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· meat - returned in lieu of the 2-4 lbs . meat daily
subtracted - all stewed together and seasoned with
salt. On a Sunday they got a suet pudding extra.
Hall maintained that it was not surprising that bushells of this
nauseating mess daily went to the pigs .
He called them
sneaking, inhuman wretches, who , under the cloak of an
anonym, advance the latter fact as a proof of the
suprfluous abundance of the children 's food.
He disclosed that fo some months past, the chi ldren had their meat
baked or roasted on Sunday so that now they looked forward with anxious
yearning to the next Sunday .
Hall concluded the article with yet
another scolding attack on Bedford - was his influence exercised for
the plunderer or the plundered ? -
bestir themselves on behalf of the orphans .
and 'another appeal to the PUb lic to
Let us therefore not bestow our sympathies alone on men-soldiers
- those who can speak for thems elves - but with one voice unite
to demand for these wretched children nature 's rights . Let us
concur in one stirring appeal to Parliament for an independent
and competent Commission to investigate the treatment these
children receive, and the cruelties inflicted upon them in an
institution hallowed by the name of charity. Until we do this
the world may point the finger of scorn at us , when we pretend
to pass our own shores for objects of commiseration, and truly
tell us to pluck the mote out of our own eye before we attempt
to remove the beam from our neighbours . 1
In the new year
Hall was horrified to find no improvement
whatsoever in the mortality rate in 1858, although he had first drawn
attention to the need for reform as long ago as the Convict Enquiry in
1855. He , therefore, concentrated all his attention on the problem,
determined to succeed this time against Bedford.
Realizing the
seriousness of. the confrontation awaiting him , he prepared his case
carefully, sparing neither time nor labour to do so. On January 20 ,
1859, he took the only course now open to him : he wrote to the
Colonial-Secretary on the 11fearfully immense waste of life" at the
Orphan Schools, which he attributed to hygienic mismanagement and an
inadequate supply of nitrogenous foods , monotonously cooked.
Of the
90 children in the school who were under the age of 7, 17 had died in
1858, being at the rate of 187 per 1000 per annum . After giving the
vital statistics in detail, Hall "implored'1 the Colonial-Secretary
in the name of humanity to lose no time in causing this
momentous matter to be strictly and impartially investigated
by competent persons and the remedy promptly applied.2
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Daily News , May 21, 1858.
For the Commission of Enquiry:
Correspondence and Evidence CSD 1/87/1655
Report L.C.J. 1860/26
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