The Sun.
London, England, 1866-06-06 00:00:00

prices are slightly lower than the extreme rates
previously obtained."

CARDIFF, 4th.—The steam coal trade is still ac-
tive ; in fact, there are no signs of any diminution
taking place in the demand, which is principally
from the French and Mediterranean markets. Large
quantities are sent as well to the mail packet coal-
ing stations. There is also an increased inquiry for
Welsh steam on inland account. The local sale for
house coal has has somewhat decreased, but there is
no alteration in prices. Coke is in fair demand, and
the shipments of patent fuel are above the average.
In the iron trade business is dull, and both sellers
and buyers are awaiting the result of the crisis be-
fore entering into any new transactions. The few
orders which come in are chiefly from the markets
of the United States, British North America, and
the Baltic. Some contracts are in course of execu-
tion for the Eastern markets, but the latest advices
received from that quarter are not of a hopeful
character. On home account trade is at a complete
stand, and no improvement is anticipated until the
money-market becomes easier. In pig iron there is
no change to note, and the demand for tin plates is
very quiet.

LEEDS,
6Tmhoerniinnfiguxhas been tolerably large,
of goods to both the
but the great bulkwas to supply orders given before-
s this
before-
hand. The attendance of buyers was small, and
cloth-halls
their wants few, so that there was not much drain
upon the goods in any department. The inquiry
for the finer sorts of black unions is well maintained
and manufacturers are sending larger quantities to
market than for some time past. Tweeds and coat-
ings are still in abeyance, and even those who are
looking after the witneys, beavers, and other strong
makes-for next season act with great caution. Su-
perfines and other classes of goods not before speci-
fied have been neglected, though cloths in the balk
state may be excepted, as there has been a good run
both for heavies and mediums. The foreign houses
to-day were once more absentees, a telegram hav-
ing destroyed any hopes of a peaceful solution of
the difficulties at work abroad.
NOTTINGHAM, sth. —The attendance at our Ex-
change-hall to-day was fair, but there was not much
demand for lace yarns. The demand for hosiery
yarns was steady, at fully late rates. Silks rather
dearer, but very little doing. For brown nets the
demand was dull, and prices were unchanged.
ROCHDALE, 4th.--The buyers at market were
in number about the same as last week, but they
manifested a still less disposition to buy on anything
like a generous scale. There were some inquiries for
fancy and printing goods, but not sufficient to abate
the depression which has for some time existed.
Plain goods are entirely out of favour, and the busi-
ness done in Yorkshire low woollens is quite aspoor
as that done in flannels generally. Prices of manu-
factured goods are unchanged, for, though the de-
mand is slight, the value of wool has gone up since
our last report.

Treatment of the Sick inLondonWorkhouses

On Monday Mr. R. B7Cane, a special commis-
sioner of the Poor-law Board, opened an inquiry
at the Strand Union Workhouse on charges made
against the management of the sick and infirm in
that place by a person who had held the position
of head-nurse there. This is the first of a
series of investigations which, it is expected, will
be instituted into the several workhouses, the
management of which has been described by the late
head-nurse in them in papers laid before the Poor-
law Board by the Earl of Carnarvon, for the Asso-
ciation for the Improvement of Metropolitan Work-
house Infirmaries. There were many guardians
present, and Mr. Ernest Hart and Mr. J. C.
Parkinson attended for the association.
Matilda Breton was called and sworn. She said
she was formerly head (paid) nurse at the Strand
Union Workhouse, and she took charge of the sick
and infirm inmates on the 21st of August last.
There were 22 wards in all in her charge, and there
were sick people in all of them. The classification
of the sick in the house was very bad indeed—much
worse than there was any need for—and the nursing
of the sick and the crowding of the wards were a
positive disgrace. The medicine was given at any
hour or anyhow by the nurses, who were all paupers
except the head nurse, and it was of no unfrequent
occurrence that the medicine from a bottle given to
one patient at one time was given to another at
another time. The pauper nurses seemed to have
the whole control over the diets of the sick, and it
very frequently happened that the beer was stopped
of all the sick and infirm patients, who were told
that there was none in the house. This happened
about once a week. Once complained to the ma-
tron, but such a fuss and bother was made about it
—the matron scolding the patients and others who
complained for complaining to the nurse—that she
never again complained. The rations of meat, too,
the poor people said, were often short in quantity.
The stimulants, as wine and spirits, ordered by the
\
medical officer, were handed over to the patients
themselves on the master's order. Witness on first
going into the house, had administered them herself,
as in other hospitals, at staled times ; but the pau-
pers wanted to have these things by them, and she
had good reason to believe that the stimulants
were given to the pauper nurses to obtain
attention, sold to them, or stolen by them.
Another evil connected with the house was, that
able-bodied paupers were wandering over the sick
wards. Not merely husbands who came to see sick
wives, and wives who came to see sick husbands, but
others who came to beg or buy the uneaten meals of
the patients.. The patients sold their food to pay
for their washing, for the washing which was done
in the house by pauper laundresses was so badly
done for those who did not pay for it, that the poor
people would do anything rather than wear the
things. Witness, whenever she saw any of these
badly-washed clothes, sent them back again, and
she had sent the same things back three times ; but
the laundry women did not care, they seemed quite
independent of the Master and matron. These
women were often drunk, and they got the' drink
from the nurses, so witness had good reason for be-
lieving, and the nutses obtained it from the patients.
This had been told her by one of the laundry women
who had been locked up in the receiving ward for
being drunk and disorderly. The wards under wit-
ness's charge were very badly ventilated—in fact the
atmosphere in them was so bad that she loathed the
going into them. The attendance was very bad, the
pauper nurses being quite unfit for their office; an
instance of which she gave in the fact that on one
occasion two of these nurses, both of whom were
sick themselves, in endeavouring to raise a sick man,
so pulled him along the bed that a portion of his
skin, which had adhered to the sheet, was torn off,
and a large place in his back was left bleeding. This
was a bed sore forming through the man not being
properfy changed. He died the day after this hap-
pened. A great part of her time was taken up in
searching over the house for beds for the patients,
who were removed long before they were well,
to make room
for others who were worse ;
and though they were warded in the sick ward, sick
slept all over the house, down even to the receiving
ward ; and when this was full some clean patients
were sentintothedirtyward (the ward for ,4 dirty,,
cases). Some of the poor sick people, after being
inthe sick ward all day, had, in going to another
part of the house to sleep, to cross an open yard,
and this in all weathers. She instanced as the evil
arising from this practice two cases, one in which a
poor man who was getting well, took cold and got
erysipelas ; and
another, a young woman, who
catching cold had an attack of rheumatism. The
man she had mentioned was sent to the foul ward
and placed between an itch case and a man covered
with sores. The doctor could not help this, as the
whole house was full. Each ward had a pauper
nurse and helper, and these persons were not com-
petent to perform their duties. She said she always
found medical officers kind to their patients, and
she had not found guardians unwilling to find com-
forts for the sick if their wants were made known
to them.

In the course of a long cross-examination by the
commissioner it was further elicited that the nurses
of the children in the house used to sell the chil-
dren's milk to the patients for id. a pint, and that the
medical officer had had this proved to him, for he
punished the women for_ doing it.
In cross-examination by Mr. Ernest Hart the