The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-11-23 00:00:00

" THE LADIES' CHARITY.'

The following essay, entitled "Rernarks on the Necessity
and Advantages of establishing Lying-in Wards in connexion
with The Ladies' Charity' of Liverpool," was composed
last year by the medical officers of the Ladies' Charity, at,
the request of the combined committee of ladies and gentle-
men, and was circulated amongst the trustees and subscrib-
ers at large. Its chief object was to afford such information
as should evince the great desirableness of connecting with
the Ladies' Charity, wards for the reception of difficult add
dangerous instances of parturition among the married poor.
The question of rendering such assistance, and by such
means, had been under the consideration of the Ladies' Cha-
rity since the latter end of 1838, but from various causes had
been at different times postponed. The full amount of in-
formation was considered to be given, but the matter and
suggestions of the pamphlet remained still not formally de-
cided upon.

In this state of things a plan was originated.by other par-
ties, and has been recently proposed to the public, for the
purpose of carrying out, by a new institution, the very object
already in the hands and, under the notice of the existing
charity. The authorities of the Ladies' Charity moved, as
may be supposed, by the unexpected projection of this mea-
sure, and apprehensive perhaps that their own charity, to-
wards which feelings of strong attachment are known to be
largely entertained, might fall into disesteem or be otherwise
injured, have, we understand, now directed their most seri-

ous attention to the point of enlarging the charity, on the
p!an actually for some time before them.

PREFACE

The attention of the Committee of the Ladies' Charity
having been strongly drawn, during the latter months of
1838, to the question of establishing Lying-in Wards, in con-
nexion with the Charity, it was proposed in the first instance
to call a general meeting of the Subscribers to consider its
expediency; but subsequently, from the scanty or uncertain
information supposed to be possessed on the subject, it was
decided to postpone this step, until some statement to explain
the, advantages of such an addition to the Charity bad been
prepared by the Medical Officers, and circulated amongst the
Subscribers. Various circumstances have conspired since
that period to prohibit the performance of this obligation on
the part of the Medical Officers ; but they are happy to be
able at length to fulfil their promise, and have now the plea-
sure of laying before the Subscribers and Benefactors in
general the following remarks, of the incompleteness of which
they are fully sensible, but which they trust will, nevertheless,
have the effect of exciting that deeper inquiry into the sub-
ject, which it appears to them so eminently to deserve.

EDWARD BATTY.
KING ELLISON.
SAMUEL MALINS, M.D.
WILLIAM HENRY BAINBRIGGE
REMARKS, &c.

Notwithstanding the town of Liverpool boasts of splendid
and numerous Charities, supported, without any fixed en-
dowments, by the constant contributions of its more yvealthy
inhabitants, yet there are none which in real usefulness can
justly be thought to excel the " Ladies' Charity", the prin-
cipal feature of which is the administration of professional
assistance, and of many most essential comforts, to poor
married women in the hour of their necessity.

The Ladies' Charity was instituted in this town in 1796,
and now, consequently, has for forty-four years been engaged
in its most beneficent and useful work. During this time it
has steadily pursued an unostentatious plan of diffusing its
benefits, and not only those of a domestic nature, but such
other aid also as the homes of the poor would permit to be
received. Within forty-four years, terminating with 1839,
the large number of 54,744 patients have thus been the ob-
jects, all of matronly and pecuniary, and many of medical
relief, appointed midwives having uniformly been in attend-
ance ; while under difficulty or danger, has invariably been
superadded the presence of medical men, specially chosen by
the whole body of subscribers. Some idea may hence be
formed of the extent and activity of the operations of the
Charity amongst the poor. It would be difficult, perhaps,
fully to estimate the value of the blessings and advantages
conferred by these means, not merely on the sufferers and
their dependent families and friends, but likewise, indirectly,
on society at large. And it is undeniable, that to the bene-
volent and generous feelings of those who by their contribu-
tions, whether of funds or of personal exertion, have diffused
so vast an amount of good, the highest credit is justly due.
Still although so much to comfort and gladden these poor
sufferers has been effected, yet when the circumstances of the
humblest o:ders of society in this place are attentively consi-
dered, there seems room, in certain cases, for adding to, or
varying the present mode of relief. Admirably as this is
suited to the majority of cases; yet it does not appear ade-
quate to supply sufficient help, or to do justice to all, since
it does not embrace within its agency some of the most for-
midable contingencies of the obstetric art. The Medical
Officers are firmly persuaded that, by further extending the
benefits whieh the " Ladies Charity" has in its power to
confer, remaining objects, of not less interest and importance
than those hitherto accomplished, may be satisfactorily
achieved. The chief of these may be stated to consist in
provision for those peculiarly difficult or highly desti-
tute classes of cases, so frequently met with, and so
much aggravated in intensity by the attendant features
of the abodes of the poor, for which ample provision is
found in the extensive lying-in establishments of London,
Edinburgh, and Dublin, but none hitherto (although de-
mands for such pr6vision are equally urgent,) in this densely
populous town. It appears to the medical officers, that the
only mode by which this provision can be certainly secured,
and so strong a necessity be confidently met, is by the erec-
tion of Hospital Wards, or the proeuring and maintaining
in one locality, where all the resources of art and every means
of relief can be effectively concentrated, adequate accommo-
dation for the reception and treatment of the cases described.

