The Sun.
London, England, 1866-08-16 00:00:00

in all, during the last week, £4380 to be expended
towards the prevention of cholera, the relief of
patients, and the prevailing distress consequent
upon the visitation, in addition to quantities of port
wine. The money and wine are distributed in all
cases through local relief committees, composed for
the most part of the rector or incumbent and
churchwardens of a parish, some of the Dissenting
ministers, and other principal inhabitants. The
total amount granted yesterday alone by the com-
mittee to be so expended was £825.

The following is the official return of deaths from
cholera and diarrhoea on Tuesday, Aug. 14 :
Cholera. Diarrhoea.

West districts ... ... 2 ...
North districts ... ... 4 ...
Central districts... ... 1 ...
East districts ... 63
South districts ... ... 7

... 5

... 3
... 7
... 5

Total ...

••• 77

Reports on Metropolitan Workhouses.

The report of Mr. Farnall, Poor-law Board In-
spector, into the complaints of Miss Beeton, against
the management of Rotherhithe Workhouse Infir-
mary, has just been published. Mr. Farnall con-
skiers that the evidence adduced proves, amongst
other things, the following :—That the master and
matron did not meet Miss Beeton's complaints, nor
fulfil the requirements which she made to them;
that the medical officer took no steps to obtain
either pauper or paid night nurses, though fully
aware that there were bed-ridden patients in the
infirmary ; that neither the master nor assistant-
master visited the sleeping wards of the male pau-
pers at the times they ought to have done ; that the
matron did not visit the sleeping wards of the female
paupers by day and night as she should have done ;
that the pauper nurses supplied to Miss Beeton
were old and inexperienced, aid that one of them
beat and ill-used the'rpatients ; that the sick pa-
tients were sent to the infirmary in a dirty and
neglected state ; that the medical appliances of the
infirmary were extremely defective ; that the beds
were very hard, and that bits of bone and flint
were in some of them, and that maggots were seen
on one of them ; that the dietary of pauper patients
was insufficient and not properly served ; that one
of the pauper laundresses was addicted to drink,
and that the nurse Britton took opium. A letter
has been sent from the Poor-law Board to Miss
Beeton, saying that the guardians have inquired re-
specting certain charges made against her by the
workhouse master, and find that they rest on
mere idle gossip ; that the guardians have inquired
also into the matters of which Miss Beeton com-
plained, in
of
them,pla ,n at nwdrotuhl that
havethe they
donehave nowso ea
earlier
i
er remedied
if she some
had,her capacity of nurse, made known the charges to
conclu-
sion that the charges against Miss Beeton are with-
outthem ; that the guardians have come to the
foundation. .

Mr. Farnall's report on an inquiry held with re-
spect to alleged mismanagement of the sick poor in
Paddington Workhouse is also published. The
charges were made by Mrs. Bateman, a paid nurse,
and were brought under the notice of the Poor-law
Board by the Earl of Carnarvon, on behalf of the
Metropolitan Workhouse Infirmary Association :
The affidavits prove, Mr. Farnall thinks, the follow-
ing facts :—That the sick wards are contained in
two distinct infirmaries, called the new and the old,
and not scattered all over the house ; that in the old
infirmary as many as three sick children, with va-
rious complaints, some of them infectious, have
been put to sleep together ; that the sick are not
classified, but that the aged, young, infirm, chro-
nically and acutely sick, are or have been warded
together in the same room, and that an aged
patient, of dirty habits, and with vermin on her,
named Stannett, was warded with sick children, and
that a noisy lunatic, named Luke, disturbed the
sick inmates of a ward by night and day for three
weeks ; that in addition to giving all the medi-
cines at the stated hours in the different female
sick wards, Mrs. Bateman had a certain amount of
dispensing to do, together with the personal dis-
tribution of all the clean and dirty linen both of the
wards and the inmates, and the distribution of stores;
that Mrs. Bateman was consequently unable to per-

form satisfactorily to herself the duties of nursing,
and that some of the pauper nurses on whom she
had to rely were incompetent and behaved harshly
and cruelly to some of the patients, and that the
lady visitors occasionally gave the pauper nurses
small sums of money to secure their kindness to the
sick ; that a woman named Ward was afflicted with
bed sores, but was obliged to lie on a straw mattress
until Mrs.Bateman obtained an air mattress for her,
and that while Mrs. Bateman was nurse she was not
supplied with mackintosh sheets for dirty patients ;
and that a paralysed patient named Dunsford fell
twice out of bed in one night for want of assistance
and for whom a night nurse was ordered, but not
supplied. Mr. Farnall also directs the attention of

