The Sun.
London, England, 1851-03-19 00:00:00

MARCH 19, 1851.

SUPPRESSION OF STREET BEGGING.
ST. JAMES'S PARISH.
" TO THE CHAIRMAN AND COMMITTEE OF THE LEICESTER-
SQUARE SOUP KITCHEN.
" Gentlemen,—ln forwarding my report for the month
of February, I have much satisfaction in drawing your
attention to the annexed table, showing the gradual
diminution of beggars detected asking alms in St.
James's parish, all of whom were strangers, and igno-
rant of the measures adopted for their suppression.
The street guardians continue to carry out your instruc-
tions in an orderly and systematic manner—meeting at
given points, every half-hour, and communicating to
each other the description of vagrants seen; this plan
proves an insurmountable obstacle to the beggar, as he
cannot possibly pursue his calling within the parish for
a longer period than half an hour without detection;
when once seen and cautioned, he deems it better at
once to quit the parish than run the risk of a conviction
by a repetition of the offence.
" The duties of the street guardians were extended
on the 27th inst. to the visitation of the principal streets,
sad the public-houses therein, from half-past seven to
ten o'clock in the evening.
" The success attending this evening duty the past
two nights has proved most satisfactory, and will, lu.re-
after, do much towards r,-moving from the streets a set
~f desperate prowlers, who, under the cloak of night
meet you at (very turn, and, by necessimi importunities
to your remonstrances, as they walk side by side, create
considerable alarm in the timid—especially unprotected
females.
" The licensed victuallers esteem this arrangement as
a great boon to themselves, as well as their bar and par-
lour customers; their attention to business being inces-
santly interrupted from dusk to closing time, in order-
ing out stalwart men beggars asking for money to pay a
night's lodging; and women, boys, and girls, pretend-
ing to vend lucifer matches, combs, prints, ballads, &c.
" The nuisance complained f in my report for
January last of a large number of juvenile pretending
crossing sweepers infecting the foot pavements for the
purpose of begging, has been removed; the crossing
sweepers now seen in the parish amount to about
twelve men and six boys, all usefully and publicly em-
ployed.
" A considerable number of lucifer match sellers, on
being taxed with begging, have withdrawn themselves.
" There can be no doubt that several thousands of
vagrants will be drawn from the country to the metro-
polis this summer; it therefore behoves parochial autho-
rities—now that it is proved mendicity can be easily
suppressed—to adopt stringent measures for checking
the inroads of provincial mendicants, and for putting
down the present existing intolerable nuisance in our
streets.

"BEGGARS DETECTED.
Total English
Total Irish

Gross total

" J. ETTERSIIANK, Supervisor."

" MONTHLY REPORT OF THE LEICESTER-SQUARE SOUP
KITCHEN AND ASYLUM FOR FEBRUARY, 1851.
" I beg respectfully to forward my report of this in-
stitution for the month of February, 1851. The table
of the number of recipients at the kitchen shows an in-
crease of nearly 4,000 persona over that of the month of
January last:—

" TABLE OF NUMBERS RELIEVED.
Relieved in Soup Kitchen.
Men, 9,317. Women, 1,605. Total, 10,022.
Families and Sick Resident Poor.
Men, 2,466. Women, 3,086. Children, 12,132.
Total Families, 17,684.
Total number relieved, 28,606.
" THE REFUGE.
" 280 women and 488 men have been provided with
beds, supper, and breakfast. From the large numbers
of deserving applicants applying all hours of the day, a
Wilber number of 356 poor men and women have par-
taken of a morning and evening meal of bread and coffee.
" LAVATORIES AND WATER-CLOSETS.
" The free benefits of this establishment have been
bestowed on 8,395 men and 4,516 women and children.
" FREE REGISTRY.
Number of persona registered
, Obtained, situations { Male 7
Female l2
"RAGGED SCHOOLS.
" Supplied to ragged schools, 146 gallons of soup and
78 quartern loaves, besides frequent entertainments to
the children of a neighbouring ragged school of an
evening meal of tea, coffee, and bread, at the kitchen,
with which they were pleased.
"WANT OF BREAST MILE.
" I am happy to state that all the poor female suf-
ferers applying for relief, with infants in arms, are now
free from this complaint. By dint of care, and good
nourishing soup and bread, they recovered their milk,
and their babies have been restored to health, and saved
from an untimely grave. They were very grateful for
the protection and relief afforded them in the hour of
trial.

