Posted with permission of the transcriber, 'Ann' Geo. SICKNESS & POVERTY IN Nineteenth Century Whitehaven. TO THE EDITORS OF THE WHITEHAVEN GAZETTE. ________ Gentlemen, - Permit me through the medium of your paper to call the attention of the proper authorities to a circumstance which has occasioned considerable alarm to the inhabitants of this town, particularly to those in the neighbourhood of the Ginns. It has already been publicly stated that a contagious disorder (the name of which is not precisely ascertained) is unhappily raging in St. Bees; and upwards of twenty patients suffering under this unknown malady, it is said, were removed in carts on Friday and Saturday last to the House of Recovery in this town. I doubt not the persons who advised this measure are prepared to support it by what they conceive satisfactory reasons; but as many cogent arguments are generally entertained against it, I shall briefly allude to a few of them, rather with a view to promote discussion than to hurt the feelings of the parties concerned. It has been the invariable practice of all wise and good men to use every precaution to arrest the progress of contagious disease; and it was on this principle that the Legislature enacted the quarantine laws, compelling vessels suspected of infection to forbear intercourse or commerce for the space of forty days, or otherwise, as circumstances seem to require. Now it is urged that, on this principle, the patients ought not to have been removed from St. Bees where the air is salubrious, to the Ginns where the air is bad; but that a Barn or a House near the Coast of St. Bees (in a retired place) should have been fitted up as a temporary House of Recovery, rather than put the lives of a populous town to hazard, and run the risk of spreading the disorder by sea and land, in consequence of removing the sufferers to this town. I do not suppose that this measure was adopted to suit the convenience of medical attendants, or to save expense, because I do not believe the faculty woul! d act upon such narrow minded considerations, or that the friends of humanity would grumble to pay what is essential to the recovery of their fellow creatures, and the safety of the community. My motive in thus addressing you, Messrs. Editors, is to induce those who are better acquainted with the subject than myself, to appease the public mind by proving the necessity of the measure which has given rise to such general uneasiness. Whitehaven, Dec. 4. 1820