The Sun.
London, England, 1832-02-18 00:00:00

CHOLERA AND POVERTY.

(From the Moming Chronicle.)
fitted that the ravages of
confined to the classes
mbits, and debilitated by
less. Those who are pre-
:holera, are in a state to
is and several other dis-
questioned whether the
augment the
_annual mor-
ilood.
a malignant fever raging
of the metropolis ; and
.ate of the population, we
suspect malignant diseases of some kind are
constant
jit , at quarter. What are called low
neighbO s in this part of the metropolis,
such as .Saffron-hill, St. Giles's, Westminster,
end some or the courts leading out of Oxford-
ifreet, are Paradises compared with the damp,
unpaved lanes of Spitalfields and Bethnal-green.
We do qof believe that there is in Europe such
.a mastiAlevel poverty, as that of the half a mil-
;lion iilirouls in the eastern part of the metropolis.
he ravages of cholera at Sunderland were
favoured by a state of things common to that
townl this metropolis, and many other towns
.91 the island. We allude to the parochial di-
a'coarding to which the rich and the poor
,afea.separaiirom each other, and the poor are
' left without adequate care and support.

.".'"l34siauliwearrnouth," says Mr: Ainsworth, " has the
advantage of being inhabited by the wealthier classes : it
is a neat, svell.built, and airy town, in which the pestilen-
-1 tial disease scarcely ever dared to show itself. Much in-
convenience results from this great difference between the
'Alwo parishes ; for all the wealthier persons taking up their
'abode in Bishop Wearmouth, the poor of Sunderland are
deprived•even of the few resources wbich remained for
`them in tWe contributions of the rich. Their difficulties
are flirther increased by a system, which I believe obtains
in.many parish towns of Great Britain, of farming out the
II caTe of the poor to the highest bidder ; and it is a passing
ju among the good people of Sunderland, that tbe oc-
cupant of this novel kind of lucrative situation generally
reti* at the expiration of a few years, a sharer in th-
pOssessipt of one or two stout vessels on the river."
~- This is exactly the case in the eastern division
.'t
of the metropolis. The inhabitants are all in a
state of level poverty. Their employers gene-
rally live in better neighbourhoods ; and there is
no adequate property to be assessed for the poor.
Whenever an attempt is made in St. Matthew,
Bethnal-green, to raise the rates, what Swift says
of the arithmetic of the Customs—that two and
two do not always make four, but often one—is
experienced, the amount is diminished rather
than increased by the numbers who become re-
ceivers instead of payers.
Now we contend that these arbitrary divisions
in cities and towns, in which there is one system
of labour, ought not to be allowed in the case of
poor rates. A town or city cannot be divided ;
it should be considered as one whole. In this
manlier, and this manner alone, can the poor be
adequately provided for. It is quite clear that
as the rich will always live away from the poor,
if one parochial division comprehends the rich,
and another the poor, the latter must be ne-
glected, and that pestilential diseases must pre-
vail among them.
We have always understood that the excel-
lence of the system of managing the poor in
Manchester, Birmingham, &c. is owing to the
absence of the above arbitrary divisions. The
rich and the poor are thus, as they ought to be,
connected together.
In the North of England, in many places the
poor are systematically destroyed. It is obvious,
however, that this killing off system may be car-
ried so far as to engender pestilential diseases,
which may in time destroy rich as well as poor.
Hutton, in his History of Birmingham, while
he extols the system of managing the poor which
prevails in that enlightened town, alludes to the
hiorpid practice of systematic starving to death
which prevails, we fear but too extensively, in
the North of? England. "In some parishes,"
he observes, " the unfortunate paupers have the
additional misery of being sold to a mer-
cenary wretch, to starve upon twelvepence a
head. It is matter of surprise that the Ma-
gistrates should wink at this cruelty ; but
it is a matter of pleasure that no accu,
sation comes within the verge of my historical
remarks ; for the wretched of Birmingham are
not made more so by ill treatment, but meet
with a kindness acceptable to distress." By way
of illustrating this observation as to the starving
system, he says—" In 1768 a small property
fell into my hands, situated in a neighbouring
village ; I found the tenant had entered upon
the premises at the age of 22 ; that he had re-
sided upon them with poverty and a fair cha-
racter during the long space of 46 years. I
told him he was welcome to spend the residue
of his life upon the spot gratis. He continued
there ten years after, when finding an inability
to procure support from labour, and meeting
with no assistance from the parish in which he
had been resident for an age, he resigned the
place with tears, after an occupation of fifty-six
years, and was obliged to recoil upon his own
parish, about twelve miles distant, to be farmed
with the rest of the poor; and where, he after-
wards assured me, they were murdering him by
inches. But no complaint of that kind„ lies
against that people whose character I draw.
It would be both more humane and more safe
to murder the poor at once rather than murder
them by inches ; for if they must be murdered in
the former way, the rich would escape the charm
of suffering from the pestilential diseases gene-
rated by the piece-meal murdering system.

in It seems- ..-se-admit
, the chole - Jr" almost
By that are '‘,4.74-:in their It
WO. low diet' .+ • runkenne:
dispose'::s • tanks of
the be
.o'ff by typhus
ea.... !II ith may be
toys cct, 7- • will materially a
~of any neighbourh
[ltd. t- ere is at this time
intA eastern division
ero. from the wretched state