The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1847-04-20 00:00:00

LIVERPOOL AND THE IRISH POOR.

• (From the London Times)
Our readers are aware that the first port of the empire,
viz., that which the cotton manufacture has raised up in
three generations on ,the banks of the Mersey, is at this
moment suffering a calamity.the continuance of which for
much less than three generations would reduce that rich
emporium back again to its original mud. Hordes of
Irish miserables, some of them on their way to America,
but the great majority destitute, famished, naked, and
dying daily invade that city. The irruption of the north-
ern nations into Italy, the successive invasions of Saxons
and Panes into our island, were tolerable events com-
pared with the daily arrival of armies whose sole but ter-
rible weapons are the famine and pestilence they suffer
and convey. The season is not yet sufficiently advanced
to reveal a tithe of the horrors that may possibly arise
from this infliction. The sudden apparition of twenty
French war steamers, followed by as many ships of the
line, may be a less evil, less fatal, less destructive, less
confounding, than the daily importation of thousands who
cannot be driven from the shore, or resisted at their land-
ing; who introduce themselves into the heart of the city;
who pay for food with famine, and for lodging with pesti-
lence, and who throw their own infected and pestiferous
carcases into the thick of the unhappy besieged.
-We have frequently called the public attention to a fact
which threatens not only the existence of Liverpool, but
the health and prosperity of the empire. Hitherto, how-
ever, we have spoken to very little purpose. The state of
things becomes worse every day. From returns exhibited
to Sir George Grey on Wednesday by Lord Sandon and
the Rev. Augustus Campbell, Rector of Liverpool, it ap-
pears that above 50,000 Irish came into the port in the
month of March, and 24,709 in the first 14'days of April.
No less than 6,740 arrived last Saturday and Sunday,
some of them in a state of actual fever, and multitudes so
predisposed to fever from exhaustion that they fell sick
shortly after their arrival. Smallpox, diarhom, dysentery,
and fever prevail, and there are about 40 deaths a-day.
The present cold weather checks the progress of fever;
but it is fearful to think of the probable increase, when
winter at once gives way, especially if there should be that
sudden and excessive sultriness which generally makes up
for the tardy arrival of spring. The town of Liverpool
already, under the most favourable circumstances, is the
most unhealthy in England, and therefore, it must be
presumed, the least prepared for this trial.
The select vestry meanwhile is doing what it can,
hitherto, on its own responsibility, and solely from the
local resources. It is making preparations for the worst
by building new fever wards at the cost, including furni-
ture, of above £2,600, in addition to the building which it
had hired at a rent of £9OO a-year, and is now fitting up
with all possible expedition. The weekly expense for
casual Irish poor for the first 13 days of this month has
amounted to £1,505, making the average per week £814,.
with the certainty of a rapid and considerable increase.
The expense immediately attending the reception and re-
lief of the strangers, serious and unfair as it is, may prove
light indeed, in comparison with the ultimate ruin and
destruction not only of money, but of life. Liverpool, the
proudest boast of this country, and the very type of its
commercial and manufacturing greatness, may shortly ex-
hibit on a gigantic scale the miseries and abominations of
Skibbereen. Already there are significant features in
common. One of the medical officers has been seized
with typhus and is lying dangerously ill. The cases of
sickness are so numerous, and the people so unmanage-
able, that it is difficult to find medical officers to under
called
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