'.John Brownring, aged 78; James Kearney, 67;
John Long, 10 weeks; and Willem Barton, 74—died
during the month in this metropolis from starvation.
" R. CRATE, Superintendent.
" Ham-yard, Great Windmill-street, Feb. 28, 1851."
" The principle of filling the famished and desti-
tute individuals who cry for help, with good,
wholesome food, instead of giving coin which
may be ill or disadvantageously spent —is
ono which recommends itself strongly to the
notice of the humane; and as the machinery for carry-
ing out the intention of the founders of this kitchen is
now practically perfect, and its economical working
rightly understood, it may safely be assumed that sub-
,criptions destined for the amelioration of the houseless
.'rid suffering pauper cannot be placed more fruitfully
than here; for inasmuch as they are at once applied to
the purchase and administration of nutritious food, so is
there security against the alms of the philanthropist
bt ing viciously and intemperately dissipated. We do no
wrung, therefore, in inviting the attention of those who
i.re blessed with affluence, and are not indifferent to hu-
man sympathies, to the soup kitchen in question—the
resources of which, long before the winter has passed
away, will no doubt require eleemosynary replenishment.
The recipients in the course of a week amount to seve-
ral hundreds, and no real difficulty is put in the way of
any one who unhappily needs succour. We have before
enforced the claims of this praiseworthy institution, and
eulogised the comprehensiveness of its plan, and the cha-
racter of its management; and we reiterate the appeal
which the statement involves, with all the confidence
suggested by an unmixed faith in its wide and vital
utility."

THE VERY POOR OF THE METROPOLIS.
It is a terrible and heart-rending fact, that numbers of
persons annually die in the streets of London of hunger
and destitution. However anxious the public may be to
shut their eyes to this appalling reality, it cannot
be qualified, much less refuted. The fact stares
us in the face in all its hideous deformity; fain
would we shun the reflection, but it is impos-
sible. Great privations are endured, especially in the
winter months, in many, foreign countries where the
severity of the weather is most acutely felt. In the
north of France, in Belgium, in Holland, and in many
parts of Germany, the sufferings of the humbler classes
are very great; but the oases are of extremely rare oc-
currence in which deaths from sheer starvation are re-
ported to the authorities in the principal cities
of those countries. In London, however, the wealth
and material greatness of which exceed that of
any other city in Christendom, deaths from
actual want of food are of daily occurrence.
Strangers to our laws and social regulations may be in-
clined to question this fact. They may say that such
cannot be the case in a country where the Government
raises an enormous sum per annum in the shape of poor-
rates, and where a simultaneous collection of private
bounty, unparalleled in amount to that received for
similar purposes in any other city in the world, is
constantly going on. The truth of these statements
cannot be denied, and hence the marvel that there
should be in the metropolis so many of the very poor.
The solution of the difficulty ir, however, instant and in-
telligible. Enormous as is our national establishment
for the relief of the poor, and numerous as are our pri-
vate charities, they are unable to meet the pressing exi-
gencies of those who die in the streets from want of food.
There are hospitals in all quarters of the city where
those labouring under every description of human in-
firmity may repair. The existence of present and palpa-
ble disease is the only qualification required for admission
to those magnificent institutions. There are other esta-
blishments supported by the bounty of the affluent, or by
the assistance of the prudent, in the hour of prosperity,
which are the receptacles of those who have " toiled all
day, and nothing spun." and where they may pass the
declining years of their lives. But there is no adequate
asylum for the wretched way farer, whose hard lot it is
to wander hungry through the great thoroughfares
of the town, and whose necessity ought to be sufficient
to entitle him to immediate relief. The class of per-
sons who perish in our streets from the want of the
commonest necessaries of life, are not what are com-
monly called vagrants. Far from it. The vagrant,
according to the accepted term, is the knave who
haunts the streets, ever ready to plunder or to beg,
as the opportunity arises. The assiduity with which he,
follows his profession secures him an ample return from
the credulity of his victims; but the very poor of the
metropolis are those whose wants are not paraded to
view, who live in attics and cellars, and whose necessi-

