The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1847-04-27 00:00:00

EMPLOYMENT FOR THE IRISH PAUPERS.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.
SlR,—The constant influx of Irish paupers and consequent
increase of sickness in this town cannot fail at length to rouse
the municipal or other authorities from their apparent state of
lethargy. The following suggestions may perhaps be of some
utility if supported by your powerful pen.
For some time past, we have been almost without rain. I
have nevertheless constantly seen numbers of paupers engaged
(doubtless with the laudable view of making them earn their
meals) in sweeping some of the wide streets, where there is no
filth, and where the only effect is to raise a considerable quan-
tity of dust. 'Might they not be more profitably employed in
scavenging the narrow streets and courts in the lower parts of
the town, where the open drains of gutters are full of all de-
scriptions of filth, dead animals, &c., 8c and where no sca-
venger appears to show his face from year's end to year's end?
If the water companies would set their mains running once a
day at a fitting hour, every court and alley might be scoured
out, and, (as was suggested some weeks since in one of the
newspapers,) purified with chloride of lime. In such times as
these, we ought almost to he put under martial law, as regards
cleanliness; and the cellars and courts should be regularly
visited by persons having authority to compel the inhabitants
to cleanse themselves and their dwellings.
It would also be very desirable that all the steamers from
Ireland should be obliged to land their cargoes of paupers at
one particular spot, where a sort of quarantine station might
be formed, and each individual well cleaned and scrubbed,
before being allowed to enter the town. This measure may
seem rather despotic; but really with respect to the public
health, a despotic government would, at this crisis, be the
most efficacious.
Again, the medical attendants on thepoorshould be increased
in number, and properly remunerated:. Who can expect a man
of skill and intelligence to incur the risk of a premature grave
for the sake of a pittance smaller than that of a junior clerk in

an office ? There is no real economy in such parsimony. We
have always to pay for it in the end.
With a view of preventing the erection of more unhealthy
streets than we have at present, could not some law be passed
prohibiting the owners of land from building dwelling-houses
thereon, until a drain had been constructed? The present
plan appears to be to fill up ponds and pools of water with
rubbish, then to build, and in some of the favoured streets,
ten or twenty years afterwards, when many of the inhabitants
have perished from malaria or become rheumatic, to com-
mence draining, and frighten the remainder from their pro-
priety, by blasting at night, breaking their windows, and
shaking them in their beds. If the owners could not afford
the expense, let the Corporation advance the money, taking the
necessary security on the houses. A very small increased
rent would repay the outlay.
The authorities should also take care to have the ashpits
constantly cleared out. At present, those persons who send
the requisite notice are kept waiting for days without being at-
tended to, and yet if they send any one but the contractor,
they are fined
• I have trespassed too long on your time, Mr. Editor, and
must rely upon your kindness to excuse

- - Your obedient Servant,
Liverpool, 24th April, 1847. D. N.

THE EDITOR OF THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD,

Sir,—lf space can be spared in the crowded columns of the
Standard to insert the following simple and rapid plan of ven-
tilating vats in breweries and the fermenting-backs in distille-
ries, it may be the means of preventing loss of life from suffo-
cation with carbonic acid gas among the vat-cleanersa class
of men much pressed for time at this season of the year, when
the store-vats require to be tilled before the warm weather sets
in.

The usual method of getting rid of the carbonic acid gas con-
sists in opening the man-hole and taps, allowing ventilation to
take place by diffusion ; large vats of 1,200 to 1,800 barrels capa-
city, when foul, requiring two or three days.
The plan recommended (and which has been in use by the
writer for three or four years) is, to pump in common air by
the portable force-pump (the jigger) which is in useand at hand
in all breweries. The small fire-engines, generally kept on the
premises, can likewise be used for the same purpose. In some
establishments force-pumps worked by steam-power are em-
ployed in pumping up water into tanks or in starting beer;
these pumps, with solid plungers, or even the ordinary pptnp,
after a little alteration, can as readily be used in pumping in
common air into the vats for ventilation by the beer-main or
by a hose, and the carbonic acid gas " blown out" in three or
four hours.
Dudley. JAMES YOUNG.