The subscribers to the Ladies' Charity, except by constant
personal inspection, could have no idea of the danger and
miseries which the medical officers are so often compelled to
witness, and which, from the inefficient or opposing charac-
ter of surrounding circumstances, they are, not rarely, unable
to remove or perfectly relieve. In those dark, dismal re-
cesses under ground known as inner cellars, or in upper
rooms approached by crumbling staircases, where the con-
fined air is thick, heated, or moist, and highly impure, the
one apartment occupied by numerous inmates or several fami-
lies, for the most part in a half-fed and half-clothed state, the
unhappy spectacle of puerperal women oppressed by grievous
pain, or holding only a very precarious existence, may fre-
quently be seen. With a view, therefore, to rescue from this
deplorable condition both those distressing cases where
the safety of the sufferer is unusually compromised, and
those instances of impoverished and destitute married women,
whose deep necessities have compelled them to implore assis-
tance at a time and under circumstances which attract the
tenderest sympathy, (even when danger is absent and every
external comfort is at hand,) and also to afford to parties
thus labouring under the severest risks, or subsisting in the
midst of such extreme wretchedness, an asylum to which
the light of heaven shall have access, free from a damp and
polluted atmosphere, where they shall enjoy that quietude, so
necessary to their welfare; to give them likewise a diet suit-
able to their situation, with warm and appropriate apparel, by
which cleanliness will be brought to supersede filth in its most
revolting forms ; to supply, moreover, the services of kind
and experienced nurses, together with efficient medical aid,
the basis on which every other advantage must rest :—with
a view to procure these comforts and advantages, frequently
indispensable to the preservation of life, for those who have
no other means of obtaining them, the present brief state-
ment has been drawn up, and is now submitted to the kind
and impartial consideration of the subscribers to the Ladies'
Charity, and through them, is offered to the indulgent notice
of the more opulent and benevolent among the community
at large, to whom the nature and claims, or in some cases
possibly the very existence of the charity, may not as yet be
known.. And this appeal is made with strong hope of success,
inasmuch as in this place the cause of Christian charity has
never yet been pleaded in vain.
The subordinate objects of the proposed extension of the
charity, constituting the collateral advantages that may be
expected to accrue from an hospital of this kind, come next
to be mentioned. The importance of them, though secon-
dary, cannot, however, be deemed inconsiderable.
Firstly, a number of competent well-educated monthly
nurses will be formed, who, from the knowledge they will
derive during their attendance at such an institution, will in
their peculiar capacity prove more valuable to, and inspire
more perfect confidence in, all classes of society.
Secondly, it will constitute a school for the sound educa-
tion of midwives. The instructions they will here receive
under the medical officers, and the superior information they
will thus acquire, will necessarily render them more discri-
minating and skillful in their professional vocation. Hence
will spring greater credit to themselves, an augmented re-
spectability of their class, and more assured benefit to the
objects of their attention.

Thirdly, it will be possible, under very precise regulations
and strict superintendence, that the wards should be made
subservient to the more exact initiation of advanced and ap-
proved medical students into this department of their pro-
fession.

The attention of the patrons and friends of the charity
must now be entreated to a fact of much import, namely, that
to give proper effect to the contemplated additional relief, the
benefits of the charity should not, as hitherto, be limited
solely to patients who are about to be confined of their se-
cond or following children, * but should be extended, so as
also to a:low the reception, at least into the proposed wards,
of certain poor women, who, for the first time, are expect-
ing to become mothers. •