ties for the most part are caused by want of employ..
ment. Immense numbers of the resident deserving poor
of this class aro at this season suffering the greatest
privations. Another class, whose necessities are even
more pressing, consists of those who are sojourners
in the metropolis, and who flock from the provinces in
the hope of obtaining employment. In many cases
strong men, or men who were strong when they com-
menced their journey, have trudged on foot perhaps 50
or 100 miles, in the expectation of finding some descrip-
tion of employment on their arrival. Their hopes, how-
ever, are frustrated; no employment awaits them; and
es their slender resources are consumed in a few days,
they are forced to become outcasts i❑ the streets, with no
alternative except starvation or crime. They have no
claim upon the Metropolitan Union-house, except as casual
poor. The utmost relief they can hope for is a morsel
of bread and a roof to cover them for the night, and for
one night only. Many of those workmen never return
to their native place. To use an expression familiar to
polirical economists, they are " consumed" in the me-
tropolis—that is, some find employment, but many, alas,
the greater portion, are struck down by disease
and
famine, and ultimately become the subject for coroners'
inquests, when the stereotyped verdict of " died from
want and destitution" is returned.
Within the last few days the public journals have re-
corded no less than three deaths resulting from want of
actual food. One of these wretched beings died on the
pavement i❑ the open street, desolate and alone, whilst
thousands of his fellow-creatures were swarming around
Hero is the official record :—" John Browning,

aged 78, a labouring man from Frome in Somersetshire,
fell exhausted from inanition, in Mornington-crescent, on
Sunday, February 9, 1851, and died a few hours after-
wards. The verdict cf the jury was, Died from want
and destitution.' " A policeman, giving evidence,
stated, that a short time previous to the deceased's fall-
ing, he had ordered him, whilst lying shivering on the
pavement on another part of his beat, to get up and move
off, as he thouht he was shamming. The other instances
to which we have alluded are thus chronicled:—" At
an inquest held on Thursday (Feb. 20) on James
Kearney, painter, aged 65, at the Goat, Tash-street,
Gray's Inn-lane, it was stated that the body lay in a
wretched hovel, denuded of furniture, which had been
sold to buy food; and the surgeon, at the post mortem
examination, deposed that he had not found the least
particle of solid food in the stomach." At an inquest held
the same day, on John Long, at the Three Compasses,
Cowcross -street, West Smithfield, the body presented
an appalling appearance—was a " mere skeleton." Dr.
Walker performed a post mortem examination, aud, in
accordance with his opinion, the jury returned a verdict
—" That the deceased (lied from want (f food and
nourishment."
Th,„, are terrible realirks, that must not be per-
mitt, dto continue in a Christian land. For the sake of
our common !Lan, i; must he pre.maiti that the effluent
are in ignornhee ot the t•xiiteilee of .tioh pdi::-
tres in the midst of unprecedented plenty, prosperity,
and grandeur. It must be that they do 11,4 kilo., of
it, for ninety ind( ed is any genuine case or wreteticd-
ni•ss unrtdiered, wh,_n the particulars are fully known
to the public.
Mete is only one institution in the metropolis the
doors of which are ne.er shut :gLinst the destitute inh:t-
bitant of, or sojourner in, the metropolis. That institu-
tion is the Leicester-square Soup Kitchen and Hospice.
It is to be regretted that the public are not more fami-
liar with the objects and practical working cf this insti-
tution, or no doubt its resources would be considerably
greater. Its object is to provide a gratuitous soup kitchen,
an asylum for sheltering the houseless, a free registry
for servants and labourers, and free lavatories, &c,, for
the poor. The incalculable amount of benefit it has
done, and the extent of human suffering it has alle-
viated, may bo gathered from the fact that in 1850
476,111 persons were supplied with an abundant meal
of soup and bread; 16,264 were sheltered in the hospice
and supplied with supper, bed, and breakfast; and
227,371 were accommodated at the free lavatories with
water, soap, towels, &c. An immense quantity of soup
and broad was also distributed to ragged schools, and
237 deserving persons were placed in respectable
situations. The total number of persons relieved at the
soup-kitchen in January, 1851, was 24,642, of whom
11,189 were famishing children. But it must
not be supposed that this relief is confined
to the necessitous, who are unable to work
in consequence of infirmity or old age, and who are
struggling to keep out of the workhouse. A great por-
tion of the relief is given to labourers and skilled work-
men for whom there is no employment, and who would
have been in all probability driven to the commission of
crime had not this timely assistance been afforded to them.
In the month of January last the institution relieved
3,870 labourers, 960 excavators, 548 carpenters, 7.54
bricklayers, 392 plasterers, 41 butchers, 37 bakers, 185
clerks, 167 waiters, 39 watercress sellers, 115 cos-
termongers, 26 bookbinders, 11 map-colourers, 21
wheelwrights, 13 blacksmiths, 369 shopmen, 8 harness-
makers, 507 painters, 432 glaziers, 557 servants, 621
female servants, 127 sailors, and 107 distressed foreigners.
To descant upon the usefulness of such an institution
would, therefore, be idle. There is, however, another
class of persons to whose wants this admi-
rable institution has directed its attention. It
is well known that hundreds of infants an-
nually die in the metropolis in consequence of the
want of their natural food. It is impossible that the
wretched mother, whose form is wasted by famite and
exhausted by inanition, can replenish the fountain from
which her infant ought to draw its life stream. Within
the last twelve months 1.0 infants are reported to
have died from " want of breast milk." This calcula-
tion, however, gives no idea of the number who ac•
tually died from causes more or less attributable to
a deficient supply of their natural food. In order
to remedy as far as possible the ravages of this de-
plorable disease, the institution has notified that medical
advice and nourishment will be afforded to all poor
women applying under such circumstances. The result
has been, in the highest degree, satisfactory and gratify-
ing, the poor women rapidly regaining their strength
under the kindly and judicious treatment which has been
affbrded them.

