HC Deb 01 June 1849 vol 105 cc1034-5
SIR G. GREY

said, with regard to a question which had been put to him before the recess by the hon. Member for the city of Limerick, relative to the Ballinasloe union, he had received a letter from the Earl of Clancarty, the chairman of the board of guardians, which it was due to him to refer to in order to correct a statement that he (Sir Gr. Grey) had made as to the mortality in that union. He had stated, on that noble Lord's authority, that the mortality in the Ballinasloe workhouse was rapidly decreasing, and that on the last day to which he had received any information, it had been reduced to six. When the Earl of Clancarty returned home, he found that that statement was incorrect, and that that number of deaths had not been so low as six in any one day, though in two days taken together it had been eleven, so that substantially, after all, the statement was borne out. With regard to another question put by the hon. Member for the city of Dublin, with regard to the employment of the organist of the parish church to assist in compounding medicine for the poor, the Earl of Clancarty informed him that it was true the services of Mr. Norton, the organist—who had been a medical assistant—had been accepted to meet a temporary emergency, no other assistant being at the time available, but that there were other medical officers under whom he had to act. The Earl of Clancarty in his letter said— The great mortality which unhappily prevailed in the workhouses at Ballinasloe was occasioned by cholera, there having been no less than 1,077 cases of cholera in the workhouse between the 22nd of April and the 24th of May, of which 772 were fatal. It is a source of great unhappiness to me to find that, though diminishing, the mortality is still great. I am deeply sensible of the responsibility that attaches to guardians of the poor to do all that the law and the means at their command enable them for the relief especially of the sick poor; and I can truly say, that no pains have been spared by the board in this union to provide adequately for the emergency, or by individual guardians in visiting the sick wards and hospitals of the workhouses to support and encourage the officers in the performance of their duties; but I lament to add, that such is in general the emaciated state of the poor, who are often admitted to the House in an advanced state of sickness, that with constitutions worn out by three successive years of famine, they have little strength to aid the efforts of medical skill for their recovery. This statement he (Sir G. Grey) could confirm.

MR. J. O'CONNELL

said, that in the statement he had made with reference to the actual number of deaths in the Ballinasloe workhouse, he was misled by English as well as Irish newspapers. The deaths from cholera in these workhouses had, however, been very large, and that epidemic had been superinduced by want of food.

Subject at an end.