The Express.
London, England, 1853-09-17 00:00:00

TO TEE EDITOR OP TEE EXPRESS.

SI tt,—Now that the Cholera has visited us once more,
it is quite refreshing to see the energy which certain
persons are exhibiting, in taking preventive mea-
sures. The celebrated individual who placed the
stable under the protection of locks, bolts, and bars
when the steed was stolen, is the only historical
character who seems worthy to be considered as a
type of the,c enthusiastic advocates of prevention,
now prevention may be too late. The great Cholera
wave has broken in upon us, and the Mrs. Partiny-
tons are valiantly opposing with brooms, what
ought to have been kept out by embankments and
breakwaters.

The Town Council of Newcastle may be taken as
a specimen of a large class of alarmed penitents, who,
now the evil has come upon them, are preterna-
turally active in taking measures which, if adopted
a couple of years ago, might have kept the evil away.
' Now that the deaths are at the rate of fifty-eight a
day—now that, to use the words of the report, " the
mourning coaches and hearses are never off the
streets, and the melancholy spectacle of the palled
coffin, minus the customary procession of mourners,
has become an everyday occurrence"—now it is
that the civic functionaries listen with respect to the
Inspector of the Board of Health, who states his
views to them " with great freedom and force as to
the necessity of immediately carrying into effect the
provisions of the Common Lodging•house Act, for
which he made out a case of crying necessity from
his recent inspection of the rooms in Sand-
gate." We learn without surprise that, with the
consciousness that the air they were breathing might
be poison, with the knowledge that the pestilence
was striking down victims hour after hour, " these
remarks told well upon the meeting, and that they
at once, with remarkable and praiseworthy unani-
mity, voted 5001., and appointed a Committee to re-
gulate the disposal of the money." That men with
death staring them in the face should be unanimous
in adopting vigorous measures to keep him off, is
certcinly not very "remarkable;' and it is difficult
to see the propriety of coupling this conduct with the
epithet "praiseworthy." What is very remarkable
is, that these very men, as well as the members of
every corporate body in the kingdom, have known
any time, this last four years, at least, that if
the very precautions they are now adopting were
taken, they might sleep easily although Cholera was
raging in the next town, and yet have not acted upon
that knowledge. Sanitary Commissioners, Officers
of Health, and other authorities, havo been calling
oat to the Newcastle Town Council with an iteration
which nothing but its importance could excuse:—
"Theme is a monster abroad, who, if he settles
amongst you, will gorge himself with the lives of
hundreds of your townspeople. He will not come,
however, unless he is invited. He needs temptation.
He must be attracted by the delicate effluvia of
undrained streets, and decomposition of animal
matter. He loves the heated air that reeks up from
lung lines of houses, where, at night, human beings
are battened down as thick as sheep in their pens,
awaiting slaughter. If you persist in holding out
these tempting baits he will visit your town. If
you remove them he will pass you by as unworthy
of his appetite." All this the Town Council of
Newcastle knew well enough. There was one door
by which Death might enter. " Shut it," cried the
Sanitarian'. " You are alarmists," replied the
Council. They get up, however, one fine morning,
and find Death amongst them; and then, in fear
and tribulation, subscribe 5001. for shutting the
door.

But the example of Newcastle must not be used
invidiously. The Town Council in that town does not
differ much from the town councils or corporations of
other towns, in its appreciation of the value of sani-
tary precautions. Everywhere we bear of those very
measures being adopted now which ought to have
been adopted years back. We read that at Darling-
ton the local Board of Health "is on the alert." This
is cheering. Let us see in what the alertness con-
sists. A personal inspection of all the alleys and
courts in the town has been made, and " the in-
spectors have found an abundance of nuisances likely
to be prejudicial to health and to aid in deve-
loping any epidemic disease." How is it
that our alert inspectors suffered an abun-
dance of nuisances to remain until the
disease came ? Here is the " Epidemical Disease"
and here is the plentiful aliment carefully stored up
by the town of Darlington as its food, as the proper
stuff to aid in its development. Read a part of the
delicate bill of fare that is to tempt "Epidemical
Disease" to take up his abode in Darlington, and
to serve to assist in his development—" pigsties in
close and confined places, surcharged ashpits and
dunghills, with, in some places, pigs sporting about
amongst the garbage and refuse in the dunghills."
Where were the alert inspectors, while this small
fraction of the " abuudanee of nuisances " of which
Darlington boasts, grew up. It may be consolatory to
know that prompt orders are given for the abate-
ment of the nuisances," but it would have been much
more so to know there were no nuisances to abate.
Newcastle and Darlington have been quoted simply
because they are tolerably correct exponents of the
state of feeling in the towns of the Empire with re-
spect to sanitary questions. They are no better and
no worse than other towns or cities. The state of
London, for instance, is not at all exaggerated in the
following extract from the letter printed yesterday.
Speaking of one of our greatest nuisances, he says :

Now whet has our legislature done ? It has committed
the management or this to a board who are spreading this
night soil through the district. Formerly this wu removed
by cuts in the night. Now tho commissioners order the

receptacles-101.ra it was formerly retained, without nui-
sance n itil t>o proper time for emptying—to be filled up,
and the so.' all washed into the sewers and drains. There it
remains stagkant, with a large surface expksed, or creeps
along sluggishly, affording time to diffuse all the pouible
amount of effluvia which finds it way through the gratings
which annoy u at every step in the public streets, and