The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1858-10-19 00:00:00

THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURY ON PUBLIC

HEALTH.

At the meeting of the National Association for
the Promotion of Social Science, held at Liverpool
last week, the Earl of Shaftesbury was among the
distinguished speakers on that interesting occasion.
After combating the notion that the object of this
society was to promote a system of centralization,
and to erect themselves into the position of dictators,
his Lordship said :

You will find the matters which must be brought
under sanitary arrangement will be divided into two
great aspects—the physical and moral; in detail they
may be considered apart ; but they cannot be oonsidered
apart as not to be frequently, constantly, nay, perpetu•
ally brought into contact. They act and re-act upon
one another in a way quite indivisible. A low moral
state will bring on intemperance, and with intemperance
all that dreadful catalogue of disease and crime which
ever follows in the wake of intoxication. But those
habits of drinking ire engendered by foul air and the
disgusting and depressing influenee of the localities in
which the people live ; by a defective supply of water,
by its deleterious quality. Therefore, although • moral
and physical evil may in detail be considered apart, they
must, when you come to deal with the whole question,
be regarded in combination. The number of deaths
arising from disease is no measure whatever of its influ-
ence upon the population, and no measure whatever of
the evils which descend therefrom upon society. Look
at the weekly reports of the registrar-general. We
have now become habituated to horrors of the gravest
description. When these reports were first published,
for a short time the world was agahst, and every man
you met asked if they could be true. These reports go
on, however; they are read, they are taken in as
matters of course. They come out and are thrown into
the waste paper basket. They apppear in Tic Times and
other journals, and nobody asks any questions about
them. It is only on that account the more necessary
that an association of this kind should meet from time
to time and impress upon the public at large the deep
and lasting evils, the fearful consequences, which neces-
sarily flow from neglect and contempt of the great and
benificent laws of nature. (Cheers.) There is another
subject to which your attention ought to be drawn.
Why is it that we have before us the portentous fact
that no less than 60,000 "tinhorn children are produced
in this country every year of our lives I give no opi-
nion on it; I only say that the matter must be looked
into, for the fact is manifest, it is awful, and it demands
your most solemn investigation. (Hear.) Again, I say
that if you have an interest in the rising generation
you should direct your attention to those hospitals,
which have lately been established, called orthopedic
hospitals, for the purpose of correcting deformities in
children, and by surgical processes of the greatest skill and
humanity restoring them when in tender years, and even
when more advanced in life, to perfect straightness of
form and perfect usefulness in their generation. (Hear,
hear.) These hospitals reveal an amount of physical
degradation and misery which is sufficient to make any
thinking man tremble. Go and look into the records of
overcrowded dwellings. Look into the effects of drains,
of ill-drained close alleys, of the pestilential localities
whiJh fill our hospitals with fever and our workhouses
with paupers; and then bear in mind the great foot that
I hope will now be examined into—that crime is now
ascertained to be no longer dependant upon poverty or
high wages, but is invariably found to be most fertile,
most abundant, and moat constant among ill-drained lo-
calities and among closely-crowded houses, and in all
lames where neglect and over-crowding squalor keep
festering together. Look also to your common lodging.
houses. In many plates they still retain all their normal
evils. Look upon them as hotbed, of vice, as hotbeds of
pestilence, and take care that in your survey of the
different towns these buildings do not escape your ob.
servation. Again, look to the effect of °carton of all
kinds upon the young and upon the old. I do not say that
tell Ii not the portion of the human race, nor theta great
sisal of toil which has been regarded as unwholesome
insist not Neill be the portion of many in our complicated
state of society. But when you see these evils and regard
them as in some reaped' necessary, direct your attention
to ascertain whether they cannot be mitigated. Then
again, look at the total want, in many instances, of a
wholesome water supply in the midst of our dense looali.
tie, but find no fault with the wretched people who are
the victims of that neglect. If you go among them and
find thion covered with dirt so that you cannot distill.
'Wok their nakedness from the miserable rap which
cover them ; if you and them covered with vermin
and I must may I have gone among them with my
friends, and have returned with a considerable household
of vermin upon my back (laughter),—if you go and see
UlOllO thing", do not lay the blame upon thesis, but lay
the blame upon younalvel. You have knowledge, you
have the meals,; they have not the knowledge, they have
not the tneatis ; and by everything true, by everything
holy, you—you ars your brother's 'cooper. Again, turn
your attention to all those deleterious articles of food;
turn your attention to the male of poleoni, and to rotten
food, and to all those evil things width take place in the
midst of dens. populations. In planes where vigilance
Is not exeroleed you may find food sold to the poor 14
poleonous in itself that 111, alone suffielent to breed a
poellonos. Can you wonder, than can you be
astonished at the moral evils that flow from them I On
among thaw people ; hear with your own ears and see
with your own eyes whit I now etate—th• utter eon.
ruption of languap, of thought, of prattles in all those
districts. I am not speaking in condemnation of thow
people I for the ohnunietatiocie in which they are an such
that these things came upon them aluniet by inevitably
necessity. I will not dare to speak of many things that
cannot be mentioned in any mixed esseinbly
but you may picture to yourselves what must
be the twiasoluenws of overcrowded dwellinp.
Where two three, or four families are living
In a crowded house, or in a room whore the
sexes are blended, can you wonder any amount of sin,
can you wonder at any amount of vice, can you wonder
at anything which we cannot mention in this mined
assembly oan rring 1 If you do wonder, go and inquire
for yourselves, and your wonder will ware I for there
you will find it clear, uninietalcable as any proposition
In Euclid. I have already spoken of intoxication and of
he degrading qualities I but there is another very serious
and important matter. I maintain in this state of thing,
there is an actual Impossibility of giving moral educationu.
iteitirutaihoimld.,re thus,
a wretched
time to
o
I maintain that then clam, cannot be taught, You
have no means whatever of approaching them, and if
ind other ln brialinat:
ragged
ddo
uneasshool!
an
children go back into the midst of those seam of vies

