A Letter to the Parishioners of Fulham

by R. G. Baker

There is another striking circumstance which attended our recent visitation. Of the deaths registered within this short and fatal period, it is recorded that

11	occurred between the ages of		5	and	10	years.
9	ditto	ditto	10	,,	20	,,
9	ditto	ditto	20	,,	30	,,
12	ditto	ditto	30	,,	40	,,
12	ditto	ditto	40	,,	50	,,
5	ditto	ditto	50	,,	55	,,
58

Thus it appears that 58 of these deaths, a number not far removed from one moiety of the whole, occurred within those ages which are commonly considered the least susceptible of the influences which shorten life. The year was passed below which the highest range of infantine mortality prevails: for it is well known that in England at large, one quarter of the children born, and in some of the larger towns one half of them, die before they attain their fifth year. Nor had the period of life arrived when the growing infirmities, or the confirmed chronic diseases of extreme old age bring so many to the grave. Fifty-eight of our fellow-parishioners were carried off in nine weeks, between five years old and fifty-five; and in some of the most distressing instances, those constitutions gave way the most rapidly which appeared the healthiest and the hardiest of the neighbourhood.

But there is one more remarkable fact to be noticed in reviewing, as we are now mercifully permitted to do, the results of this dispensation, that in all the cases of cholera which ended fatally, the sufferers, with three only exceptions, belonged to the class of our poorest neighbours. They are recorded as either labourers, or the wives, widows, or children of labourers. They were, therefore, living in those parts of the parish where the dwellings are the most easily to be procured, which fall within reach of the means possessed by persons of this description. And I grieve to say that they are for the most part overcrowded with inmates, badly ventilated, badly drained, and commanding a very scanty supply of good water, whether adapted for drinking or for household purposes.

It is not my object in this letter to dwell upon the painful reflections which are suggested by the fact of so many of our immediate neighbours having been summoned thus rapidly into eternity in the very midst of life; nor upon the profitable, and, indeed, most awakening lessons, of spiritual and eternal import, which their removal has left to be treasured up by us, who have been spared in mercy to survive them.

Still less do I feel myself called upon to inquire how far the facts to which I have above referred, in showing the mortality of our own parish, are confirmed by the experience of others more or less similarly circumstanced, whether in respect to their level, their population, their sewerage, or their supply of water.

It would seem to be a main practical advantage to be gained from the national judgment from which we are now recovering, if the inhabitants of each district, bound together by many common ties and responsibilities, would apply their minds diligently to consider by what preventable causes the calamitous results of it have been aggravated in their own immediate localities, and by what attainable measures it may be hoped to avert or to mitigate the recurrence of them, before another such dispensation shall arise. While the impressions are yet vivid and authentic of the trial through which we have passed, let us endeavour, as far as we can, in the faithful discharge of our duty towards God and our neighbour, to turn to account, at our own doors, the experience which it has left us.

The truth is, that I am the more anxious to submit to you the proposal contained in the present letter, and to solicit your intelligent and impartial examination of it, because it is nothing more now than a sequel to those measures which were brought under your notice at our meeting on the 17th instant, and which you unanimously sanctioned.

It was agreed by us on that occasion to address a memorial to the Metropolitan Commissioners of Sewers, calling their attention to the utterly defective state of the drainage of the parish, and requesting them to effect an uniform and complete provision for it in all the inhabited districts. This memorial has since been forwarded to the Commissioners, with 160 signatures affixed to it, representing a proportion of the property assessed to the parochial rates equal to 15,000l. [7a]

Another resolution, for promoting the immediate erection of public wells and pumps for the use of the poor, was also adopted at the meeting in question. A subscription of above 250l., since increased to 293l., was raised to defray the expenses of them; and there is every reason to believe, that through the exertions of the Committee who have undertaken to administer this fund, several of these wells will forthwith be completed in different parts of the parish, in situations most easily accessible to the larger populations of the poor, and the least likely to be affected by the cesspools and other collections of impurities, which in most instances make their present pumps perfectly useless. They will thus enjoy near their own doors a constant supply of that pure drinking water, which, it is well known, may easily be obtained within a few feet of the surface, in almost every locality of this neighbourhood; and of which the want has been most confidently declared, by the medical inspectors of the Board of Health, to have been one of the chief aggravations of our late unhealthiness. [7b]