An institution achieving so great an amount of good,
and founded upon principles of such unostentatious
philanthropy, is surely deserving of the countenance
and support of all good men. To satisfy the madden-
ing pangs of hunger—to assuage the pains of disease—
to allay the agony of mental distress—and, above all to
snatch from the paths of temptation and ruin the
young and guiltless, is a high and holy vocation. Great,
indeed, will be the reward of those who assist in such an
object. We feel assured that the claims of the Leices-
ter-square Soup-kitchen and Hospice will not be dis-
regarded by those whom Providence has favoured
with ample means. That charity, twice blessed—blessing
alike the giver and the receiver—cannot be directed to a
quarter where its benefits are more urgently required, or
where its influences will not be more sensibly felt. And
how consolatory will be the reflection that the assistance
thus timely afforded may essentially mitigate the great
sum of human suffering—perchance restore to society
many of its most useful members; but, at all events, ar-
rest the ravages of that disease and famine with which
so many of the very poor of the metropolis are afflicted.

TO THE SECRETARY OF THE BRADFORD
REFORM ASSOCIATION.
Sir,—On Monday the 17th, and the day following,
the debate was resumed on the Papal Aggression Bill,
with more of vigour than on the day of its introduction.
Bit by bit, facts and arguments find their way before the
House and the public, which were overlaid for a time by
the clamour of the friends of Rome and the weakness of
the ;Ministerial measure,
Nobody now seems to deny, that in one way or other
the Bill is not the thing. Some think there ought to be
no Bill; but more that the present Bill is aimed at little,
and that little wrong. It is beginning to be found out,
that the receiving of directions from a foreign power is
the evil required to be stopped. John Wesley might
divide the country into circuits, and make provision
for their governance during his lifetime, and for be-
queathing his power to a Conference afterwards. But if
John Wesley instead of being an Oxford scholar and ex-
horting his military proselytes to fight to the death for
the independence of the British Crown, had been a
foreign priest residing at the French head-quarters, or
with the French head-quarters established with himself,
his operations would have been regarded with a very
different eye by the people of Great Britain.
The speech of Lord Ashley on Tuesday was worthy
of the occasion and full of matter. In some way or
other that nobleman appears to have incurred the repu-
tation of being exaggerated; and it would be easy to
cite subjects on which there is strong contra-
riety between his opinions and those which have
been often submitted for your judgment. But the
truth is that Lord Ashley is a wise man, and a good ;
and even to those who do not ultimately agree with him
on a point at issue, ho comes out with an unexpected
flow of reasons for his course. On the present question
he doubles the small number of those who have hitherto
shown themselves on a level with the case.
Two particulars in Lord Ashley's speech struck me as
novel; their correctness being of course open to scru-
tiny to any extent. One is, the ostentatious way in
which the modern instrument of the Papacy has boasted
of having formed himself on the model of Thomas ti
Becket. Ile makes no secret of it; Becket has been all
his life the hero of his adoration, and he comes here to
