The Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1860-07-24 00:00:00

MISS FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE ON
SANITARY DEFORM.

At'the closing sitting of the Internatiffrat Statistical
Congress, the following letter from Miss Nightingale
was read arid iteeiied With

"30, Old Burlington-street, July 20
" My Lord,—Pardon me for stiggesting to you that
there must be a large amount of statistic-all information
bearing on the prevention of disease in possession of the
Governments of different countries, and that it would be
of great importance aE the next meeting of this congress
if each delegate would include, in any report to be pre-
sented, any marked examples of the dfrainution of mor-
tality and diseases together with the saving of cost
consequent on the carrying out of sanitary improve-
ments in towns, in dwellings of the labouring classes, in
schools, in hoVitalss, and armies.
"As, for example, it is stated to he a fact demon-
strated by statistics, that in improved dwellings the
mortality has fallen in certain cases from 25 and 24 to
14 per 1,000; and that in common lodging houses,'
which have been hot-beds of epidemics, such diseases
have almost disappeared as heads of statistics, through
the adoption of sanitary measures. As no one has been
more instrumental than your lordAip in bringing about
these happy results, so no one is better acquainted than
yourself with these facts.

"It is also stated that in the British army large
bodies of men, living under certain improved sanitary
conditions, have presented a death-rate, about one-third
only of what the army has suffered in past years. Would
not your lordship consider it of great importance that
the satistics of these and similar cases should be carefully
collected 3nd presented for comparison with the statistics
of ordinary mortality ?
" Again, it is stated that in our colonial schools for
aborigines we have in many instances exposed the children
to the risk of scrofula and consumption while Christianising
and civilising them. Might not this be avoided by sanitary
arrangements ?
"Again, to take a different case, from the experience
of schools. It is stated as statistically true of some
industrial and half-time schools for orphan and destitute
children that, whereas formerly two-thirds of the child-
ren became sacrifices to vice and crime (as indeed is
-stated to be still the case in some instances) the failures
on account of misconduct among the pupils have been
reduced to less than two per cent. Might it not be
well to consider whether these statistical results do not
exemplify what may be done by the application of like
measures ?

" I am encouraged to make_ these suggestions by the
following words from the statesman, Guizot :---‘ Valuable
reports, full of facts and sound views, drawn up by
committees, inspectors, rectors, and prefects, remain un-
known to the public. The Government ought to charge
itself with the knowledge of and the expansion of all
good systems, with the encouragement of all favouring
efforts, and with attempts to improve them. According
to our present habits and institutions one channel alone
embraces sufficient action and power to secure this salu-
tary influence,—that channel is the press.'
" If facts already existing regarding the points I have
mentioned above were carefully abstracted and made
accessible to the public, through the medium of the
congress, there cannot be a doubt of the great benefit
whi(h would accrue to science and humanity.
"And if—as it is the cost which has frightened com-
munities from executing the works necessary to carry
out sanitary improvements—it could be shown that the
cost of crime, disease, and excess of mortality is actually
greater, it would remove one of the most legitimate
objections in the minds of governments and nations
against such measures.—l have the honour to be, my
lord, your lordship's faithful servant,

" FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE.

"The Earl Shaftesbury."

• Two whales have appeared in the Gateloch, near
Glasgow.
The assizes now nearly over throughout Ireland are
remarkable for the very considerable diminution of crime.
We understand that the journeymen bakers of Dublin
have made arrangements to strike work on the Ist of
August.
Messrs. Hugh Shield, Henry O'Hara Moore, and
R. W. N. Martin, are the barristers who have joined
the Northern Circuit at the present York assizes.

LORD PANMuURE.—The litindec Advertiser says

"Lord Panmure was expected to return to Brechin
Castle on Monday, from Germany, but his lordship has
been subjectei to another attack of gout, and remains at
Wiesbaden."
LIVERPOOL EYE AND EAR INFIRMARY, MOUNT-
PLEASANT.—ConsuIting Surgeon, Hugh Neil, Esq. ;
Surgeons, Dr. R. Hibbert Taylor, Dr. Nevins, T.
Bickerton, Esq. ; Assistant Surgeon, Robert Batty,
Esq. ; Treasurer, J. G. Livingston, Esq. Report
for the week ending July 21, 1860 :—Now cases :
Eyes, 74 ; Ears, 26. Prescribed for, and received
surgical assistance : Eyes, 372 ; Ears, HO.

