§ MR. BOWYERsaid, four lives were lost last week by a fire in a firework warehouse in the Waterloo-road, and the property and lives of the inhabitants in the neighbourhood were greatly endangered. There were a great many of these firework manufactories in the same locality; and scarcely a year elapsed without some accident, more or less serious, occurring. He therefore wished to ask the noble Lord the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he would consider the propriety of some legislation to prevent the accumulation of those dangerous combustibles amidst a dense population.
§ VISCOUNT PALMERSTONsaid, the notice of the hon. Gentleman was the first intimation he had received of the fire to which he had adverted. He thought it very proper to consider whether a law should not be passed to prevent such 783 works being carried on in populous places; and he would look and see whether any arrangement of that kind could be made. But the hon. Gentleman and the House must bear in mind that the danger to life arising from works of this kind was far smaller than that which arose from a number of trades carried on in this metropolis, the establishments in which they were carried on being the very centres from which radiated the causes of disease and death. There were slaughter-houses, knackers' yards, bone-boilers, and other trades which were sources of pestilence to this metropolis to such an extent, that he could assure the House that deaths had been occasioned in the Penitentiary from the poisonous effluvia coming from the opposite side of the river, and he was obliged to allow the officers to lodge at a distance for a certain time, to prevent their succumbing to its baneful influence. How far it was possible, in looking at that general evil, to meet the suggestion of his hon. Friend, he could not say; but it should not escape his attention.