The Express.
London, England, 1848-03-24 00:00:00

over bye madman. The King of Patna /. has not
escaped the stigma cast on royal races. The first
element of conservatism, the kingly, has perished, or
at least received a deadly blow in Europe—another
catastrophe which we may congratulate this country
upon having escaped.

Siete the introduction of Lord NORNIANBY'S bill
for improving the health of towns, to the present
time, numerous lamentable failures have been made
in the attempts to legislate on this impor,ant subject.
Lord LINCOLN'S bill was too cumbrous, and too hastily
prepared, to meet the exigencies of %I:0 evil, and did
not possess in itself sufficient merits to overcome the
interested opposition of those, desiring to retain
the civic powers which they had long neglected.
Lord NIORPETH met with little better success in his
bill of last year, and was obliged to succumb to
an opposition from the authorities at present
constituted under local acts. During the pre-
vious year, the frightful rate of mortality
taught tnose who had thus successfully. re-
sisted all attempts at improvement, that the existing
powers were insufficient to stay the march of disease,
and were wholly useless in preventing its diffusion
throughout the empire. This stern lesson has had
its good effi ets ; and Lard Monrevu's bill, again in-
troduced this session with considerable modifications,
is likely to pass without incurring any further obsta-1
cies of a serious nature. It is true that Manchester,
Leeds, Liverpool, and other large towns have in-
structed their representatives to oppose some of its
provisions in committee, but a few conciliatory alte-
rations would render it acceptable even to them,
without in any way interfering with the efficiency of
the act.
The objections to the proposed measure mainly de-
pend upou the obnoxious manner in which a central
control is constantly obtruded upon the attention of
the local boards. The towns possessing local acts
desire to retain the powers already granted to them,
being willing to accept a central control for all new
authority, with which they may be vested under the
proposed act. There is a prince /brie reason in this,
but it will not bear a close investigation. For the
last three years, the most laudable zeal has
inspired commissioners of sewers, aed most extensive
improvements have been made by them in the
various localities over which their powers extend.
But this new-born activity has arisen chiefly from
the fear of exposure by the peripatetic health commis-
sioners, who went about with the expressed intention
of disclosing abuses. The amount of work executed
during these three years is probably equal to that
effected for any period of ten years previously, and in
itself is a convincing proof of the benefit of directing
the attention of the central powers to the manner in
which private acts have been carried into operation.
The report of the health commissioners mainly con-
sists of an exposure of the lax manner in which the
powers already existing have for a long time been
executed. It is not therefore sufficient to point to the
activity of the last few years as a proof that central
superintendence is unnecessary.
We have always been convinced that a general
board, to inspect and generally to superintend the
provisions of the Health Act, was the first condition
for its success. But it is a most obnoxious proceed-
ing to give to that hoard the duty of taking cogni-
sance of the detailed works of the local boards, who
ought not to be constituted unless they are capable of
managing the works intrusted to them. We extract
the 40th clause of Lord Mom-Tiles bill as an exam
plc of the proposed detailed interference of the gece-
ral board with the local authorities.
And be it enacted, that before discontinuing any sewer or
drain, constructing any new sewer or drain where none pre-
viously existed, or altering the cour.e or level of, or aban-
doning or destroying any sewer or drain, constructing any
new wa'erworks, and in such other cases as may from time
to time be directed by the said general board, it shall be the
duty of the local board of health, one month at least Defer:
the intended time of commencing such works respectively,
to cause public notice of the same to he given in the district
or part of a district to which the works relate, and to cause
written notice of the same to be transmitted to the sail
gei
as
,craloubcoi.irl3 g , to other
dwithireasuch maps, plans, and particu-
lars This is only one example, and not the most extreme,
of the endl se interference which the general board is
to exercise over the local authorities. Every para-
graph of the bill obtrudes this board in an unpleasant
and altogether unnecesaary manner. The 105th clause
contains all the power necessary for this general
board, except in extreme eases. It enacts that, when-
ever the provisions of this act have been neglected,
exceeded, or contravened by the local board of
health," it shall be lawful for the general board to
proceed against it by action in courts of law. It is
only against the petty interference with detail to
which we object, a general superintendence being all
that is necessary. This might be given without the
appearance of making the local boards mere servants
of the central authority, unable to do anything with-
out specific permission or command. These subsidiary
boards are not even allowed by the 24th clause to
appoint "officers and servants," or to fix their
"wages and allowances." except " with the consent
of the local board." If this restriction of power
had been confined to the election of supe-
rior officers, such as surveyors and inspectors.
we should have deemed it a safeguard against
local prejudices and interested patronage; but extend-
ing as it does to subordinates, it assumes the charac-
ter of an endeavour to monopolise a power by the
general board which cannot be productive of good.
This continual interference with local authority is the
crying evil of the present bill, and, unless altered in
committee, will produce continued dissatisfaction
when introduced into operation.
The bill, as a whole, includes the most desirable
provisions for the promotion of public health, framed,
we are bound to admit, with care and honesty
of purpose. In all acts hitherto passed,
with respect to private and public improvements, the
principle has been admitted that the expense incident
to their execution should be immediately levied upon
those having a beneficial iuterest in them. The levy
of rates, often enormous in amount, has pressed with
peculiar hardship upon those whose incomes are
small, and dependent on house property ; so much so,
that it not unfrequently happened that the total an-
nual amount derived from the property became mort-
gaged for several years. The present bill has ob-
viated this unequal and severe pressure, by distri-
buting the cost of improvement over a period of
years coincident with its duration, thirty years being
generally allowed for the reimbursement of the outlay
for permanent structural works. This wise provision
will be of the utmost relief to the poorer districts,
where the heavy expense of sewerage could not be
defrayed at oue time, and, therefore, where it was
rarely executed at all. In London, sewerage is con-
structed on general rates ; so that this evil of the
provinces has not been felt.
We have also to record our approval of the ester
blishment of reception rooms for the dead before
burial. The want of accommodation in the crowded
dwellings of the poor resulted in the desecration of
the bodies of those who died in them. The revolting
familiarity with which these are treated ie productive
of much immorality ; and, in addition to this mental
deterioration of the survivors, the physical suffering
and extension of disease occasioned by the
retention of dead bodies in unventilated rooms,
called loudly for legislation on the subject. The
establishment of reception rooms under the 66th
clause, by providing a voluntary means of mitigating
this evil, will probably in the end effect its entire
removal. In Germany, Itussia, and other countries,
where such reception rooms have long existed, the
respect paid to the dead has in no measure been
diminished, but on the contrary has been enhanced,
by rendering death less familiar.
The sanitary bill now before the house has endea-
voured to grapple with the monster smoke nuisance of
large cities. The clause referring to it, has not, how-
ever, been drawn up with a full knowledge of that
experience, which has rendered local enactments for
the same purpose entirely inoperative. The most
ingenious legal quibbles have been devised to enable
manufacturers to escape from the compulsory erection
of furnaces and chimmes, which are no longer to pol-
lute the atmosphere by the emission of opaque smoke.
The clause, as it now stands in Lord Morpeth's bill, is
of little use, and may easily be evaded ; but as it is
to be amended in committee, we defer oar stricture
upon it until it is issued in its improved form.
Our principal objection to the bill as it is at pre-
sent before the house, is to the central interference in
the details of work, which should be confided to the
local board alone, with only a general superinten-
dence by the former. There are other points in the
bill which are objectionable, such as the arbitrary
Power of the general board to decide upon disputed
questions in certain cases, without power of appeal.
Hat as material modifications are expected to be pro-
Posed by Lord Munruu, we prefer giving our ge-