the Poor-law Board to some additional facts elicited
during the inquiry. Ile states that there are no paid
night nurses ; that the friends of a sick pauper,
Mary Macdonald, were not permitted to see her, or
detained sometimes an hour and a half before they
could do so, because " neither M'Donald herself nor
her friends would give any account of her settle-
ment ;" that the sick patients give beer to thepauper
nurses ; that a pauper nurse, when called up at night,
only attended to such calls as she thought proper ;
that the sick inmates complain to lady visitors of
cruelty on the part of the pauper nurses; and that
the matron does not visit the sick wards every day.
Mr. Farnall advises the board to direct the appoint-
ment of an adequate staff of nurses; that the medi-
cal officer should attend thoroughly to his own de-
partment and its requirements,that
and the master
should be informel that in cases o f sickness or ne-
cessity inmates should be permitted to see their
friends on other than appointed visiting days. With
respect to a charge of immorality against Mrs.
Bateman while acting as nurse at St. Pancras work-
house, Mr. Farnall reports that the charge was
groundless, and that a charge of indiscretion only
could be maintained. Mr. Farnall also informs
the board that, although the guardians discharged
Mrs. Bateman because she was " inefficient in mid-

wifery," the advertisement through which she was
appointed did not require such efficiency as a quali-
fication, nor was her efficiency tested during the
month she held office at the Paddington Workhouse.

REFORM MEETINGS.—A few days since a London
journal printed with great prominence a list of the
" Reform meetings" held in England during the summer.
In order to show the overwhelming character of these meet-
ings, and that the cry for manhood suffrage is the people's
cry, the compiler of the list professed to give the numbers
of those present at each meeting, 'With the name of the
bvy:frnemisielsity,t
atacopeporeretai-:
enormous gatherings, and Ivo wore
chairman, and the result. Some of thbeegifigunnreinsgretporebseelnietvede
that a majority of the inhabitants of the towns named were
letterciatea nt
the
ea
valuend found
pi:
ui theiutohaue
really earnest in the matter, till, when we came to the
Chairman. Persons Present. Result.
Place.
se everyairefollowing
journal,b list
ey'h—a return,ivneD been e r
20,000
The Mayor
t•SiDoonttht°hatetbeQisvueuerneysnenniai and listen to Mr. Griffith's graceful oratoryPeti
Derby
makingrerinnooso,bjbeucttiownhteonan
t he
indifferentmost
300 men and boys is swollen into an enthusiastic meeting
of 20,000 persons there can be no mistaking
which would fitly describe the wilfully the language
RiTl There can
gat
unscrupulous ex-
aggeration. The journal which
largest circulation in the
world"
should be a little more
decent and a little more wary, or else we may distrust
such statements as we
_e cannot disprove—as we can the one
in question. - Derby
it .1 • xx Mr-eery.
.. ILA AY ,IllIsT1.1:' L
S Ix LONDON.--Yesterday even -
in" Dr. I
0 .ankester held au inquest on the body of
Elniuntl Scott, •
a cab owner and driver, aged 54, who was
killed by b • being struck on the head by a gentleman's horse,
which
reared on hearing a whistle from a
railway engine
whi • ilt was passing over the bridge in Waterloo-road. The
horse was ridden by Mr. W. Hitchcock, of Tautield-court,
Temple, who stated that it became quite uncontrollable.
The jury returned a verdict of "Accidental Death," and
appended to their verdict the following resolution : - " The
audience n f tt pi
these
so
e:
jury empanelled at the City of London Tavern, on the nth
day of August, on the body of Edmund Scott, having re-
turned a verdict of " Accidental Deatb,"are of opinion that
the deceased came to his death by a horse which struck
him having been frightened by a railway whistle at the
Waterloo-bridge Station ; and they would respectfully call
the attention of the President of the Board of Trade to the
dangerous practice of railway engines whistling in the
midst of the traffic of the metropolis, as they have had it
represented to them that this practice is the cause of nume-
rous accidents and frequent deaths in London." The coro-
ner agreed with the resolution, and said he would fot ward
it to the President of the Board of Trade.