Pe Opertator, 'tptember 18, 1852
The death of a wretched girl in St. Martin's Workhouse has, not for the first time we believe, brought to light a miserable colony of castaways in " the Adelphi arches." The handsome row of houses called Adelphi Terrace is built on an artificial foundation, partly traversed by passages to the landing of the river steam-boats or the wharves, partly occupied by stables; and in those haunts, not without connivance of stable- keepers and others, numbers of unhappy girls pass the whole day. Their hiding-places baffle the pursuit of the Police. Mary Anne Palmer, who was only fifteen years of age, was found by a policeman, on Sunday week, lying in a state of helplessness; and he took her to the parish workhouse. She had been in the arches, day and night, for five months. She was a mass of disease; and she died on Wednesday last, from dropsy in the chest, brought on by her life, and hastened by starvation and neglect. It is possible that her fate may be the means of rescuing another young girl, aged eighteen, who was a witness at the inquest. But why is this subterranean den of human beings condemned to be rats, suffered to continue, without the correctives of free ventilation, light, and publicity ?
Previous page
