The Express.
London, England, 1853-10-24 00:00:00

THE CHOLERA.

(From tha General Board of Gael* Oct. !L)
METROPOLIS.

The Metropolitan Commissioners of Police this
day tranamittcd to the General Board of Health
various reports by the superintendents of the I), 0,
H, K, L, M, P, It, and Thames divisions of police rela-
tiTO to cholera, from which it appears that between
tho 16th and the 20th inst. there have been 22 cases,
of which 10 have resulted fatally. Of the latter
3 have been previously reported by the police as
recovering." One of the 10 cares of death is that
of a man whose wife died aired cholera on the 13th.
In another instance the return states that there is •
filthy ditch at the rear of the house which emits an
unwholesome smell dangerous to the public health.
This is the second case which occurred in the same
buildings (Dyer's-buildings, Gravel-lane) within a
very short period of each other. The authorities, it
is added, are adopting no measures to abate the nui-
sance.

From a return made to the common lodging-house
branch of the Metropolitan Police-office, and trans-
mitted this day to the General Board of Health, by
Captain Hay, it appears that four persons have been
attacked by cholera since the 16th instant, at the
Government Emigration Depot at Nine-elms, of
whom three have died—one within 24 hours of the
time of attack.

At an interview which Mr. Hall and Dr. Milroy
recently had with the Board of Guardians of Cam-
berwell, attention was called to the wretched state
of many of the dwellings of the poor. One of the
guardians present expressed his regret that parishes
have not the power to erect model lodging-houbes.
Dr. Milroy observed that the members of the board
did not appear to be aware that parochial authorities
have, under certain regulations, the power to erect
well ordered lodging and dwelling-houses for the
labouring elasaes.
Lord Shaftesbury's act of 1831, intituled, "An act
for encouraging the establishment of lodging-houses
for the labouring classes." By this act local boards
of health, and other local authorities, are enabled to

borrow money for the establishment of such houses,
with the approval of the Lords Commissioners of her
Majesty's Treasury, and also with the approval of
the General Board of Health. The facts promul-
gated by commissioners of inquiry under the
crown, by medical union officers, by relieving
officers, by the clergy, and by home missionaries,
concur in representing that some of the worst
forms of human misery exist among the compara-
tively settled labouruig classes of towns crowded
together in dwellings unfit for human habitation.
Hitherto the excuse of local administrative bodies for
the continuance of a condition of the poor disgraceful
to a Christian community, has been the want of
power or means either to regulate the existing
lodging houses or cellar dwellings, or to make other
and suitable provision for the accommodation of their
inmates. To attempt to diminish the overcrowd-
ing of common lodging houses by ejecting the lodgers
without providing better habitations would, it has
been said, and often very justly, only increase the
number of miserable outcasts who are found sleeping
in outhouses or in the streets. To eject families
dwelling in cellars without any suitable provision
for housing them, would be to force them to over-
crowd
upper rooms, and a doubly crowded upper
room might be even worn than a less crowded
though damper cellar dwelling.
Proof of the evils produced under such circum-
stances has been afforded in the instances of the re-
moval, under local acts, of wretched tenements to
make room for improvements, which have increased
overcrowding elsewhere, and so aggravated the
wretchedness of the population removed. In the
instance of Liverpool the statistitel section of the
British Association for the Advancement of Science
having at their meeting in that town directed
attention to the wretchedness of the population
living in cellars, compulsory powers were obtained
under a local act for the summary ejectment of the
inhabitants of cellar dwellings ; but when proved-
ings were taken to execute that act it was found that
it involved the unhousing of a population of between
20,000 and 30,000 people, no provision whatever for
their reception having been made. The partial
attempts made under these circumstances to execute
that act increased the evil of overcrowding the upper
tenements. But, by the powers conferred by the
act for encouraging the establishment of well-ordered
lodging-houses, local authorities have the means of
providing improved dwellings foe the poor. The
examples of such improved dwellings presented to
the legislature on the passing of this act were the
model lodging-houses and dwellings constructed by
the Society for Improving the Condition of the
Labouring Classes, of which his Royal Highness
Prince Albert is the president, and those of the
Metropolitan Society for the Improvement of the
Dwellings of the Labouring Clumps.
The result of sanitary improvement as exemplified
in the experience of these establishments, as Esr as
that experience has yet extended, amounts to this—
that if the mortality in the whole of the metropolis
had, during the year 1851, for example, been in the
same proportion as in the establishments under the
Metropolitan Society, the deaths, instead of being
56,364, would have been only 29,486—that is, 25,000
lives would have been saved in that year in the
metropolis alone.
Noy/cum; Ocr. 21.—Deaths: cholera, 2; diar-
rhea, 1. The total number of cases of choleraic
disease treated by the medical officers at Newcastle-
upon-Tyne, from
from the 21st of September to the 18th
o October, hu been 4,688; of these, 3,708 have
been cases of diarrhoea, 534 approaching cholera, and
448 cholera. During the same period there have
been discovered by the house-to-house visitors 4,908
cases of choleraic disease, 4,680 of which were
diarrhea", 258 approaching cholera, and 85 cholera.
In addition thereto 3 corpses have been discovered
in various houses in the course of the visitors' rounds.
The total number of deaths from cholera and
diarrhoea in Newcastle during the present outbreak
his been 1,624. In the same period (viz., the first
61 days) during the prevalence of epidemic cholera
in 1831-2, the number of deaths was 293.
Ltrrox, Ocr. 21.—Diarrhoea, 1 death.
OAVISIIZAD, Ocr. 20.—Cholera, 1 death.
GATISIILLD, lIEWOIIII, Ocr. 20.—Cholera, 1
death.

DUNDEE, Ocr, 20.—Cholera, 3 deaths.
DUNBE.—From a return of owes of cholera and
diarrhoea in the parish of Dunes from the 27th Sep-
tember to 18th October instant, made to the General
Board of Health by Dr. MlVatt, the medical officer,
it appeared that there have been altogether 11 cases
of " malignant cholera," 8 of which resulted fatally
and 3 recovered; also 4 cues of choleraic diarrhoea
all recovered, and 20 cases of diarrhoea likewise all
recovered. These various cases have " occurred gene-
rally through the town," and chiefly the better
classes. The inspector of the poor remarks that,
" Of all the cases both of diarrhoea and cholera, no
pauper, with the exception of one female belonging
to the neighbouring parish of Edrom, has been
seized with either disease."