FEVER AT WESTMINSTER 
329 
1848--49 
perfectly frantic at Smithfield, and R. says it Is 
high time the thing was properly looked into. 
How badly the Commission on Drainage, &c., 
was needed we can see from the following entry . 
g._‘ Mr. RIgaud, house master at 
Westminster, here. The state of things round 
about Dean’s Yard is something terrible. The 
school is broken up In consequence of the fever. 
The Dean is ill, the Canons, the masters, and bop 
—some boys are dying. Mr. Rigaud’s little girl 
and their good old negro butler fell early victims 
to this attack.’ 
. 22nd. The Westminster fever business dis- 
cussed at the Commission at Gwydyr House 
to-day.’ 
Many and strange were the remedies pro- 
posed ; — 
‘ R. busy reading an extraordinary paper, 
which had been sent him for his opinion, treating 
on a cure for cholera. It is a quackish concern, 
but Lord John Russell and Lord Lansdowne were 
taken in by It. R. is much disgusted with the 
thing, and has written his opinion pretty plainly.’ 
The drainage at Westminster was improved 
early in the autumn. ‘ On September 21, R. was 
again at Gwydyr House, and found that mphhas 
been done with regard to the drains at Dean’s Yard. 
The huge ancient sewer is filled up now with 
rubbish, and everything has been carefully over- 
hauled.’ 
