The Express.
London, England, 1849-09-06 00:00:00

come from Timbuctoo, from the islands ef th„,
South Seas, or the interior of Am, rica, we should
have had meetings in Exe'er-hall, and missionary
societies formed to send messengers of health and
civilization to the wre'ched inhabitants of the pestilea-
tial districts. But, alas! the evil is at our own doom, the
sufferers are our own brethren, and custom has
hardened our neglect of each other into an indif-
ference which the profoundest mist ry of humus
beings can scarcely penetrate. We feel this ram be
true, when we see week after week fee sic dietricts
attacked with disease, and the same revelations are
made of neglect the most culpable and wicked. At
the moment we are writing there are places in Lon_
don into which cholera is insidiously making its way;
here and there a case has occurred, but no notice is
taken of it ; presently it will be seen that the poison
has been festering, and the sudden destruction of a
large number of lives will reveal in the registraos
report the removeable evils that have caused
this death. As a means of stirring up local
authorities to a sense of their duty, we
would recommend the intelligent inhabitants of places
where nuisances exist, or are suspected to exist, or
where cholera hes broken out, to memoriali-e imme-
diately boards of guardians, vestries, commissioners
of paving, or other bodies, having power to act, di-
r.cting attention to the evils of which they have to
complain. We know too well how u-elects such a pro-
ceeding is when done as a matter rf Imm, but let
these questions be pressed with the earnestness which
their importance demands, and it will be friend that
local authorities can no more resist prey-ure from
without than the higher powers, whom io their indif-
ference to the wants of the people, they are so fond of
imitating.
In referring on a recent occasion to the increasing
sources of disease in London, we had Lot
space to refer to an evil cf increasing magni-
tude, and which might be classed amongst the
cumulative sources of diseaee. We refer to the cha-
racter and supply cf water is Loneon. If there be
any one point in which modern is behind ancient, tape-
oially Roman civilization, it is in the almost system.
atic disregard cf the contamination of water use d fcr
cooking and dietetical purposes. By far the greater
proportion of the water wed in Loudon is derived
from the Thames, and that in localities where it is
mixed with the contents of the common sewers from
all London. That such water can bs fitted
for drinking or culinary purposes by any
process hitherto invented ie exceedingly improbable,
for after pa'sing through the ordinary processes,
of filtration in charcoal, sand, or sandstone, if allowed
to stand for a few hours, it is sure to emit a roxiou
smell, indicative of the fact that decomposition from
the vegetable and animal matters contained in it, is
going on. Such matter, under ordinary circumstances,
may become the source of disease, aid predispose
takir g it to serious and fatal attacks of
illness. And there is much evidence to prove that the
present fatal epidemic of cholera, if rot pron uced, has
been greatly increased, by the impurity of water.
Dr. JOHN SNOW MB just published a pamphlet on
the mode of communication of cholera, in which he
shows 'hat it is exceedingly probable that the mucous
membranes of persons diseased with cholera throw
ff a quantity of cells or germs, which being diffused
through water may be taken into the system of
others, aid thus again pro.ttue the disease. Dr.
SNOW has taken particular cases, and shown how
probable it is the disease should have originated in
this way. Thus he refers to the cues which occurred
st Albion-terrace, Wandsworth-road. It appears that
the seventeen houses composing this terrace are not
more unhealthily situated than many others arcund
them,' but that the disease was entirely confined
to them. It seems that during the storm of
July 26th, a drain connected with the water-
closets burst, and emptied itself into a tank
from which the inhabitants of the terrace were
supplied with water. The first per son was att., cked
on the 28th of July, the second on the 30C), and be-
tween that date and the I Ith of August upwards of
twenty persons had died in this row of houses. Dr.
Sxow goes on to remark, that what the tank that
supplied water to the houses of Albion-terrace was to
the inhabitants, the Thames is to London. The com-
mon sewers of London, with the contents of est. ry cess-
pool and privy, empty themselves into the Thames, and
this is the way in which Dr. SNOW believes, the particles
are diffused that become the germs of disease in those
who partake of its water. He points out that on the
south aide of the river, where the thole-a has been reset
prevalent, the water works obtain their supply
from those parts where it is most polluted by sewers,
none of them obtaining their water higher up than
Vauxhall Brir'ge. The districts which have most
suffered after the Leith are the east, and these are again
supplied with water, partly from the Th s, and
partly from the river Lea, which receives several
large sewers. The dietticts which taTe suffered
!cast are these which are supplied from the New
River and the Thames above Brentford, from neither
of which sources at present does it appear that
diseased matter could be brought by the water. Other
instances are quoted by Dr. SNOW, not sufficient,
perhaps, to establish the position that this is tr e sole
mode of the conveyance of cholera poison into the
system, but quite sufficient to show thst the use of
impure water has much to do with creating a predis-
position to this disease.
That the defective supply and impurity of the water
of London is an evil of a cumulative kind will be
obvious when it is known that there has bets no raw
sou. ee of supply for the last twenty years, &though
London has nearly doubled its popu ninon in that
period. With this increase of the topuLtion the
unfitness of the Thames water for human consump-
tion must have increased.

