The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1885-10-31 00:00:00

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ATURD:A_Y, OCTOBER 31st, 1885.

LONDON LIFE.

is we'd alit the four inilFon dwellers
in the great metropolis are nrable to see
With the eyes of a medical expirt the mani-
fold menaces to health and life which en-
viron their place of habitation. Londoners
growl and, grumble when a murkier fog
than usual turns day to night, bra on the
whole are content with their surroundings.
it is only when some flagrant sin against
the laws of sanitation has been committed
by a negligent Vestry or a recalcitrant in-
diviinel Londoners are tempted to cavil
at the fate which compels them to reside in
the most densely-populated community in
the world. An outcry arises, and the evil
is remedied, or at any rate, hidden out of
sight ; and then the innocent Cockney lapses
into th 6 belief that he is, on the Whole, no
worsegsituated than the dwellers in the great
provincial centres of commerce and industry.
He has a simple, trusting faith, as becomes
him, in the omnipotence of the Health Au-
thority to protect him from those maleficent
ae;encies which would, but for administra-
tive watchfulness, "stand thick on every
hand to push him to the tomb." But what a
shock London's sense of complacent security
must receive when the medical scientist at
one blow demolishes its fool's paradise of un-
questioning optimism ! One of those terrible
tellers of the truth, a medical enthusiast, has
lifted the deceitful veil of heedlessness which
has been suffered to blind Londoners to the
dreadful dangers of their position. To be
sure, the medical enthusiasts, like earnest
workers in other directions, sometimes allow
themselves to be carried away by the sub-
ject they pursue, and unwittingly exaggerate
the evils they unmask. It is to be hoped
that in this instance, zeal has lured the
would-be social reformer beyond the border
line of actual fact; otherwise the Londoner's
lot must indeed be far from a happy one.
Mr. James Cantlie, surgeon of the Hospital
at Charing-cross, is the health apostle who,
lecturing on "Life in London, Hygienically
Considered," at Exeter Hall, has branded
the metropolis as the reverse of a desirable
place of residence. We are told London's
postal area covers 245 square miles, that the
police district extends over as great a space
as 695 square miles ; and assured that one
cannot towards the central point of this ex-
panse get a breath of pure atmosphere.
Fresh air, to reach mid London must first
pass over the suburbs, whose inhabitants
greedily convert it to their own uses, to the
detriment of dwellers nearer the City. Mr.
Cantlie is of opinion that it may have been
years since fresh air found
in Birmingham, he attirms--aneeieef, street
land metropolis can show some sooty streets
—is better off than London, because of the
contigniti of the country. But there are
other counts in Mr. Cantlie's heavy indict-
ment against the health character of the
capital. Thirty thousand tons of coal are
blazed away in London daily, and owing to
defective firegrates and stoves, out of this
fuel aggregate no less than sixty tons of un-
consumed carbon escapes up unnumbered
chimneys and mingles with the life-sustain-
ing air. Then much of London is built up-
on the refuse of the old Cily, where the Great
Fire and the Plague, and centuries of life
under unsanitary conditions have robbed the
earth of its disinfectant power. From this
evil, it is pointed out, the newer and re-
moter districts are exempt, and in these more
favoured neighbourhoods it is consequently
still possible to keep plant life!comparatively
healthy. People are constantly crcwding
up from the country into 'London, and once
settled in the metropolis, few families return
to the place of their nativity. Yet notwith-
standing the ceaseless immigration, the
growth ot London.s population does not ex-
ceed the normal rate of that in thinly-popu-
lated Scotland. The great increase dies
away, Mr. Cantlie asserts, killed by foul and
unsanitary surroundings. Figures were
cited showing that in an average taken from
C,OOO London families, consisting of nine
children or more, only three or four of the
little ones survived to maturity. The road-
ways call forth severe medical condemnation
The natural thing to walk on is the earth ;
macadam its best substitute. Either is rare
in the principal London thoroughfares.
Asphlate is too hard for the human foot, and
wood generates the death-dealing bacteria.
Even such as London streets are, Mr. Cant-
lie contends, they are imperfectly cleansed,
and watered in the most slovenly way. All
the footpaths slope towards the roadway,
compelling a lop-sided system of pedestrian-
ism, and inducing curvature of spine, the
result of efforts to maintain the perpen-
dicular. Ladies dresses drag at the side next
the houses; men's unmentionables have a
larger crease in one leg than the other. This
is part of the surgeon-lecturer's precise de-
tail. But these difficulties of the foot-pas-
senger are pointed out as the chief cause of
the Londoner's characteristic indisposition
for walking exercise. Obstacles in the way
of easy progress make the Cockney quickly
tire of riding Shank's mare, so he mounts
an omnibus, or is hurried along by
steam through stifling underground
passages. But our friend of Charing-cross
does not urge the Londoner to make more
use of his legs, rather arguing that ex-
ercise in imp-are air is hurtful, and needlessly
fatiguing, and that the less a man exerts
iiimself in the metropolis the better. Mr.
- stipulates for level and porous pave-
Cantnb ---,es that the Londoner should
ments, and nib 'l't to his house in pipes,
have fresh air broug— -Tier of gas and
and turned on in the rats.— • •e almost
water by means of a tap. This
amusing when we rember that the air must
of necessity be robbed en route of well-nigh
all its purity. The reign of gas is, we are
assured, almost over, and the lecturer points
to the pipes, whose occupation will, ere long,
according to him, be gone, as suitable pas-
sages for the conveyance of relays of fresh
air ! These words of a scientific extremist
doubtless lack not a little of the practical;
but, strange as are some of Mr. Cantlie 's
tiews and deductions, Londoners might
trofitably learn hygienic lessons from his
fetture: