The Sun.
London, England, 1866-08-25 00:00:00

TEE CHOLERA.

MANSION-HOUSE RELIEF COMMITTEE,

From the representations made yesterday to this
committee by various local authorities in the infected
districts it would appear that, generally speaking,
with an exception here and there, the epidemic con-
tinues to subside ; that there are fewer deaths in
proportion to the attacks, but that, with less mor-
tality, there are more cases of diarrhoea. Still, the
local committees concur in stating, from personal
experience and observation, that there is a vast
amount of distress consequent upon the visitation,
which is aggravated by the want of work in the
shipbuilding trades along the Thames, especially at
Poplar and Millw all ; and that the fund raised by.
the Mansion-house Committee is most oppor-
tune, even though confined in its application
to the relief of suffering from cholera. Up to last
evening the committee had voted in all, since the
commencement of the fund, upwards of £5,000 to-
wards the relief of the distress, of which £525 was
granted yesterday, and £425 the day before, which
has been and is being expended in all cases through
the agency of local committees.
On Thursday the Lord Mayor paid a visit to an
auxiliary hospital for cholera patients and convales-
cents, which has been set on foot within the last few
days in Commercial-street, Whitechapel, at the ex-
pense chiefly and under the auspices of a committee
of gentlemen, of whom Mr. E. H. Palmer, a direc-
tor of the Bank of England, is at the head. A largo
unoccupied warehouse, of three stories, and nearly
new, has been adapted for the purpose, and proper
regard is being had to the usual conditions of a well-
regulated hospital, especially as to the space allotted
to each patient. The matron and nurses are all
Sisters of Mercy, to whom ministering to the sick
and poor is a labour of love. The Lord Mayor went
alone and in a strictly private way, his name and
position not being known to any of the authorities
or attendants. Though the hospital had only been
improvised within the last week, lie found it in good
working order so far as he was able to form an opin-
ion. There were nearly 20 patients,'and they were all
being well attemjed. Four dead bodies then lay in
the house from the disease, and two of the patients
were said to be on the point of death. Having paid
a previous visit to the place while it was being put
in order, he was much struck with the marvellous
rapidity with which it had been adapted to its present
uses, and, indeed, with the general management.
Yesterday the committee held a meeting at one
o'clock, there being present the Lord Mayor, in the
chair, Sir Mor daunt Wells, Mr. W. J. Maxwell,
the Rev. F. G. Blomfield, Mr. R. B. Wade, Mr.
R. N. Fowler, Mr. 11. W. Ripley, Mr. Charles
Hutton, Mr. Andrew Johnston, and Mr. Gilliat.
Mr. John Abel Smith, M.P., was also present,
though not a member of the committee.
A communication from the local committee of St.
John's district, Stratford, the population of which
is about 8,000, half of them poor, was read. They
gave a very minute and satisfactory account of how
they bad expended a previous grant made by the
committee. There had been, they said, upwards of
50 deaths in the district, and above 100 persons
were now suffering from the effects of cholera and
diarrhoea, or left in indigence, and requiring relief
in some form. Through mission and district visi-
tors 100 had had meat, 72 beef tea, 31 brandy, 20
arrowroot, and assistance from the beginning had
been given irrespective of creed. The case of a
widow named Barker, with three children was spe-
cially referred to. The husband, a worker in gutta
percha, died of virulent cholera early on Wednes-
day morning last. On calling at the house the in-
cumbent found the widow writing letters to his
friends in the room with the corpse, and two chil-
dren, one being ill, lying on chairs. He brought
them out of the room, and after the funeral he took
them to an apartment he hired. They had not a
sixpence in the world of their own, and the union
would not receive them, coming, as they did, from a
house in which there had been cholera. The woman,
too, was expecting to be confined. The committee
granted the deputation £5O, with five gallons of
port wine, and some suitable stores towards the
further relief of the distress. The,local relief com-
mittee of Nichol-street, Bethnal-green, of which
Mr. Benjamin Smith is treasurer, reported that they
had relieved at their dispensary 48 cases of cholera
and 2,375 of diarrhoea from the Gth to the 22d of
August. They were sorry to add that the virulence
of the cases had increased during the last three days
The committee made a grant of £5O, and a quantity
of wine, arrowroot, and materials for beef tea.

The Ratcliff Relief Committee, headed by the
Rev. Mr. Atherton, incumbent of St. James, re-
ported that they had been actively engaged relieving
the sufferers from cholera night and day. There
had been constantly at work in the hamlet the in-
cumbent (Mr. Atherton), two curates, a Scripture
reader, two mission women, and other visitors. The
accounts they gave, said the local committee, were
appalls g. In many houses the poor sufferers were
lying without beds or bedding of any kind—some-
times on old sacks or a bundle of rags. There were
several instances where patients had been discharged
from the cholera hospital too weak to work and
utterly without means of support. At 15, Love-
lene, and 11, Stepney-causeway, six families had
been ill of cholera, and six deaths had taken place.
On Wednesday night a poor man was attacked with
cholera in London-street, Ratcliff ; the lady visitors
were at hand to help, and, having got the man home,
they at once applied the most approved remedies till
a medical man arrived. Tinder his direction they
nursed the man all night, and the poor fellow was
now better. In another case a woman, with choleraic
symptoms passing into fever, had been found alone
with her children and no one to help her, her hus-
band having gone out early in the morning to work.
She was carefully nursed, and, when practicable,
removed to the hospital. Between 400 and 500
families had been visited since the first grant from
the Mansion-house was made, and every case re-
quiring attention had met with immediate relief.
Yesterday morning the visitors reported that there
seemed more cases of cholera since Sunday than at
the end of last week, and there were also many cases
commencing with choleraic symptoms, turning into
a kind of low typhoid fever, and which required con-
stant care and nourishment. The deaths from
cholera in Ratcliff last week were 35, being nearly
three times the average number of deaths from
all diseases ; but the number of deaths was
not a full measure of the suffering caused by
cholera, for as far as they could judge the number
of persons attacked had increased, while the death
rate had diminished.

The Committee granted £lOO, nine gallons of
port wine, and some arrowroot. ors
Dr. Pearson, of Upper Phillimore-place, Ken-
sington, brought to the notice of the Committee a
case of distress from cholera. The family, he said,
consisted of a father, mother, and three children.
The father died of the epidemic in the London Hos-
pital at the beginning of the outbreak. The mother
and three children were all attacked and taken to the
same hospital, but recovered. The eldest child, a
boy five years of age, is a cripple ; and the youngest
a baby in arms, has been made blind during
attack of cholera. The mother is a delicate Woman,
much debilitated by the disease, and
has no means
of subsistence.
A local committee from what is called the new
a
district of St. John (St. George-in-the-East)
sad account of the
distress there. The people,
population of about 6,000,g%v
th-y said, were only
half fed, especially
the children, whose dinner was
usually bread and treacle and tea. From a grant
made by the committee they had relieved about 250
families and 213 cases of cholera and diarrhoea, out
of which there had been 35 deaths. The cholera was
Clccrcasing, but there was a great amount of destitu-
tion. The committee granted £5O and nine gallons
of port wine. They also made a grant to the Ger-
man Hospital at Dalston of £lOO ; to the district of
St. Luke's, Al illwall, £5O; St. James-the-Less, Beth-
nal-green, £25 ; and to the relief committee con-
nected with Bethnal-green Congregational Church,
£5O.

In all cases the Mansion-house Committee require
the local authorities to whom they make grants
strict accounts as to how the money is expended, not
wishing at the same time to tie their hands in the
distribution, which they leave to their discretion and
judgment. The fund collected up to lest evening
amounted to about £15,000.