The Sun.
London, England, 1866-08-28 00:00:00

THE CHOLERA.

MANSION HOUSE RELIEF COMMITTEE.

Yesterday the Mansion-house Committee was
specially convened, at the request of the Lord
Mayor, to consider a proposition, of which he gave
notice a few days ago, to set aside the sum of £5,000
of the fund now at their disposal for the mainte-
nance of a certain number of children who have
been made orphans in the infected districts.
The Lord Mayor having taken the chair,
Sir M. WELLS, late Judge of the High Court of
Judicature, and a member of the Legislative Coun-
cil of India, said the fund placed at the disposal of
the committee amounted to upwards of £15,000,
and up to that time they had dispensed to-
wards the relief of the distress about one-third
of the amount. If, therefore, they should de-
termine to set aside £5,000 for the special pur-
pose of providing for a certain number of• the or-
phans until they were of an age to provide for
themselves, they would still have a third of thefund
to dispense in the succour of the poor sick and con-
valescent patients. He moved, in the spirit of the
conversation which took place in the committee a
few days ago, that £5,000 be specially set aside for
the present towards the maintenance of orphans of
persons who had died of cholera, leaving it to the
committee to determine afterwards the manner in
which the money should be expended in detail.

The LORD MAYOR said he never saw such destitu-
tion in his life as that which he witnessed on Satur-
day evening on a cursory visit he made to a district
in the east of London which had been ravaged by
the epidemic. There the cholera was now a secondary
consideration, and hundreds of people who had suf-
fered from it wanted something to sustain life, and
air, and light, for now where the disease was subsid-
ing typhus fever was following on its heels in many
places.

Mr. Alderman CorroN submitted that their first
duty was to relieve the present suffering occasioned
by cholera. The wiser course, he thought, would
be to apply to such a purpose any surplus that
might remain after relieving the current distress,
and he moved an amendment to that effect.

The amendment was seconded by Mr. MAXWELL.
Mr. WADE was disposed to agree in setting aside
this particular sum for orphans.

The Rev. F. G. BLOMFIELD took a similar view.

The Rev. Was. ROGERS, who had seconded the
motion of Sir Mordaunt Wells, said, replying to a
remark of Mr. Alderman Cotton, that the article
which appeared in the newspapers was not directed
against the duty of providing for orphans at such a
time, but against the erection of fresh "orphanages,"
so called, when so many existing institutions of the
kind had the means of accommodating additional
numbers with a little aid to their funds.

The LORD MAYOR said, if it was well for them'
to vote the sum of £5,000, it was well that they
should do it at once. The only thing he desired
to guard against was their attempting to provide for
orphans whose maintenance ought properly to fall
upon the parishes to which they were chargeable.
(Hear, hear.)
Mr. JOHN ABEL SMITH, M.P., and others, con-
tinued the discussion, and eventually (Mr. Alderman
Cotton's amendment having been negatived on a
show of hands), the Committee resolved, by a ma-
jority of 13 to 2, to set aside £5,000 for the special
purpose indicated, but that they would not entertain
any application for assistance from that particular
fund until they had matured a scheme for its proper
distribution.

A large deputation from Mile-end Old-town,
forming a local committee, waited upon the Com-
mittee and gave a painfully interesting narrative of
the ravages of the disease in that part of London.
They drew the Lord Mayor's attention to the fact
that as yet they had only relieved one-third of the
widows and orphans rendered desolate and destitute
by the visitation, and that to succour the remaining
two-thirds, to say nothing of the probable additions,
they required large assistance.
The Committee made them a grant of £250 and
18 gallons of wine. They also granted other sums,
amounting in the whole to £125, with quantities of
port wine where they thought it was needed—viz.,
to St. John's parish, Battersea-rise, £5O ;to the
Rev. Charles Stovell and a local committee for the
relief of poor Germansin the East of London suf-
fering from the epidemic, £25; to the pa. andrish
to
of
tShte.
Matthew and St. John, Southwark, £25 ,
district of Saffron-hill, for distribution among the
poor Roman Catholics suffering from tAhrethdiusrehaiseel.ps
Yesterday Mr. Tite, M.P., and Mr.
were, on the motion of the Lord Mayor, added to
the committee.

THE CHOLERA ON THE RIVER.—It is satisfactory
to be enabled to continue a favourable report as to
the sanitary condition of the shipping in the river