neral adherence to the great principles contained in
the bill, feeling assured that the minor grievances, if
not removed now, will soon be so, when experience
has fortitledthe apprehensions felt with regard to then.

(From the Daily News.)
Ova readers will do us the justice to admit that wei
are not given to boasting or self-glorification, to
spiteful attacks, or invidious comparisons with our
contemporaries. We have been quite contented to plod
our way, and leave the public to form its estimate of
the respective merits of cheap and dear newspapers.
We cannot, however, allow the records and achieve-
meats of this week to pass without calling to them
the attention of the public.
In this week the tidings of two momentous revolu- I
tions have reached this country. That at Vienna the •
Daily News was the first to announce on Monday
morning last. Our first edition of that day contained
news from Vienna of the 13th, being the successful
insurrection, the resignation of METTERNICH, and the
consequences. The first edition of the Times on that
day had no accounts from Vienna later than the 10th :
nor was it till late on that day that it published the
news of the revolution. The other papers were
equally behind.
Then cornea the event of the Berlin revolution. We
published a full and complete account of it yesterday
morning in our first edition ; whilst Times, Post, and
IliTald had a complete hiatus in their intelligence, not
knowing or telling anything of the events of the
night of the combat. The Times laments that the
Prussian Gazette gives " no details of the conflict."
The other journals are equally in arrear.
Now, when it is considered that all these high-priced
morning papers continue their combination against
the Daily News, that they club their expenses, their
boats, their couriers, and thus reduce every item to
one fourth of what is imposed upon us, it is no small
subject of congratulation to find, that the Daily News
can thus distance its gigantic and combined com-
petitors.
We confine our remarks to our priority in the
German intelligence of this week. Did we choose to
go back to the late French revolution, aid to the
dates of our supplying the intelligence, we could
establish similar proofs of daily triumph and priority
over the leagued monopolists. What adds to the un-
fairness of these combined and defeated journals, is their
invariable practice of stealing every piece of intelligence
that appears in our columns, without the slightest
allusion to the print from which they take it ; while
columns of our foreign matter arc copied into the
Globe (last night for example), which evidently is an
evening branch of the great monopoly, and from the
• Globe transferred into these monstrous receptacles of
stolen goods, the columns of our double-sheeted and
double-faced contemporaries.

GERMANY.