The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1876-11-25 00:00:00

A NEW SOURCE OF REVENUE FOR

RAILWAYS.

One of the horticultural publications calls attention
to the great waste of good ground by our various lines
of railway in allowing their embankments to lie alto-
gether unproductive of anything but weeds and
brambles. It is a subject to which reference has often been
made, and it certainly is rather surprising that, so far
as we know, no attempt has ever been made in this.
country to utilise this waste ground, except to a very
small extent in the immediate neighbourhood of stations
and signal boxes, where the railway employes are some-
times granted the privilege of raising their own pumpkins
and pickle-cabbage. It has again and again been
pointed out that if fruits trees were planted on every
available plot alongthe lines, and managed with proper
care and skill, the 'ground, which at the best yields
grass scarcely worth the cutting, And, in a general way,
is good for nothing but the propagation of weeds over
adj went lands, might be made to yield a handsome
profit. The experiment is about to be tried on the line
extending between Bruseels and Aix-le.-Chapelle, where
we understand the fences at the sides of the rail-
way have been adapted to the purpose of trailing
fruit trees of various kinds. For the past few years
these embankments have already been utilised to
some extent by the planting of mulberry trees along
them, many of the humbler railway officials being
thus enabled to augment their incomes by the breeding
of silkworms, the produce of which has been easily
dieposed of to the various silk factories in Crefeld and
its neighbourhood, and the idea of thus turning
waste land to account is now in process of practical
extension. It has been objected that miles of unpro-
tected fruit trees would be certain to prove an attrac-
tion for thieves It is not easy to understand why
this should be the case any more than with market
gardens in no respect more securely guarded. All
through Rhenish Prussia,,,the public roads are often
planted
.with fruit trees, the property of muni-
cipal bathes, and as a matter of fact they are not sub-
ject to depredations to any serious extent. Pedestrians
are permitted to take what is; found under the trees,
but the crops are gathered and disposed of by the
authorities in whom the ownership of the highway is
vested. Whether the 'existing law would permit our
railway companies to embark capital in trade ot this
kind we are not aware, but if not there would probably
be no great difficulty in obtaining the liberty to do so,
and the experiment on a scale amply sufficient to test
the value of the proposition might easily be made,
whAtever may be the law on the aub3ectv—Olobei
1,4414,1 J 1

GthJZS J-'.44

THE KEIGHLEY GUARDIANS AND
THE VACCINATION ACT.

At the conclusion of the proceeding in the Court of Queen's
Bench in the matter of tho Keighley Guardians, the Lord
Chief Justice said—

"There can be no doubt whatever that the defend-
ants are in contempt for the course they have
pursued in refusing to obey the writ of mandamus
issuing from this Court. I have no doubt that
they were actuated by conscientious motives; but
it is not for members of a constitutional com-
munity like ours to set up their individual jag-
meet against that which is the law of the land It
may be that here and there some mischief may have
resulted from the practice of vaccination, to which
these persons are so strenuously opposed. Bet when
they bear in mind that which history tells us (though
perhaps they are not aware of it), that before vaccina-
tion was introduced the smsllpox was one of the
grea'est plagues that ever afflicted mankind, sweep-
ing away its victims by thousands, and that it was a
constant source of dread and terror to the whole com-
munity, and that this dreadful plague has been practi-
cally put an end to by the practice of vaccination, the
knowledge of this surely would influence their minds,
as it has iefhenced the mind of the Legislature and of
ell the more enlightened and educated portion of the•
community. But that is not the ground on which we
uroceed, and we proceed simply upon the ground that
it is the duty of subjects to obey an Act of Parliament,
and that it is the duty of this Court to enforce
obedience to it • and if obedience is withheld, then this
Court must enforce it. There can be no doubt that
all the defendants are in contempt. At the same
time they have been led into that contempt by
a mistaken notion of their duty and a belief that they
were benefiting the community by opposing the law.
This cannot be allowed. It cannot be allowed that
individuals should set up their judgments against that
which the Legislature has enacted to be the law of the
land. But ram glad that the matter has been brought
to this end, and that we are thus relieved from the
necessity oi passing the severe sentence of imprison-
ment it would otherwise have been our duty to pass
upon these defendants.''

