Is there no nerve or sense of responsibility left in
British Ministers or members of the House of Commons ? Day after day the most shocking revelations are made of the cruelties perpetrated in the London workhouses and hospitals, and yet no remedy is attempted. An inquiry is now going on at Rotherhithe, where it -appears to be possible for a nurse to murder a woman by torture—for that is the simple meaning of the statements about the death of the -woman Fairbairn, if they are well founded—without any censure. The case of Whitechapel is just as bad. Mr. Edmund Hart induced Mr. Parnell to go there without warning, and found patients with bed sores which are never attended to at night, a raving and filthy lunatic in a ward with two sane patients, a man dying of bronchitis and partly paralyzed with bare legs and feet resting on the floor, no beer allowed, no milk except to one patient ; the food so insufficient that the people complain of being. starved, and three kinds of medicine—a purge, a cough mixture, and a saline mixture—which are served out to everybody indiscriminately. All this while convicts in hospital have clean beds, good medical -attendance, and perfect quiet. The moment the horrors of this place are inquired into the guardians will begin to defend it, and ask if paupers are to have silver bedsteads and down beds ; and though Mr. Villiers will neither defend the evils tor talk vulgar rubbish, he will not risk affronting the London guardians. It will come to Lynch law if he is not quicker, and we could almost wish it would. One ducked chairman would be equal to 300 cleaned patients.
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