re to bp found off Fleet-street. In
the Old Bailey there acre ninecourts, all without sewers.
Contagion was nevi r absent. In Black Bear-alley, which
was only two yard; wide, and had but five houses, he
had himself at!endecl, in one summer, forty cases of
typhus. By tbecensus return the average in England
and Wales was five-persons to each house, but in John's-
court, and Croe n and Phoenix-court, Fleet-street, he
found in thee-roorred houses eighteen people to each
house. In some of the dens called lodging-houses, he
had found s;x beds in a room, with two and three per-
sons in each bed, at twopence a head. In Fetterlane
there weee 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 be 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 tits exactly where leavas* most wanted
that there was the greatest want of'every sanatory pro-
vision. Both physical and moral deterioration were
the inevitable conscquenceseof all that misery. The
children grew up of diminished statureeof weaker fibre,
and so devastating was the effect tif 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 1 how few of that Court were the sons
or grandsons of natives l 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 ylace of that which had
been vitiated acid exhausted. That the morals of the
people were contaminated by such means *as 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 Nor faiiiilies 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 antiety to mate the school supersede the
gaol, and by doing so he would render his Mayoralty
more distinguished and me norable than by any display
of pageantry or profusion with which he could possibly
invest it. To mitigate the evils so inadequately de-
scribed, they must, in the first place, provide a constant
and unlimited supply of water to the poor. They must
shut up the wretched hovels which generated disease,
and appropriate some of their vast intenile to aceomme
date the poor with cheap, well-drained, and well-venti-
lated d.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 thO pet apectila de 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 ; lied been
successfully tried in Nottingham, Greenock, Paisley,
Ayr, Glasgow, Preston, Philadelphia, and New York,
and was now ready to be applied to London, if the citi-
zens, or those who acted itt their behalf; would only give
their sanction to the undertaking. Aniongit the 'Deny
wise dispensations of Providence, there was none that
more clearly indicated its divine origin than the inti-
mate connexion which subsisted between our interest
and odr duty. Vtifiatelief :Vas hest aleulated, to,promote
the well-being of the human family, would be found to
be the most economical in the end. On the
contrary, whatever violated a sanatory law, or tended to
produce suffering amongst any portion of the people,
would be found to operate iejurimitly uaon the rest.
There was a bond of union between the diserent 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. Ildiaidnity, ptiblin deity, good ,polie7,
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 fof filth. Ancient cities, once the
envy of surrounding nations, had fallen because they
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 inter=estteith the tiletthtrg of Omit Cotlrp. 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 thikhty hettft of the political
frame, whose size 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 piettirq itt grtatness and glozyl, in
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 —(Chcers.) hope 1, however: that they would
now act a part more consistent pith their honour ; toot
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 *Mild bless theni, Mid their oven 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
Coxilmitiegt
pleasure Mr. A NthDeE yootron stated he he
Dr. Lynch,
after
with
fterwh toseile iiiest
admirable
speech it could not be expected that he could say much.
hlnealrltliltyliacotd fallennitrred,a fndlime the
hoped
sf the
dttepi6moosvietire,
nhettmotioiscit
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 Di. Lyiich had Made that ge,ntieman 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 itflon their eceisideration,- but notwithstanding the
vivid description vvhiea they had just heard, they must
, to form a proper estimate of the horrors by
Alert they were surrounded.—(Hear, hear.) In order
accompanyharity Dr. Lynch on his " circumnavigation of
c
to g
that crime was engendered, and there they must go to
render permanent service to those who were destitute of
It r oofw crimeeed habitations
u must
assail
of the it
poor.in its
hot-bed,
t was-be d
there
the
densely et
the means of in the slightest degree, improving their
condition.—(Hear, hear.)

Mr. ICING 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).
were in the habit of taking credit to themselves
fir 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 apply 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 popie 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 commonsense,
which was outrag, d 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 manifest its 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 water,
was that, •he would ask, merely visionary?—(Hear.)
Was it merely a visionary good, if the tottering anti
miserable hovels which bounded the City were 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. STAGY 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
Commissioners, of whom the benevolent Mr. Peacock
was the chairman, were, he knew, deeply interesting
themselves for their poor fellow citizens.—(Cheers.)
He 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 effect a sort of revolution in the densely
crowded lanes and alleys of the City. If the Commis•
sioaers 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.—(Hear, 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 unanimously rcierred 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,