The Express.
London, England, 1853-09-13 00:00:00

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TO CORRESPONDENTS.
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LONDON; TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 13.

A ser.ics of resolutions have been submitted to the
Board of Guardians at Ne //castle, assembled to devil°
means for arresting the progress of Cholera in that town.
Some of these resolutions indicate a state of sanitary
police rendering it wonderful, not that Newcastle
is visited by such an epidemic vow, but that it has so
long been spared. 'H this fund are the following:—
"That the police be requested (!) to stop tho preva-
lent practice of throwing night soil out of the win-
dows;' " that tho scavengcring of the narrow lanes,
&c., be dono in the morning, and not, as at present,
in the middle of the day." While reading these confes-
sions of the filthy habits which prevail in Newcastle.
one is almost tempted to imagine they have got hold
of extracts from the description of Edinburgh prac-
tices in the first half of lust century in SMOLLETT'S
" Humphrey Clinker."
Some people seem to be nnteachable. In former
vi►itations of Cholera it was ascertained beyond a
doubt that the disease, if not confined to low, filthy,
ill-drained districts, commenced in such, rioted in
them in its greatest virulence, entrenched itself in
them as in citadels, whence it again and again issued
forth to decimate even more trimly kept and savoury
regions. When the disease began to abate, and for
• short time after it was over, an impres-
sion remained on men's minds, and there
was great talk of reforms in sanitary po-
lice. Hut years have rolled on; the impres-
sion has waxed faint; indolence and the pressure
of other pursuits have diverted attention from the
theme. The growth of quackery and jobbing has also
rendered many incredulous and lukewarm; and, as
we see at Newcastle, Cholera has come back, and
finds the same hotbeds of fifth to force it into rapid
growth, and gigantic stature, that it found before.
Cholera has returned. It is true that the symptoms
of the disease at Ne wcastle, as far as can be judged from
the vague and fragmentary accounts yet published,
seem to vary in some respects from those of the
typical Asiatic Cholera; but this is of little import-
ance. Tho epidemic is obviously of a virulent
type. The disease has, in•several cases, carried off its
victims in the course of a few hours, and is extending
its ravages. The very circumstance of the variation
of the symptoms from those which have been ob-
served elsewhere and on former occasions, would al-
most seem to strengthen the opinion that it is no
foreign contagion imported from other countries, but
a spontaneous growth of lethal disease, elicited by
similar atmospheric conditions from similar accumu-
lations of filth, with human beings wallowing in
them.

It is not our intention to excite or encourage weak
or unmanly fears. The plague can be arrested if
judiciously and courageously grappled with. But it
might also have been avoided altogether, had the
small beginnings in the amelioration of sanitary
police, made while the ravages of a Cholera visitation
were yet recent and vivid in men', minds, been
earnestly, perseveringly, and systematically carried
on till the present moment. The folly of the masses,
who have taken no care for these things, and the
criminal indolence and apathy of the more intelli-
gent, who ought to have roused and guided the
exertions of these inert masses, are solely and
entirely to blame for the pestilence which has
begun its "Devil's walk" through Great Britain.
Begun its walk ; for what has come over Newcastle
will undoubtedly come over all cur aggregations 11
of houses and human beings which hare been simi-
larly negligent of sanitary reform. Already we
bear of Cholera eases at Liverpool. Glasgow—whose
once pure and brimming Clyde appears now, from
debates in the Town Council, almost as bad as the
Thames—will be next on the list. And here in the
metropolis we may look for the advent of this un-
welcome guest with railway speed. Cases of diar-
rhcea or dysentery—more or less violent—have of
late been frequent, and our numerous Cholera-
breeding grounds will soon foster them into the full
stature of • Cholera at the least u malignant as
that at Newcastle.

A remark has been made by medical men, whose
attention has been specially directed on this subject,
that it would be easy beftrehand to make a map of
London, showing the districts where Cholera will
first appear and ravage most malignantly. Nay, it
is alleged that the surgeons of our hospitals can
predict with certainty the districts in their vicinity
from which patients will first and most frequently
be brought to them, and almost the per centage of
cases to the population, aad of fatal cases to the
whole that will occur in those regions. And yet, in
despite of such warning vaticinationr, the zeal in
behalf of sanitary reform has in the metropolis been
year after year growing more languid and weak,
until it has almost entirely fallen asleep. It may be
questioned whether London ii now one whit better
prepared to meet an inroad of Cholera than it was on
the occasion of the last visitation.

Of the numerous low-lying, undrained, uncleansed,
unventilated ganglions of noisome and squalid
lanes and courts, it is needless to speak. Any ono
who will but visit the narrow passages around
Clare-market, or any similar vicinity, may already
see the dim phantom of Cholera advancing through
the murky air. But the lamentable and criminal
state of metropolitan unpreparedness to avert
or neutralise such a visitation is not con-
fined to these resorts of poverty. Even in the most
splendid, the most seemingly airy and cleanly of our
aristocratiedistricts, the effluvia from the sewer traps.
when they are left open, are almost enough to poison
a passer-by. The fact that Cholera is busy at Newcaa.
tle is cause not for unmanly and unmanning panic,
but for prompt and intelligent action. It is scarcely
possible that the epidemic which has broken out with
such virulence in that town ehould not reach
London. Let every man in office, and every man
within his private sphere, as means and op-
portunities present themselves, be up and
doing, to put the million-peopled city in as
good a condition as possible to abide the
coming blow. The labour cannot be lost, even
though Cholera should pass us by on the present
occasion. The amenity and healthiness of the city
will be permanently increased by every rational
effort that is made. Let the good work of cleansing
be begun forthwith, and persevered in ; let a sharp
eye be kept on provision markets and shops, not
more to stop the vending of unwholesome food than
to prevent the accumulation of materials that taints
the atmosphere; let the condition of sowers, cess-
pools, waterpipee and cisterns be examined with
zealous care, and all possible means be taken for
guarding against the threatened pestilence.

Mn. WILLIAM CIIAMBERB.—We understand that
Mr. W. Chambers is about to proceed to North America,
for the purpose of writing a descriptive tour through the
Coited States and Canada, sad collEcting ateurate informa-
ti
th on respecting the condition and prospects of emigrants in
is, muds%

TILE HARVEST.