of Infamy, of heellallly, emit In the initial of 141 ttler
ear And oil they lee, they Williern In One hour 1111 hisS
a. buts g ven o Ilion In the preeseding three. rho
s another proof that all there things mud be considered
ioguther. Pepend upon It your aftempe at edusation
will fail all the best Alberni!s of the training mailers,
all private and all nubile efforts, all the activity of the
inspeetors, will fail altogether, so long aa you have this
horrid pligue•spot In the midst of you, advanoing nothing
but viee, and violenee, and gorroption, and ignorenee, and
everything that Is hateful to God and um. I would now
draw your attention to a part of the remedial we pro.
pose because those remedies are well worthy of your
consideration, and you will see that litany of them have
been tailed by experience. Thera is no doubt that
there may be many subsidiary events, and many eubei-
diary causes for thou; events ; but, if we some to gene.
ranee, we shall find that the tali sells to which I have
alluded arise front two causes—from bad water and from
bed Mr. Wherever we have applied the reinedloo of
good water and good air the (Animating's' have ensued
which we predicted, and in every instance, depend upon
It, they will be found to have the same result. We
should first, as far as possible, regulate the building of
houses, the width and construction of streets. I have
seen the greatest possible effect produced by destroying a
oourt which was a cut do cur, by knocking down the end
house and making it • common thoroughfare. You
must also erect houses for the people to live in, or adapt
old houses. These, as have been seen by proof, have
been most effective in their operation. There has been
no one rneasure more productive of good results than the
registration of common lodginghouses. Although in the
whole population of London there are from 10,0(a) to
60,000 sleeping nightly in the common lodging-houses,
there has not been for the last two years one single case
of fever engendered in those houses. You must look,
too, very attentively to all regulations affecting quaran-
tine, and inquire most minutely whether quarantine is
not of itself • grand delusion, and whether the best
quarantine is not to be found in the regulations for
cleanliness of ships, of towns, and of the country at
large. And among your other remedies you must resort
to parks and playgrounds. Not only are they beneficial
as open spaces, but they are greatly beneficial as afford-
ing wholesome amusement, relaxation, and pleasure.
There is a great advantage in the Saturday half-holyday,
and I should like to see gymnasiums attached to every
one of our schools, for I believe that such exercises
ought to be an essential point of education. I should
like to see every woman of the working classes have
some knowledge of cookery, for I am oertain, from ex-
perience of the working classes, that they are ten times
more improvident and wasteful than the wealthiest
people of the land. The London Ladies' Association for
the Diffusion of Sanitary Knowledge among the People
is an admirable association. They have put out two
treatises : one is, "How to Manage a Baby," and the
next, "How to Feed a Baby with a Spoon." These
things are of very great importance in the domestic life
of working men coil working women; therefore, none of
them should be despised. All thew various associations
should have their branches to diffuse this humble and
most useful knowledge; and depend upon it there will
be far more decency, happiness, and general enjoyment.
These are some of the evils and the remedies, of which
many will be accepted and many rejected; but all
ought to be investigated.