The Times, in a leader commenting upon the case of the
Keighley Guardians, remarks that it "has been a test case,
for it shows that no pleas of conscience will prevent the
Courts of Justice from applying the Vaccination Acts as
rigorously as any other law." The leader also goes on to
say—

"In considering this question we must set aside the
dislike to invasion of personal liberty which Mr.
Gladstone has incautiously brought into the con-
troversy. Personal liberty may be the worst as well as
the best of things, and civilization implies that it must
be curtailed for the common good. The personal
liberty to steal or to kill belongs to a more primitive
state of existence than ours, and the complicated
necessities of our society have forced us to
abolish the personal liberty to do things so harmless
in themselves as competing with the Poet Office in
the carriage of letters, selling spirits without
a lieence, or practising medicine !without a
diploma. We are taking away even the personal
liberty of parents to keep their children from school.
Personal liberty to withhold vaccination from a child
can be justifiable only if vaccination itself be mis-
chievous' or the good of it doubtful; but it would be
difficult to conceive a more wanton defiance of proof
than either of these assumptions. If anything is cer-
tain in the whole range of medical science, it is that
vaccination is an all but absolute safeguard against a
disease which was once the greatest scourge of
humanity. That fact has been established by nearly
eighty years of the most searching investigation ever
applied to any subject of human inquiry. The
testimony of the whole medical profession, the
evidence of every civilised ceuktry, individual ex-
periments, and general results have made it certain
that when persons are properly vaecinated their lia-
bility to take smallpox is exceedingly smell, and that
if they do take it the attack will be mild. Europe is
no longer terrified by the epidemics of the disease
which a century ago smote down rich and poor with
indiscriminate havoc. The most infections of all
maladies has ceased to inspire fear wherever the rules
of vaccination are strictly observed, and the disease
would be stamped out if they were applied to every
member of the community. Even if the precaution
sometimes seems to fail, the cause will be found in
some neglect of the conditions established both by
theory and practice. There has also been some un-
certainly as to the best methods of applying the pre-
ventive. The medical profession is divided in opinion
respecting the very important question whether the
vaccine matter loses its power as it passes through
a multitude of beings, and whether it is necessary
to seek fresh strength at the original source.
Further experience will soon settle that contro-
vessy. . We may also admit, as the Lord Chief
Justice observed, thas in rare cases mischief may
be done by the negligence of the operator; but the
Keighley ideas of such a risk are the wildest of de-
lusions. Even the grossest carelessness can seldom
do harm, and when medical men take reasonable
precaution in the selection of the lymph, the
danger that impure matter may pass from one
child to another is so trivial as scarcely to merit the
attention of rational beings. No doubt a considerable
number of persons are scared by the thought that
vaccination may spread a crowd of diseases, and one
ingenious Frenchman has blamed the discovery of
Jenner for the prevalence of typhoid fever. But these
are merely relics of the absurdities which attended the
infancy of the process. Ignorant people once feared that
the ehildren who should be affected with matter from a
cow would grow horns, and the superstitions of Keighley
are not much more respectable- The vast majority
of the nation have to ask whether they will allow
an insignificant minority to subject the whole com-
munity to a great risk by insisting that .their children
shall, if smallpox should appear, become liable to be
radiating centres of deadly disease. We appreciate
the motives of those who fear to strengthen ignorant
prejudice by compulsory measures; but we believe
that such a dread is exaggerated. If the local magis-
trates firmly enforce the penalties of the Vaccination
Acts, the copemon sense of the public will deny the
victims any a. that sympethy which is often the nurse
of delusion."