Not only is a great proportion of the water sup-
plied to London entirely unfitted for use by its
adulteration with animal aid vegetable mutter, but
the supply is defective, the method of that supply is
most objectionable, and the cost is very- much greater
than there is any nem sa.ty tor. All the* are points
that deteriorate the sanitary condition of Lot.don. At
the present moment there are 70,000 houses in Lon-
don, containing not less than 660,000 inhabitants,
which have no water supplied to than from any one
of the eight great water monopolies which exist. The
COIN plena, of this deficiency is a want of cleanliness
and the accumulation of frith that engenders disease.
Even with the districts supplied with water, the ad-
vantages of the supply ere diminished by the fact of
the water being laid on only at certain intervals, so
that frequently when the water is most urgently
seeded it is not to be had. The cost at which
the present imperfect and deficient supply is main-
tained greatly exceeds that which it ought, were a
proper economy regarded. The feet is, our eight
great water companies ere monopolies of the most
gigantic kiad, having influence enough to keep any
competitors out of the field, and are themselves
hedged round by seta of parliament in such a way
that, unless strong public feeling bs directed to the
point for the purpose of uprooting them al-
together, it will be almost impossible that any
improvement should take place in the present supply
of water to the metropolis. This is another great
branch of the sanitary reform question that demands
the attention of the public, and the government
ought not to be allowed to rest till it has wrested the
supply of so important an article of health as water
from the hands of private companies, and placed the
whole superintendence of the water-supply of London
in the hands of a b idy responsible to the public.

GENERAL GoRGET, in whose character and
prowess the European world was so dr( ply interested
has not deigned to give that disappointed world the
least scrap of explanation for his conduct. We only
hear of the Hungarian general u a cherished inmate
of the Russian camp. His letter to the governor of
Comoro, advising him to surrender, is the lamest and
poorest epistle that a soldier could indite; and if
KLAPKA, oven in surrendering, spat upon the epistle of
Ci6ROEY, we could perfectly understand the senti-
ment and the act of contempt.
And yet we have by no means either the proof or
the belief, that General GUMMY was what might be
called a tr►itor.

We believe that GURGEY was, and is, a mere pro-
fessional soldier, poesessed of courage, of Atli, and of
the honourable qualities which consitate his calling.
But of patriotism he seems no: to have had a spark.
His own illustration as a soldier, his own %mews, was
evidently his Bret thought—his country's safety or
freedom was evidently a secondary consid. ration with
him, a care that he left altogether to tie Pules. Not
to be beaten, or, when beaten, to 1 ale a speedy
revenge—to keep his army together—hot as come'.
tuting the defence and securi:y of the country, but
as constituting the importaime of its general —such
were GURGEY'a aims. Ile did not care much
whither he retreated, or what he abandoned, provided