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

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THE CHOLERA.

MANSION-HOUSE RELIEF COMMITTEE.

Yesterday nearly £BOO was received at the Man-
sion-house alone towards the Cholera Relief Fund,
in addition to money paid into banks in connexion
with it, thus making the total amount of subscrip-
tions for eight days up to last evening about £B,OOO,
a little more or less. The Relief Committee held a
meeting yesterday to consider applications for as-
sistance from the fund, and to make grants in
money, according to the attendant circumstances of
each, and to be distributed in all cases through the
agency of local committees. There were present
the Lord Mayor, acting as chairman ; Mr. Thomas
Baring, M.P. ; Sir Mordaunt Wells ; the Rev. Wm.
Rogers, rector of Bishopsgate ; the Rev. F. G.
Blomfield, rector of St. Andrew Undershaft ; Dr.
Andrew Clark, physician to the London Hospital ;
Mr. Charles Hetton, Mr. R. N. Fowler, Mr. Samuel
Hoare, Mr. R. B. Wade, Mr. Andrew Johnston,
Mr. Ripley, Mr. Needham, and Mr. W. J. Maxwell.
The committee wish it to be publicly known that as
a rule they make no grants except on personal appli-
cation to them at the Mansion-house, and then only
to such of the inhabitants of the infected districts as
have formed themselves into local committees for
relieving the distress.
A deputation of churchwardens and vestrymen
representing a local committee of ten, from the
parish of St. George-in-the-East, attended the com-
mittee. The population of the parish is nearly
50,000, mostly of the labouring and working classes,
many of whom, they said, are almost without the
common necessaries of life. The parish has suffered
very severely from the epidemic, no less than 196
deaths having been registered from cholera and
diarrhoea during the three weeks up to Saturday
last, and many of the persons so dying were heads
of families. The consequence is a great increase in
the destitution of the neighbourhood, and cases were
constantly coming to the knowledge of the local
committee where a little timely relief would prove
invaluable. One of the deputation stated that in
many cases poor people had parted with almost all
they had in order to bury the dead, and that in others
the destitution was so great and pressing that they
had asked the churchwardens first to give them food
before money to bury the dead. For some days 15
or 16 dead bodies lay in a deadhouse in connection
with the parish church for want of means among the
relatives to bury them. The circumstances led to some
outcry, and at last means were found to inter them.
The committee granted the deputation £lOO ; and
to a deputation from St. Mary, in St. George-in-
the East, £25, and five gallons of port wine.
Mr. ALEX brought under the consideration of the
committee the state of ;the Jewish poor, among
whom the epidemic is prevalent, as elsewhere. The
Jewish Board of Guardians in Devonshire-square,
he said, had employed a sanitary inspector of its
own since the first alarm of the outbreak of the
plague in Russia, and the result had been very
favourable. Still, as the returns for the past three
weeks showed, the JeWish poor, some thousands in
number, had not been exempted from the present
epidemic. Upon the motion of the Lord Mayor, in
consideration of the great liberality towards the fund
which had been shown by the wealthier members of
the Jewish community, the committee granted £l5O
and ten gallons of port wine.
A numerous deputation of parishioners from
Limehouse, including the rector and churchwardens,
bad an interview with the committee. They are
organising local committees for house to house visi-
tations, and for distributing relief. On the receipt
of the Order in Council they went vigorously to
work, and deodorised and disinfected the worst parts
of the parish, and in that way thought they had
arrested the progress of the disease. In one week they
had 92 deaths in a population of from 30,000 to
40,000, but the disease had now much abated. A
great deal of distress, however, from cholera ex-
isted, and their poor rate is as high as 4s. Bd. in the
pound. The committee voted them £2OO. To a de-
putation from St. Paul's, Southwark, with the Rev.
Mr. Howlett, the rector, at their head—a district
with a population of 7,600, iu which several cases
of cholera had occurred since Sunday, and the
poverty was extreme—the committee granted £lOO.
They also voted £lOO to the Metropolitan Free
Hospital, Devonshire-square, to be wholly expended
in the relief of cholera patients ; £5O to a local com-
mittee of Roman Catholics in the districts of St.
Mary and St. Michael, Commercial-road ; £25 to
the German and Dutch House of Mercy in Bow-
road ; a similar sum to the parish of St. Thomas,
Stepney ; and £5O to a local committee in Wap-
ping, of which the Rev. S. B. Burnaby, the rector,
is chairman. In the parish of St. Thomas, Stepney,
with a population of about 14,000, there had been
more than 100 cases of cholera, and 48 deaths. In
a small street there of 36 houses 11 persons had died
of the disease.
Before the committee separated yesterdaY.:
aprird.
A. CLARK, Physician to the London Hos. I
that it was opposed
itmemberwas ofa greattlie
mistake
committee,stak e to tooknakt
,hoaecsc .Asso °Praia: yesterdays
the
committee had appeared to 100., cholera
hospitalto prox)csaelmfoterc.erscltiaaelb_litsrlcent„
ughtalt:VvhineirPte:erplairarePYpecalh.ration
fresh outbreak of cholera ;
the contrary, he said he
should be made ftoirniao
Ile held that, to herd together
but, at the same
afflicted with cholera in one
a great many People:ho
place, NVlt
• 1- out due regard to space, and to carry out
theories of ventilation, would be a dangerous expe-
riment. Some doctors thought that 500 cubic feet
of space was enough for each patient in an hospital
for cholera patients, but he contended that 1,000
cubic feet was the very least that should be allowed
for each patient. For himself he should prefer 1,200
cubic feet for each bed, and he must enter his pro-
test against any hospital for the reception of cholera
patients which provided no greater space for each
patient than 500 cubic feet.
Sir MOItDAUNT WELLS, speaking from his own
experience, said 1,200 cubic feet was the space
allowed in India for each patient.
Up to yesterday evening the committee had voted