The Express.
London, England, 1863-05-08 00:00:00

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LONDON, FRIDAY, MAY 8.

Tams is as yet no sign of any abatement
in the progress of the disease that has spread
with such fatal effect in various districts of the
_ _ _

metropolis during the last few weeks. On the con-
trary, all the known facts seem to show that Small-
pox in a virulent form is seriously on the increase,
and that, too, in quarters hitherto comparatively free
from its ravages. The Registrar• General's return
for last week gives the number of deaths from
this diocese as 68, the highest point in the death-
rate that has yet been reached, the numbers for the
two previous weeks having been respectively 65
and 62. The returns of last week seem to show,
moreover, that the fatal effects of the disease are
gradually extending from children and young
people to adults, a considerable proportion of the
deaths reported—a quarter, indeed, of the whole
number—having been of persons twenty years
old and upwards. But other facts ap-
pear to indicate—what might naturally be
expected—that the official statistics of weekly
mortality supply a very inadequate and fallacious
index of the actual progress of the disease. Mr.
Tuns, the overseer of the large parish of Meryle-
bone, stated in the local police-court on Tuesday
that " the number of smallpox cases was fearfully
" on the increase in the parish, and unless the
" patients ware isolated the spread of the disease
" might be dreadful. That morning it was brought
" under his notice that ten persona were suffering
" from the divas. in one room." On the same

daY, at a meeting of the Paddington Vestry called
to consider the spread of smallpox in the pariah, Dr.
SA FDICR&ON, a local medical officer, said that
although, up to that period, the number of deaths
in the district had been comparatively few, the
number of cues was now rapidly increasing, and
that in some of the poorer and more thickly popu-
lated neighbourhoods the disease had made alarm-
ing Progress- _ _ .

The disease having assumed such serious and
menacing proportions, it is high time that the
most vigorous and effectual means that science
and experience can suggest for arresting its pro
geese should be carried out without a moment's
needless delay. The call for immediate help is
too urgent and imperative to admit of any pro-
longed deliberation and dissuasion as to the rela-
tive value and expediency of the methods to be
employed for this purpose. The evil in its pre-
sent form is pre-eminently a practical one, and in
dealing effectually with it everything depends on
prompt, intelligent, and resolute action. The
question of prevention, of the precautionary
means to be adopted by the healthy portion of the
community, has been discussed for weeks past,
and in this direction something has been done,
both by the Government and the local authorities.
Various efforts have been made to rouse the atten-
tion and increase the practical vigilance of the
public, and especially of the poorer dame.
The Privy Council have issued a circular
on the subject to the Boards of Guardians,
calling their attention to the Vaccination Act, and
giving a number of special recommendations de-
signed to facilitate the carrying out of its provi-
sions. The Guardians, in their turn, have issued
circulars in the different parishes, urging the abso-
lute necessity of vaccination, and have taken steps
to secure the general adoption of this most essen-
tial precautionary measure. We may hope, there-
fore, that in this way the progress of the disease
will be gradually arrested and its power ultimately
broken. But the immediate and pressing ques-
tion of the hour relates to the unhappy victims
who have been already struck down. What can
we do with the multitude of patients suffering at
this moment from the disease, and which no hos-
pital can receive t If they remain in their own
crowded and often ill-ventilated dwellings they
not only spread the infection, but so increase its
virulence that the difficulties in the way of grap-
pling successfully with it are increased tenfold.
Yet hardly any provision whatever, public or pa-
rochial, has yet been made for their reception and
relief. Though much has been said, nothing has
really been done to meet the emergency. As the
result of this neglect decency and humanity are
outraged, and the public safety endangered in a
manner that is as painful as it is scandalous. The
Me that came before Mr. YA/IDLIT at the Mary-
lebone Police-court on Tuesday sufficiently illus-
trates this, while the testimony of the parochial
officer in court proves that the terrible destitution
of suitable relief it disclosed, so tre from being iso-
lated or exceptional, prevails tea calamitous extent.
A lodging-house keeper in the Marylebone-road
brought a complaint against the workhouse autho-
rities for refusing to admit his servant, AWNS
CaLviar, who was suffering from smallpox, into
the infirmary. The parish overseer replied to his
complaint that the girl could not be received,
because they really had no room in the hospital.
Be added that they had already been obliged to
refuse a umber of other patients, and
that as the dimese was rapidly in-
creasing in the parish, if some temporary hospital
were not provided the resultswould be most serious.