imitate him if he can. And the other is, the extent to
which the triumph of the Papacy is operating upon the
Protestants in France. " With the exception of the
Dragonades," they write, " their condition has never
been worse." This may be exaggerated, but it would
not be risked without to some extent being true. The
man must be demented who does not see, that the power
of Absolutism on the continent has come into combina-
tion with a now element, the power of the Papacy,
and that the whole is " rolling onward like
a compact solid globe," as was the phrase
applied by its friends in our own country ;
the end of which is with the Disposer of all events. If
any of us has ever regretted, that he did not live in
times when men could be martyrs in fire or field, a brief
term of life may suffice to show him enough to set his
mind at ease.

I am, Sir, yours very sincerely,
AN OLD REFORMER.
London, 19th March, 1851.

AN ENGLISH TENOR IN PARIS.

Extract of a letter from a musical friend in Paris:—
" An immense interest was excited in the musical circles
hero by the debut of Mr. Reeves on Saturday night, at
the Italian Opera. For the last two years every singer
or other artiste, who has visited London, has brought
back wonderful accounts of a certain magnificent tenor,
combining tone, power, and expression unequalled since
the days of Donzelli' who possessed beyond all question
the finest voice ever known on the Italian stage. This
tempt. was Mr. Reeves, and an Englishman. Now, the
notion of a fine tenor and an Englishman at the same
time presents a combination which no Frenchman could
be brought to admit the possibility of, and hence the
crowd that filled the Italiens on Saturday night; not a
musician of note in the capital was absent. It was in
fact a regular trial by a jury of musicians, and I am de-
lighted, for the credit Of old England, to say that Mr.
Reeves came out of his ordeal most triumphantly. Real
talent always makes itself felt, and Mr. Reeves had not
sung half-a-dozen bars of his first dao with Madame
Montag before the public felt that a great singer stood
before them; and the manly amplitude of the style
with which he poured forth the andante brought down
a thundering round of applause, which was followed up
by prolonged and enthusiastic plaudits at the close of
the duet, and settled the question that Mr. Sims Reeves
—(I wish he would get rid of that infernal " Sims")—
is fully entitled to the first rank as a tenor, quoique an
Englishman' Ile delivered the recitative in his cavatina
"Se tanto in ire" with great expression, and gave the
air with a mingled power and sentiment that won hint
another triumph, and set the seal upon his success. A
concluding duet with Linda comprises all he has to sing,
which gloriously concluded the opera, leaving but one-
disappointment upon the mind of the auditory, yothatone
he
f
had not had much more to sing. In addition
the noblest tenor voices ever heard in Paris, Mr. Reeves
appears to possess musician-like qualities of a very high
order, and above all a perfect mastery over his immense
organ, which reaches the celebrated
ut of Duprez with
marvellous ease. His modulation will require some im-
provement, for his sotto voce passages, which delighted
those of the audience near the stage, were nearly un-
heard on the second circle. T
a most successful hit, and will
conclude; this de was
bring the season splen- I
didly to its conclusion. We are now anxiously looking