The Express.
London, England, 1853-11-04 00:00:00

land towns 83; in mall towns and the coma tey around the
river warm only 12 in 10,000 perished. Of the inland
towns, Wolvethampten, Merthyr Tydfil, Mencheeter, and
Leeds ezperieneed the greater part of the mortality ; in the
33 other large inland towns the mortality was at the low
Ms of 11 in 10,000.
In London the water supply bed considerable influents
on the mortality. The density of population and the
poverty of the inhabitants were not without effect, but the
effect of elevation of the soil transcended all other influences.
On an meteor the mortality by cholera was in the several
London districts at elevations of leas than 20 feet above
' Trinity high-water mark, 102 in 10,000; in the districts at
an elevation of 20-40 feet, 63 in 10,000; of 40—GO feet, 34 ;
of 60-80 feet, 27 ; of 80-103 feet, 22 ; of 100 feet, 17 ;
of 350 feet, 8 in 10,000 inhabitants.
The present epidemic has appeared first, like all that have
preceded it, is the seaports. The first well-defined eases in
London were registered in August, and the epidemic may
be dated from August 20th; up to October Ist tile registered
deaths, including some by English cholera, have amounted
to 133. The origin of the last epidemic may be dated from
October Ist, 1848; and that of 1831-32 also began in the
month of October, 1831. The present epidemic has
attacked 11l earlier in the year, but it has not yet in the
aggregate been more fatal in Loudon than it was during the
same number of weeks in 1848.

In Newcastle-upa-Tyne, with a population of 89,156 in
1851, the mortality from cholera has raised the deaths hy
all causes from 638 to 2,085; in Gateshead, from 374 to nt
in three months. The epidemic poison was no sooner intro-
duced into the region than it, as it were, exploded, and
destroyed nearly 2,000 lives.
In neither of the previous epidemics was say such sudden
destruction of life observed. Is the present epidemic—o 3
quickly following the epidemic of 1849 9—of a different and
more fatal character ? or are there local circumstances, in-
dependently of the nature of the epidemic, that account for
the desolation that now surrounds Newcastle-upon-Tyne ?
These important questions can, it is evident, cnly be defini-
tively answered by careful inquiry into all the circum-
stances ; but enough has been elicited to justify us in re-
fusing to admit at present that the epidemic is in its nature
more destructive than its predecessors; while it yields an
awful sanction to the hygienic law, which prohibits the use
of impure water.
The Superintendent Registrars of Newcastle and Gates-
head, in reply to inquiries which the Registrar General has
made, state, and have forwarded documents showing, that
from the sth of July last the town, which Ind been sup-
plied before with salubrious water, was supplied largely
' from the impure source of the Tyne, in the vicinity of the
sewerage of the town." [The Newcastle water taken from
the River Tyne has been analysed by Dr. Robert Dundee
Thomson. He found it to contain a quantity of organised
matter mechanically diffused through it (loaded with living
vibrios) to the amount of 4.502 grs. per gallon. Of this
0.545 grs. was destructible matter ; the remaining 3 947 gn.
consisted of siliceous forms resembling the shields of in-
tutorial animals or diatomaceous plants. Dissolved or firiels
diffused in the water, he further found 2.68 grss per gallon
of orgasic matter. The water likewise contained 1.18 gr.
per gallon of chalk and 7.3 grs. of muriate and sulphate of
soda and sulphate of magnesia. The total solid contents
were 15.662 gra. per gallon. This water was, it is said,
filtered, but the process is not described by the water
company.]
The fact cannot be queitioned that the water with which
Newcastle-upon-Tyne was supplied in 1848-9 was compara-
tively pure; and that in 1843, when the calamitous loss of
life was recorded on the registers, the city was supplied
with water containing a strong solution of the contents of
the sewers. The same effect was the result of the same
cause in Hull, in 1849. And other examples may be cited
in which the converse happened, as at Exeter, where the
inhabitants, after having suffered severely from cholera in
1832, obtained pure water, and escaped its ravages in
1848 9.
In the East and in Europe observation has shown that
cholera poison, be it what it may, is conveyed by water as
well as air; hence the following precaution was cited in the
Cholera Report ;
' The precautions to tike against cholera in regard to
water, are well stated by Dr. Snow, and they are of so
simple a nature that, considering all the facto, no Derma
can prudently neglect them. Water into which sewers
low, or which ts navigated by persons living in boats, or
which is in soy other way contaminated by the contents of
drains or cesspools, should be entirely disused."
No person, to test the value of such a rule, would ever
have proposed that a large town which was supplied with
good water, and escaped with no considerable loss in a pre-
vious epidemic, should on the eve of another epidemic do
all that is here forbidden. What no 7oceptical philosopher
would have dared to propose as an experiment, what no
haughty conqueror ever condemned the inhabitants of a
subjugated city to endure—this fins English town on the
Tyne—the centre of the coal trade—of In elligence of every
kind—and of engineering knowledge—has done and suf.
fend. All the excreta, which are thrown into the streets
or water-closets, are washed down the acclivities of the
streets into the river; the fermenting mass is driven up and
down by the tides, and has thence since July been pumped
by the engine at Elswick all over the town through the
water-pipes for domestic uses. It has been used for abla-
tion, it has been washed over the floors, it has been drunk
as a beverage by many of the children and the wives, as
well as large numbers of the higher and middle as well se
the working men of the town. This sad fact in the history
of Newcastle will be remembered when the loss of 1,600
liven, by which it was followed, is forgotten.
No water was drawn from the Tyne after September 15th ;
the cholera then raged with less intensity, and the epionnic
speedily subsided.
Tree intensity of tho epidemic at Newcastle-upon-Tyne:is,
under the circumstances, no decisive proof that in its essen-
tial form cholera is now more fatal thaw it was before • but
it is unquestionably a warning to those towns which derive
their water from polluted tidal rivers to abandon such
sources, and to accelerate their works for supplying the
population with pure water helms June next, otherwise
the death registers may, it is to be feared,
as, be filled with
Ithe names *lnnumerable victims of a practice, which is
degrading as it is destructive to the English nation.