The Press. — London, England, 1854-09-16 00:00:00

874 THE CHOLERA. The report of the Registrar-General for the last week states that 3,413 persons died in London, or 2,165 more than have on an everage died in the corresponding week of former years. In the week ending September the Bth, 1849, when cholera raged, 3,183 persons died, so, allowing for increase of population, the rate of mortality for the week is lower than the rate of 1849. 2,050 persons—namely, 951 males, 1,096 females -614 children under 15 years of age, 1,128 men and women of 15 and under 60, and 287 old people— have died of cholera; 270 persons have died of diarrhcea. The deaths from cholera in the last nine weeks have been-5, 26, 133, 399, 644, 729, 847, 1,287, 2,050; and in the aggregate 6,120 persons have lost their lives by the disease. The sun has had great power, but clouds and fogs have intervened ; no rain has fallen ; the wind has been dry and languid; the electricity positive; but the temperature of the air and of the Thames is de clining. The decline of the temperature, the analogy of the two epidemics of 1832 and 1849, as well as the remedial measures that are now brought into opera tion, justify us in anticipating that the epidemic will ere long gradually subside. In the meantime the zeal and watchfulness neither of the local authorities, of the heads of manufactories, nor of the heads of families, should be slackened for a moment. The following circular has been issued to the menihers of the medical profession : " General Board of Health, 'Whitehall, Sept. 184)4. " Sir,—My experience of this department, brief as it is, has strongly impressed me with a sense of thw great want that is now felt of some systematic record of cases of cho leraic disease, their treatment, and results, with a view to determine, in so far as may be possible, the best mode of meeting this formidable epidemic. " Hitherto no successful attempt has been made to collect such a record ; and, as I find that my feeling of the want of it is very generally shared by the medical profession, I have obtained the sanction of her Majesty's Government to the nomination of a medical council, representing all branches of the profession, and consisting of Dr. Paris, Sir James Clark, Dr. Alderson, Dr. Babington, Dr. Twee die, Dr. Baly, Mr. Lawrence, Mr. Simon, Professor Owen, Mr. B. W. Ward, Mr. John Bacot, and Dr. Farr. " Under the sanction of this council, the following form of return has been prepared for transmission to all qualified practitioners in the metropolis, to be filled up by them, with a view to obtain their experience of the present epi demic. The deaths from cholera, as well as from all other causes, are registered in England; but it is evidently de sirable that iu this, as in other countries, the cases of recovery, as well as of death, should be systematically ob served and recorded. But this can only be accomplished by the cordial co-operation of all the medical men in practice, which the board hopes, in this important matter, to obtain, by acting on the advice of a council in which all branches of the medical profession are represented. " By means of a return, in the accompanying forms, the observations of all qualified practitioners on the cases that come under their care may be collected and made available for determining the laws which regulate choleraic disease, and the effects of the different systems of treatment now in use. " Any return that you may make will be considered strictly confidential, but your name will be recorded as a contributor to the observations, when the general results are made known. " Under the urgent pressure of practice, to keep any ac curate record of the cases will often be attended with diffi culty ; but this difficulty will, I feel assured, be cheerfully encountered by you, if you agree with me in thinking a re cord of the experience of the present generation of medical men as to this epidenic likely to contribute to the allevia tion of the sufferings of mankind for the future. " The return on the other side is sent filled up, as a specimen, with blank forms. Any number of such forms you may require will be furnished by this office. " It is recommended that the forms should be filled up from day to day, and returned to the board on or before the 15th of November next, addressed to the Secretary of the General Board of Health, and the postage of the letter enclosing the return need not be prepaid.—l have the honour to remain, sir, youreedient servant, " B. HALL." [The return alluded to sets forth the residence of the patient, when attacked with the disease. his profession, and indicates whether the disease has assumed the form of simple or choleraic diarrhoea, cholera, collapse, consecutive fever, &c.; with the treatment, &c.] PURIFICATION OF THE METROPOLIS. ON Wednesday a deputation from the ratepayers of All Saints', Poplar, waited on Sir Benjamin Hall, for the purpose of presenting a resolution respecting the sewage of the district. Mr. J. Knight, a county magistrate, the two overseers, one of the church wardens, the vestry-clerk, and one of the surgeons of the district attended. The resolution complained of the state of the sewage throughout the district in question, but more especially of the open sewers in North-street and King street. It desired that the Board of Health should, if it had the power, inter pose its authority, so ae to compel a more efficient bib, F~+.ws THE PRESS. drainage and sewage of the