The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1876-11-18 00:00:00

THE CENTENNIAL YEAR,

Many strangers at the Centennial are not yet
aware that they can't get out even for a moment, and
get back on the same entrance fee (says a correspon-
dent). I saw an o:d roan try it the other day. He
said to the gateman—l want to go out a minute.
You'll know me* when I come ba.,k, -won't- you?
Gateman: Yea; I'll know you by a 50. cent. stow.
Stranger: What I Ain't the money I paid goodfor
all day? Gateman: Yet', it's good for all day, if you
stay in all day. Stranger: But I want a bit teet.
It'll cost me 50 cents in here. Gatemath'That'i the
rule, old man, and you'll have to stand it. But I'll
you what you can do. You can go down by them
palings, and there's some boys outside will sell you a
sandwich for 20 cents. I followed the old gentleman
down by the palings to witness his investments. Sure
enough, he found an auburn-haired boy with sand-
wiches, and taking one through the slats, passed out a
50 cent stamp. This is 1876, says the brick-top Arab.
—Stranger. Well, I guess I knowed that before. Ginn
my change.—Arab: This is Centennial year. S. (snap-
ping his fingers nervous y through the crack) : Here
boy! I don't want no fooling. Gim my change right
away.—A. : Don'tyou know this is Centennial year? S.:
Yes, sholy I do. Gim my change, you owdaeious scamp.
—A.: Don't give any change Centennial year. S.:
You cussed, red-haired imp, if you don't gim 30, cents
I'll come out there and get a policeman hbld of 'you.—
A.: Now mister, that wouldn't be business. You don't
want to come out here and pay 50 cents,' to get back,
just for 30 cents; and if yer was to do it for spite,
where'd Ibe when you get out? You see this is the
Centennial year. Have to make our jack this year.
Now, you go along quiet sI nice, and it'll be the
fame next Centennial. •
AIR. GLADSTONE AND VACCINATION.

, Mom litondaes'Tinies.)
T. - •
o 'Ay years ago much of the tuaacknowledged insaniCy
which may always be found in a highlicivilised cora-
munity was accustomed to display itself in this country
in the shape of letters addressed to the late Duke of
Wellington, whose punctilious kindness induced him
always to gratify his correspondents by replying to their
'suggestions or inquiries, while Lis sagacity commonly
divested his replies of any p3litical or social importance.
They were little more than the expressions of a convic-
;tion which the penny post has done much to render
'obsolete,
_that letters should not be left to ansiver them-
!selves. Mr. Gladstone in his retirement from. the Control
of public affairs, has to a certain extent become the
'successor of the Duke as receiver-general of the episto-
lary follies of the public; and there is scarcely any
subject in the heavens above or in the earth beneath on
'which his correspondence has not served to enrich
obscure collectors of autographs, or to instruet or
-amuse the readers of some local newspaper. Here,
however, the parallel ends; for, while , F.M. the
Duke of Wellington "was content to present his com-
pliments to Mr. Blank, and then to admit entire
Ignorance of, or entire indifference to, the subject
:which that gentleman had brought under his notice,
Mr. Gladstone is accustomed to reply in a Man of
words which may well leave upon the mind of an
laverage Englishman almost any impression which the
recipient desired to form or to retain. In many
'cases this course would, no doubt, be harmless;
Ibut Mr. Gladstone has rendered himself liable to
!be appealed to by fatuities of a very dangerou
kind, and it is not too much to expect that he
'should take pains to show his own' freedom from
their delusions, There are subjects on which it
behoves a 'etatesman or a magistrate to " put down
his foot " in such a manner that no personals
doubts which he may ,entertain, and which arise
solely from his own want of opportunities to inves-
tigate the questions at issue,- may be permitted to
;add to the strength of an ignorant agitation or to
obstruct a beneficent public policy. The shortness
of life and' the limitation of the human faculties
render it necessary for even the wisest of men to
take a large portion of their beliefs from others ; and
Mr. Gladstone would probably not think it necessary
to investigate afresh the evidence in favour of the law
of gravitation before he would venture to advise a
correspondent to submit himself wholly to its require-
ments. In a case which is hardly less strong he has,
unfortunately, permitted himself to, write as if one of
the few certainties of medicine weris still involved in
;obscurity. He• has done this not once only, but on at
;least two occasions, separated from each other by an
'interval of several months.