The reasons on which this suggestion is founded are abun-
dantly known to medical men. For experience has detnon-
strated, and may therefore be safely alleged in confirmation
of the fait, that as a general rule, a far. greater than the
average degree of hazard accompanies first confinements, and
that in consequence, they ordinarily require a larger amount
of professional care, attention, and skill. Evils of a greater
magnitude, and more deplorable consequences, have resulted
from mismanaged first confinements than from all the sub-
sequent ones combined, To avert such results, when either
difficulty can be foreseen or is imminently threatened, or has
actually supervened,- the charity, enlarged as proposed,
would be powerfully instrumental, and the circle of its merits
and utility would thus be greatly increased.
It will be perceived that the tenor of these suggestions is
not to restrict, or produce any limitation or diminution of
the present excellent mode adopted by the charity of afford-
ing relief, which without doubt, as was before observed, is
best adapted to the wants and conveniences of the majority
of the poor ; but the design is, without interfering in the
smallest degree with the present plan of the charity as an
Obstetric Dispensary, to offer from its benevolent source, and
to comprehend within one and the same institution, the ad-
ditional method of succour which is now advocated, and for
which it is hoped that a necessity has been made clearly to
appear.
In favour of hospital wards, the opinions of many eminent
medical authorities might be adduced, but it will probably
be held sufficient to quote only a few of these. The late
Professor Hamilton, of the University of Edinburgh, ob-
served : " I have no doubt that the comforts provided for
patients in those excellent establishments, enable them to
bear without injury a degree of protraction of suffering which
would have been most prejudicial, if they had been confined
in their own miserable dwellings, and left to their own scanty
means of subsistence. He also remarked, in speaking of
the larger proportion of difficult cases received into the Edin-
burgh Hospital, as compared with cases occurring at home :
" the explanation is obvious: deformed women are sent from
various distant quarters into the hospital, in consequence of
its being evident from their shape that their labour may pro-
bably be difficult."
In the report of the British Lying-in Hospital it is re-
marked, " that women who are deformed, or who are in
very bad health, generally take great pains to procure letters
of admission into this hospital.
A recent statement of the committee of Queen Charlotte's
Lying-in Hospital, after mentioning that poor women are at-

* Rule 5 says, " that the relief afforded by this charity be
confined to poor married women having one child living at
the time of application." A poor woman, therefore, unable,
from personal malformation, or other causes, to bear a liv-
ing child at the full natural period, or another, who has had
several children born dead,•or who has lost children, after a
more or less protracted existence, is restricted from the
benefits of the charity.

t The following note, taken from Dr. Collins's account of
16,654 births occurring during seven years in the Dublin
Lying-in Hospital, (an institution to which government an-
nually contributes a large pecuniary amount) has reference
to this part of the subject : "Patients are often brought
into the hospital, even when ill, or in much danger, and do
well."

tended at their own dwellings, think it necessary to add,
that " the hospital cannot in such cases afford them the full
amount of domestic relief and consolation as proffered under
its own roof."

And in the Westminster Lying-in Hospital it is testified,
that when once a patient has experienced peculiar difficulties
she is on subsequent occasions received into the hospital,
that she may there be under the constant superintendence of
the medical officers, and thence derive more effectual aid.
Lastly may be cited, the analogy of obstetric emergencies
with those of medicine and surgery in general. This is so
striking as to constitute a proof that they are equally adapted
Er hospital relief.

ABSURDITIES AND " SOMETHING WORSE " OF

\NTi-CORN.!. ~

I;ITATION

to the ridiculous there is but of

and our anti-corn-law neighbourg in Manchester appear re-
solved to make it. From the high-sounding title of " con-

aerations," their meetings have degenerated into " tea par-
ties"—" anti-corn-law tea parties"—at which the bemused

auditories of the philosophers of the League imbibe bombast
and blasphemy with their slops, and cram down falsehood
and fraud with their bread and butter. We haVe the reports
of the speechifications at two of these precious displays,
which have been held during the past week, before us, in
the columns of the Manchester Guardian; and shall take
the liberty of extracting a few specimens for the amusement
and edification of our readers.

At the first of these, which was held on Wednesday even-
ing, in the Corn Exchange, the Rev. J. W. Massie, whose
name, in connection with the recent " convocation of minis-
ters of all denominations," is perhaps familiar to our readers,
entertained his enlightened auditory with the following piece
of intelligence :

" Such was the destitute condition of the weavers in this
part of the country, that even the death of the Queen Dow-
ag.er Would be hailed by them as a means of getting rid of
their surplus stock of black stuffs. What must have been
the character of that system which could thus make the
death of an amiable lady be looked forward to with such
feelings !"

The death of the Queen Dowager LONGED FOR as the means
of getting rid of black stuffs Amiable manufacturers!
" What must be the character of that system"—the manu-
facturing system---" which could thus make the death of an
amiable lady be looked forward to with such feelings ! "
Aye, what indeed!

But is it true? we ask. Can there be amongst our 'manu-
facturing- population such WRETCHES as are described by the
Rev. J. W. Massie ? We know that, amongst the philoso-
phers of the League, are to be found men who, in their
phrenzicd hostility to the corn-laws, gloated over the pros-
pect of an insufficient harvest, and whom every falling
shower filled with an unholy joy, as they contemplated the
result to which the miseries of a famine-struck population
could he turned by the astute hand of agitation. But we
never met with men, whose opinions and feelings are worthy
of being regarded, in whose breast a sentiment so atrocious
could be entertained ; and we are confident that the manu-
facturers of Lancashire will regard its imputation to them,
by this reverend demagogue, as a foul and a filthy libel,
worthy only of a bad heart to conceive and a truculent tongue
to utter.

Again, we find the same reverend schismatic exercising
his powers of invention in the manufacture of distress
amongst the labouring population. We are told of " indus-
trious and sober characters" " living in cellars without a
bed to lie on, food to eat, or clothing to put on." How this
can be called " living," we are at a loss to know; and we
disbelieve the fact. Distress there is amongst our manufac-
turing population—too much of it ; but we cannot believe
that it is of the excessive nature here spoken of, without
being driven to form such an opinion of the selfish and un-
feeling character of the manufacturers themselves—who thus
permit the hands which have created their wealth to perish
before their doors—as we should really be sorry to entertain.
At the second of these tea and toast affairs, another reve-
rend gentleman stated that " he had visited 258 families in
Manchester, who had no more than one penny a day on an
average to sustain them. In some cases the children were
closely stitched up in calico, never to be taken off until worn
out." 258 families in Manchester who had no more than a
penny a day to live upon ! Why. " sawdust porridge" could
not be had for the money. The Rev. F. Beardsall beats Mr.
Patrick Stuart hollow, in his estimate of the infinitesimal
powers of stomach of a weaver or a spinner. But the
idea of the swaddled infants, the juvenile mummies, " closely
stitched up in calico never to be taken off," is superb. The
reverend gentleman deserves henceforth to rank as supreme
in invention with the philosophers of past ages, and to fill a
prominent niche in the temple of fame. BOBADIL, MIIN-
CIIAUSEN, and the REV. F. BEARDSALL—ImmortaI trio!

But enough of the male specimens of the anti-corn-law
philosophy. " A change comes o'er the spirit of our dream,"
and we bow henceforth before another and a milder planet.
Henceforth our attention shall be devoted exclusively to the
notice of female agitation, for which we are to thank the
illustrious member for Stockport, Richard Cobden, Esq.,
who has transported a lady (who is not Mrs. Chappelsmith)
from the metropolis, to devote her energies to the task of
setting the female portion of the community about the ears
of Sir Robert Peel and the landlords! Hear the illustrious
speaker himself at the meeting in question :

" He saw before him a lady-(Miss Giffard,) whose ac-
quaintance he had the honour of making not long ago in
London, and who came to Manchester at this rigorous sea-
son of the year, and, though not in so good a state of health
as he wished ;o see her, to aid in promoting memorials and
petitions to the queen. She (Miss Giffard) was willing to
take upon herself the irksome task of going from house to
house, asking the co-operation of those ladies of Manchester
and Salford who were willing to aid her in bringing food and
contentment to the doors of their immediate neighbours."
If the landlords do not quail now, they are impenetrable.
If the powers of female agitation—including, we presume,
hysterics and fainting fits—do not settle the sliding scale, we
racily cannot tell what will !

LITERARY NOTICES.

Regulus., the noblest Roman of them all. A Tragedy, in
Five Acts. By Jacob Jones, Esq. London : Miller.

pp. 96

We know not why it is so, but every endeavour appears to
be making by the critics and reviewers of the present day to
decry the productions of modern dramatists. The cuckoo
cry of " the drama's fall " is for ever heard, yet we still see
the histrionic art flourishing. Dramatic authors certainly
get little or no encouragement ; yet still we find them writing
and publishing. Mr. Jones, the author of " Spartacus "
and many other plays, has striven hard to add to the dramatic
literature of his country, and has been, it must be confessed,
roughly dealt with. In one publication we have found a
long and savage, unmanly, uncritic-like review of the work
the title of which heads this notice ; and we must say we en-
vy not the writer thereof the possession of either his head or
heart, because the article appears to be prompted by a bad
feeling, and does no credit to literary talent. Mr. Jones
does not deserve so sweeping, so exterminating a notice of
his work, because it is not altogether devoid of merit. We
candidly confess, however, it has cost us much labour and
patience to get through it ; and we have been obliged to
wade through pages and pages of uninteresting dialogue,
before we have met with a poetical passage to repay us for
our pains. In portions of the play the conversation is kept
on unnecessarily, and sustained without the least reference
to the story ; and in others, where a recital of the past is
taking place, that recital is vexatiously interrupted . for in-
stance, in the interview between Regulus and Marcia, at
pp. 51-52. Portions of the tragedy are powerfully written,
and here and there a gleam of poetic fancy bursts forth, but
the tragedy is totally unfitted for the stage, unless the pru-
ning-knife were to be most lavishly and unsparingly used.
The interviews between Marcia and Regulus are good in
parts. The character of the latter is a noble one, and capa-
ble of great expression ; while that of Dives, with " his
ships," might be made much of. We must say that we
should have liked this tragedy better if it had been " shorn
of its beams " one-half ; and we must also declare, that we
sat down to read it with a determination to be pleased, and
with a strong wish to discover its beauties, and be blind to
its faults.