Liveareat' DisrmiAarts.—New eases received
advice and medicine at the institution : North, 299 ;
South, 154 ; total, 453. New cases visited at their own
houses and supplied with medicine : North, 100 ; South,
62 ; total, 153. Rev. Rector Campbell, A.M., Pre-
sident; Captain Bourne, Vice-President of North
Dispensary; Mr. R. A. Payne, Vice-President of South
Dispensary ; Mr. Francis Mill, Treasurer ; Mr. F. H.
Langley, Secretary.
• THREE Slurs or WAR LOST. - Telegrams were
received in London on Saturday announcing the loss
of her Majesty's transport steamer Assistance, which
foundered in Deep Bay, Hong Kong ; his Imperial
Majesty's ship Reine des Clippers, Captain Pellien,
bound from Toulon to China, with stores, which was
burnt at Macao : and the Indian navy sloop Elphinstone,
in the Persian Gulf.

On Saturday, at Lambeth Police Court, Elizabeth
Wixted, a repulsive and dissipated-looking woman, who
has been in custody for about ten days on a charge of
attempting to destroy her illegitimate offspring by fling-
ing it head foremost into a waterbutt, was brought np
for final examination. Mr. Norton committed her to
take her trial. The gentlemen belonging to the
Patriotic Fund have kindly sent the illegimate child of
the prisoner to the society's school at Wandsworth.

NEW LINE-OF-BATTLE STEAMSHIPS.—The launching
of the fine line-of-battle screw steamship Atlas, 91 guns,
took place from No. 6 slip at Chatham on Saturday
afternoon, with the most complete success, making the
fourth large vessel of war which has been launched from
that 'dockyard in little more than twelve months. Mrs.
Schomberg,.the wife of Capt. Schomberg, superintendent.
of the steam reserve ordinary in the Medway, performed
the ceremony of christening the ship. Another vessel,
of a similar size to that of the Atlas, will be immediately
laid down on the same slip. The next vessel to be
launched at Chatham dockyard is the Bulwark, 91,
nearly completed.
THE CUSTOMS DUTY ON FOREIGN PAYER.—Mr.
Thomas Wrigley, the extensive paper manufacturer of
Bury, has a strong letter on this subject in yesterday's
Times. Mr. Wrigley says :—lt is now upwards of five
months since the paper trade was thrown into the
utmost confusion and alarm by the announcement in.
the Budget of the Chancellor of the Exchequer that he
intended to repeal the excise, duty on paper, and at the
same time to abolish the whole customs duty on paper
of foreign manufacture. During the whole of this
period our trade has been in. a state of semi-paralysis.
We have made no complaint whatever as to the
proposal to repeal the excise duty, but we do complain
of the spirit of injustice in which this measure has been
conceived, the utter disregard of every 'principle of
common honesty by which the proposal has been marked,
the contemptuous • indifference with which our remon-
stances have been met, and the wanton injury that has
been inflicted upon an important and useful branch of
English. 'industry by an unnecessary delay. If Mr.
Gladstone had been the representative of some foreign
State. and in that character had been delegated to pro-
tect and advance the interests of Continental Europe, he
could not have shown les:: sympathy, or a more reckless
disregard of English interests than he has done in deal-
ing with with those of the British papermaker. * * *
It was not the repeal of the paper duty, but the
proposal to abolish the whole of the Customs duty
on foreign paper, accompanied by an abolition of
the foreign rag-tax, that struck consternation into
the whole trade of papermaking. Had it been
proposed to reduce the Customs duty by an amount
equal to the Excise duty, or had the entire abo-
lition been preceded by the abolition of the foreign
tax, nc word of complaint would have- been heard
from us; bat it was plain that to permit a free admis-
sion of foreign paper, and at the same time to allow
foreign Governments to tax the material which we
require, was nothing less than a deliberate confiscation
of our property—a bodily transplanting of our menu-
facturq to the Continent of Europe, and the granting of
a monopoly of the English market to foreign manufac-
turers, as a reward for the selfish legislation of
foreign Governments. We aro to be exposed to
the competition of the whole Continent, without
their having made the slightest concession in moderating
their tax upon the export of rags. We therefore appeal
to the House of Commons—and, if need be, to the House
of Lords—to protect us from the consequences of this

iniquitous measure, by which a whole trade is to be
sacrificed for the benefit of foreign manufacturers and
the proprietors of a few cheap newspapers. We again
ask that the import duty on foreign paper be not repealed,
except concurrently with a free trade in rags, by the
abolition of all export duties in countries sending paper
to England.

---
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