district, without which it was impossible the health of the district could be preserved. Another ground of complaint was, that a large amount of sewage was turned into the canal, and the water became in a most filthy and unhealthy condition. _ _ . Sir Benjamin Hall, who received the deputation with great courtesy, said "he was most anxious to do everything in his powerito assist in checking evils of the kind mentioned, or in re moving any nuisances which might be considered detri mental to the public health; but he wished it to be known that that department had no control over the Commis sioners of Sewers. He knew that the Commissioners of Sewers were most anxious to do their duty, and to see their works carried out properly and efficiently, and, at the same time, as expeditiously as possible; but the task was such a heavy one that they could not do all they wished. In any future legislation upon the subject it would be neces sary to place the district sewers under the control of the local authorities, and make them responsible for the proper management of the sewage of their respective districts, whilst the main sewers should be placed under the control of a central board, in accordance with the recommen dations of the royal commission appointed to inquire into the Corporation of London. It would, in his (Sir B. Hall's) opinion, be quite impossible to secure anything like a sanitary condition of the inhabi tants of the metropolis unless they attained three great objects. Ist, that the Thames shall be purified by the construction of intercepting sewers; 2nd, that every street shall have a sewer run through it; 3rd, that the owner of every house shall be compelled to make a drain from his house to that sewer, which shall be properly trapped, and thus abolish all cesspools. The whole ques tion of offensive trades must also come under considera tion ; and, if those trades were to be permitted in the metropolis, all the appliances that art and science could suggest must be enforced, for the purpose of preventing the annoyances to, which the public were at present exposed. Another and very important inquiry must also be instituted when Parliament assembled, as to how far the metropolitan water companies had complied with the engagements entered into in 1852. The period of three years given the water companies to bring their supplies from the tidal influence of the Thames, and from other sources, expired next session ; and a question so important to the sanitary condition of the public as the water supply must be fully gone into. The whole subject of sanitary reform, and the amendment of the Board of Health Act, and the Nuisances Removal Act, should be considered as soon as that board could have any leisure, so that hills upon those important subjects might be brought in early in the ensuing session. At that moment, however, it was impossible to do more than attend to the present epidemic, and reply to the innumerable letters which reached the board, and which were much increased in consequence of persons writing to them on subjects which did not come under the jurisdiction of the department. It must be recollected that he (Sir B. Hall) had only been at the head of that office about three weeks ; that the law was most imperfect ; that when he entered upon office the cholera was on the increase ; and that he had to make all the necessary arrangements for meeting the dis ease, and checking it as far as possible. This, he was happy to say, had been effected to a very great extent, and he had been, generally speaking, ably and cheerfully assisted by the local authorities. The gentlemen of the de putation would see that at that time the Board of Health did not control the Commission of Sewers; but he should be happy at all times to receive suggestions from local authorities which they conceived would in any way tend to promote the public health and improve the sanitary con dition of the people." The Vestry- Clerk read a letter containing sugges tions for flushing the district by means of the River Lea trust, and the deputation retired. According to the Journal des Pyrhnies Orientates, the terror of cholera in some parts of Spain has amounted to absolute folly. In Catalonia several communes formed a sanitary corden to keep away all communication from outside. At Montblanc a woman taken ill was buried, it is believed, before she was really dead. The town of Sitges declared itself independent, placed armed sentinels all round the approaches to the place, and refused to admit any strangers or carts from the country districts. At Maspoujols, in the district of Reuss, a woman having died, the alcade had the door and lower windows of the house bricked up without allowing her two daughters to come out, food being conveyed to them by a hole left in one window. A letter from Valentin states that the Marquise de Camachos, after having passed a fortnight at Alicante, was about to leave that place when she was taken ill with cholera. Two medical men who were called in having made a report of the circumstance to the authorities, these latter ordered the street to be occupied by soldiers, and had the patient removed in alitter to a foundry called Bi:tanica. She died there in four-and-twenty hours, more of fright than illness. An old sailor belonging to the French navy, named PIERRE BROULHONET, died a few days since at Cette, aged 04. He was present at the battle of Savanna, during the war of American independence, and lost an eye there. He was the oldest invalid pensioner of the French navy. M. Alois BIERNACKI, one of the oldest of the Polish refugees in Paris, died on the Bth inst. at the age of 76. He was formerly nuncio at the Polish Diet, and at one time Minister of Finance. SATURDAY, ditual an faun!. STEAM BETWEEN LIVERPOOL AND FRANCE.