On the 19th of May in the prefent year Mr. Glad-
stone wrote thus to "Mr. Pitman, of Manchester :"
"1 regard compulsory and penal provisions, such as
those of the Vaccination Act, with mistrust and mis-
igivirg, and were I engaged on an inquiry I should
'require very clear proof of their necessity before
giving them my approval; but I am not able to enter
upon an examination of the question." On Tuesday we
quoted a paragraph from a provincial pap* setting forth
that Mr. Gladstone Intel again written on the same
subject, and in slightly varied words, to "An Inhabi-
tant of Ipswich." He said in his second letter, "I
view with misgiving all new aggressions upon private
liberty, unless upon a clear and certain proof of
necessity ; and I keep 1.14 'mind open upon the question
whether such proof has or has not been-supplied in the
matter of Vaccination." A man bi Mr. Gladstone's
position could hardly convey a more mischievous un-
certainty upon a sul ject on which no uncertainty can
with any show of reason be cdiasidered to exist, and
could hardly express that uncertainty in a manner
more calculated to play into the hands of the few silly
people by whom the great work of national Vaccination
is being hindered to the small extent of their powers
and opportunities. In May, Mr. Gladstone did not
stand alone, the Bishop of Manchester having also
been dragged into a correspondence with Mr. Pitman;
but the Bishop, while he was a good deal in advance of
known fact in asserting that vaccine lymph is "often"
poisoned, yet said pleinly that the benefits of Vaccina-
tion were established by an overwhelming mass of
evidence, and thus it may be presumed, saved himself
from being appealed to in a similar manner for the
future. It was perhaps, a little inconsequent for him
to add, in the was,
of the overwhelming evidence, that
he would like to see the question once for all disposed
of Ly a full end fair discussion between competent re-
presentatives of the opposing schools. Where evidence
is overwhelming there would seem to be little room for
discussion;; ami. to, describe anti. vaccinationiets as a
"school" is to push satire to the verge of cruelty.
It is perhaps not Ripe ' . thous in the face of the
letters to which we have referred, to repeat facts which
should be universally familiar. The whole subject of
vaccination' and all the subsidiary questions which
underlie it, have been sifted to the bottom by inquiries
so extensive and so complete that there is no longer any
point relating to them about which well-informed
persons can entertain a doubt. The results of these
inquiries may be found in the successive Blue Books
which were iseued under the direction of Mr. Simon
during his tenure of office as the medical adviser of the
Government, and they produced legislation which,
for the first time has been followed by the effectual
vaccination of an enormous majority of the people
of England. According to the Reports last issued, 95
per cent, of the children born in this country are now
being accounted for in the matter of Vaccination—
that is, they are either vaccinated or they die before they
reach the statutory age. When this process has been
In continuous operation for twenty years the whole of
the population, with the very small exception of the 5
per cent, will be protected by at least one Vaccination,
and all those who have passed through the hands of
the public vaccinators will have received the most
complete protection against emall-pox which a single
operation can afford. The Vaccination of the
more wealthy classes is too often less effectual,
for the reason that the fancies of parents
are allowed to interfere with the duty of the
surgeon. It was long ago established by Dr.
Mareon, in opposition to beliefs which had been current
before his time, that an effectual vaccination should
leave at least four typical scare, and that the protection
afforded by a shade scar is so slight as to be almost a
source of danger by producing a feeling of false security.
Notwithstanding this, it is not uncommon for a mother
to insist upon her child, especially if a girl, being vacci-
nated by the family medical man in only one spot, or in
t woovhile the
and
officer invariably acts up to his in-
structions and performs the operation in an effectual
manner. 'When twenty years have parsed away, and
the bulk of the population have been well vaccinated,
the lapse of another like period of time will be required
in order to test upon the largest scale the efficiency of
the protection which has been afforded them; but
there is enough known to show plainly what the results
will be. The experience of the last epidemic, especially
the entire immunity from the disease which was en-
joyed by the revaccinated nurses of the smallpox
hospitals, left no donbt that an effectual Vaccination
in infancy affords complete protection until the period
of puberty, when the rapid change of development of
the body seem often to outgrow the protective in:
fluence. If revaccination is then performed, the pro-
tection once more becomes complete, and remain so
for the whole of life, being far more effectual than that
which is afforded by an attack of smallpox itself.
There is much reason to believe that the virus of
smallpox is so far domesticsted among us that it
will always find, in the newly born children who
have ndt yet been protected, material on which to act;
but it is as certain as anything in human knowledge
that the disease may be extinguished by persistence
in the course which is now being pursued, as far as
children over three months old are concerned. In
proportion as the practice of Vaccination increases,
the few cases in which it may possibly do some
harm become more and more inadequate to support
the outcry which has been based upon them; and
the way to avoid such cases for the future is to
commit the operation as much as possible to the
public officer, who performs it in strict accordance
with carefully framed regulaticns, and who is at once
assisted and controlled by skilful nod vigilant inspec-
tion. If Mr. Gladstine will devote a single afternoon
to the study of the Reports which were made during
his own Premiership, he will find in t'nern matter
enough to satisfy even his Cautious intellect witlfregard
to the question upon which he has written so cleubt4
fully, and be-will be deprived of all excuse for again
fanning the expiring' embers of a curiously hurtful and
unfounded agitation.
161 g.
,-,•" •
•

A PALINDROME —A palindrome is a word or sear
tones that reads 14like backward, and forward.. One, of
theli.hed .isitAdaP4'§:,.fisstvicob*Viation.:
" Madam, I'm Adam," Another is the reply of
Napoleon, when at St. Helena; being asked by an
Englishman if he could have sacked London, he is
said to have replied ;--‘.! Able was I ere I saw Elba."