—The establishment of a line of iron screw-steamers between the Mersey and the River Loire commenced on Saturday, by the launch of a new iron screw. steamer, named the Loire, from the building-yard of Messrs. Thomas Vernon and Son, Liverpool. Her tonnage is 573 tons ; and she will be fitted with en gines, by Messrs. Hawkes, Crawshay, and Son, of 70-horse power. It is intended that she shall call at Bordeaux, Charente, and Nantes, and the object of the projectors is to avail themselves of the good un derstanding which now exists between this country and France in order to realise the full advantages of commercial intercourse. At the . conclusion of the launch, which was most successful, the party present partook of a dejeuner, at which Mr. Thomas Vernon occupied the chair. Mr. Tamplin, the vice-chairman, having expatiated on the probabilities of a great ex tension of trade between F rance and England, under _ the fostering hand of the Emperor of the French, and under the influence of free trade, said this new line of steamers would form the connecting link be tween Liverpool and the most fertile districts on the banks of the Loire. There was no doubt that a good trade was to be done, especially when the French restrictions upon grain were removed ; and it only rested with the owners of this vessel to give that means of development which all trades must have to make them successful. THE FRIENDS OF LIEUT. PERRY are about to peti tion her Majesty the Queen, praying that she may be graciously pleased to order the entire proceedings of the late courts-martial at Windsor to be submitted to the consideration of the judges of the land, and that her Majesty will then give her final and impartial decision on their view of the merits of the case. The Gazette announcement took every one by surprise, as it was thought the two vacant lieutenancies would have been purchased by the two oldest ensigns; but there are obvious reasons why the usual course should have been departed from in the present instance by the appointment of two lieutenants from other regi ments. Lieut. Connell and Lieut. the Hon. Mr. Herbert (brother of the Earl of Carnarvon) have, in all probability, passed through the ordeal of " draw ing " and bed-smashing, and will be free from such annoyances in the 46th. The ensigns of the 46th will also be kept in statu quo ; not one of them will get a step for the present, as all of them would have done had the two seniors purchased the vacant com missions, and two new ensigns been placed at the bottom of the list. Popular feeling in Windsor is greatly excited against the officers of the 46th. They are saluted with "Non mi recordo," and "I don't recollect," at every turning. As they go to drill the women congregate at the corners of the little streets and lanes, and use still more abusive, if not more expressive, terms. No wonder, then, that the officers —many of whom were not at all mixed up with the affair—are extremely anxious to turn their backs on the royal borough. On Saturday afternoon two ballad-hawkers arrived from London with a plentiful supply of papers—printed in the old Seven Dials' style—entitled " The Court-Martial at Windsor." With stentorian lungs they commenced singing the doggrel verses in Park-street, and were speedily surrounded by a crowd of customers. When the singers arrived near the Town-hall they were set upon by a party of soldiers, and only escaped a good trashing by being taken under the protection of the police. They were subsequently ordered to desist from either singing or selling so offensive and irritating a production. PRINCE CZARTORYSKI has just addressed a letter to his countrymen of more than usual importance at the present juncture. He begins by declaring that "Divine Providence seems now disposed to restore to them his protection," and tells them that "if they are called upon to take a part in the contest, au energetic, and, so to say, a military Government will be necessary so long as that contest shall last ;" but that " independence once conquered, the nation alone would have the right to decide on the form of her government, and would spontaneously feel the propriety of taking into account the advice of friendly powers." He recommends them to "receive the overtures made to you from whatever quarter they come ; but before you put entire faith in them, before you proceed to any spontaneous act, ask — require real guarantees; " and advises them not to compromise themselves until "the powers, or any one of them, shall have declared that independent Poland shall be strong and exist in her own right for the wellbeing of Europe; when that power shall oc cupied with the formation of a national army, undbere Polish chiefs, employing, with that view, the Polish , soldiers who fill the ranks of contending armies. He reminds them how often they have been deceived; and sums up his recommendations in three words-- " Wait for events." THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION AND SCIENTIFIC PRo- GRESS.—The return of the British Association ears to any great town which it had visited som e y post marks vividly the progress of the age. From year t 44 . \