The Express.
London, England, 1853-09-19 00:00:00

BY ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH.

LIVERPOOL, MONDAY, 10.45 ex.
Wind W.N.W., moderate, and fine.
Arrived.—Sacheni, from New Orleans; Sir Charles
Napier and Alexander Johnson, from Cronstsdt ;
Titania, from Newfoundland; Robert, from Havre;
Hope, from Stettin.
Off—Ranee, from Calcutta.

Sailed.—Northampton, for New Orleans; Rap-
pahannock, for New York.
Wind W.N.W., fine.
Passed.— Vestalinden, from Quebec, for Hull;
Vantanto, from Itio Janeiro, for London; Queen of
the Isles, from Ceylon, for London; Hans Thorwald,
from Quebec, for London ; Neptunus, from Chicon-
tari, for London; Ceres, from Sierra Leone, for London;
Hebe, from Odessa, for London ; Twee Korneilsen,
from Sunez, for London ; Nelson, from New York, for
London; Concord, from Grenada, for London ; Pleiades,
from Swansea, for Sheerness; Omero, from London,
for Cardiff; Mary, from London, for Cardiff; Cain°,
from London, for Oporto; Queen Esther, from Lon-
don, for Genoa; Jos-en Ricardo, from London,
for Cadiz and Malaga; Lusitania, from London,
for Oporto; Barend, from New York, for Bremen;
Nora, from Longsund, fur Hoyle ; Princess
Hovel, from Plymouth, for Quebec.—August 26, lat.
45.20, lon. 53.46 W., all well, by the Johanna Maria,
Caroline Nesmith, of New York, bound to Panama;
lat. 36.17 N., lon. 34.30, August 19, by the Pegu,
from Moulmein.

DEAL, MoNDAT, 9.06 A.Y.

Tho whole of the homeward baund, anchored yes-
terday evening, sailed early this morning.

EXTENSIVE SEIZURE OF COUNTERFEIT COIN.--•
Hum, Sicruirmv.—This morning the magifitratcs have
been busily engaged in investigating the circumstances at-
tendant on an extensive seizure of counterfeit coin. It
seems that for the last three or four moatbs past the town
has been put to much inconvenience in consequence of the
large amount of counterfeit coin in circulation. The police
had hod some information that a notorious character of the
name of Robert Gill had had a small, heavy parcel
sent to bis house, addressed I,r a "Mr. Brown."
The parcel had come by the Great Northern Rail-
way from London, and the porter at the Hull
station was, therefore, requested to infirm the
police immediately in tke event of any similar occurrence
taking place. Accordingly, this morning, on the arrival of
a parcel about 9 inches in length by Gin width, and which
was rather weighty, and addressed to "Mr. Smith, to Do
called fur," information was given to the police, and a
detective was sent to the station and remained there until
between eight and nine o'clock, when Gill came for the
parcel. It was given to him, and he walked away, but was
followed and taken into custody. The parcel was then
opened, and found to contain GOO bad sbillino, wrapped
up in 60 parcels of 10s. each. The delinquent's house was
then searched, and a number of bad haif•sovcreigns were
found. lie refuses to give any account of the transaction,
and toss been remanded in order to communicate with tho
Mint.

Zia ervrel3o.

TO CORILF.VONDENTS.

...,...-
issold :Ms "Ti. Vs:we.," egustausg Use game eg•ging's
tg 'Abbasid entry Tuesday sal Friday west, 111 t:ISO
ter pit.

01111•1111,111. le 'Loaded fat " Tho Eams," Landow Efesing
mot ot lb* lack 111,, Ilwavoriowtrew, by Two o'clock wit LIN
day of pobliwkilua.

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
THIS DAv—M, me(, 31. 1: Afters...lN sh.
Twasurios—alormag. 31. Afterse." 11. Oa.

LONDON, MONDAr SEPTEMBER 19.

THE Government very properly have lost no time
in exercising the powers entrusted to them by the
Legislature to prevent the spread of Cholera. The
last Gazele contains an Order in Council, putting
in force the provisions of the Act of the 11th
and 12th of her MAJESTY, for " tho removal
of certain nuisances and the prevention of con-
tagious and epidemic diseases." The order is to
continue in operation for six months; and it is to be
hoped that the l'ress and the public generally will
not be slack to spur up those upon whom its execu-
tion deve,ves, should they show any symptoms of
laziness or incapacity.

The condition of tho dwellings of the poorer
classes is one of the very first points to which atten-
tion ought to be directed. Au intelligent medical
correspondent, whose letter we published a few days
ago, assigns, as a ground of hope that the pre.
sent will prove less fatal than former visitations of
Cholera, his belief that the poorer classes are now
better fed, clothed, and lodged than they used to be,
and therefore have more stamina to resist the attacks
of disease. We concur with him in the belief that
their diet and clothing are improved, thanks to the
progress of Free Trade. A return to the House of
Commons, just published, shows that in (l 6 Unions
of England and Wales the number of able•bodied
adults in receipt of relief on the Ist of July, 1853,
was less by 17,18'J than the number on the corre-
sponding day of 1852. This single fact speaks vo-
lumes for the improved and improving condition
of the poorer classes throughout the kingdom,
But we dissent from the opinion of our corre-
spondent that the poorer classes are now better
lodged than they used to be. Throughout England
and Wales they are at present worse lodged than
they ever have been, and the deterioration in their
house accommodation has been greater in the metro-
polis than in any other part of the kingdom. It
appears, from the returns of the last Census, that in
1841 there were throughout England and
Wales 34 persons to every 10 inhabited
houses, and that in 1851 there were 33 per-
sons to every 10 inhabited houses. We learn
from the same source, that in 1811 there were 185
inhabited houses to every 1,000 of the population,
and in 1831 only 183. The case of the London
Division is still stronger. In 1811, there were
74 persons to every 10 inhabited houses; in 1831
there were 77; in 1841 there were 133 inhabited
houses to every 1,0(10 inhabitants, and in 1831 only
130. Of this decrease in house accommodation

(proporionally to the number of inhabitants), and of
increased crowding of dwellings, the whole falls
upon the poorer classes. The building of houses
for the upper and middle classes has been
going on in the metropolis at a rate
with which the aegoaenting population can
barely keep pace. On the contrary, many
houses formerly occupied by the poorer daises have
been pulled down, and none built to replace them.
New Oxford-street and the surrounding improve-
meats have eradicated the old St. Giles's Rookery 1
root and branch ; the opening of the new street in
Westminster has in like manner sent an immense
number of homeless poor in search of roofs to cover
them ; Saffron hill and its vicinity have suffered the
same fate. These expatriated denizens of murky
and fetid courts and lanes have been obliged to be-
take themselves to distri2ts and dwellings in every
other respect as unsavoury as their old ones, and
which, moreover,were already peopled to overflowing
before the new colonists were squeezed into them.

Nor is this aIL In a collection of papers received
by the Board of Health, and published by order of
the House of Commons, "exhibiting the operation of
the Common Lodging Houses Act," we find Mr.
EDWIN S. RICKMAN writing on the 18th of January,
1833: "It is impossible to enter one of the regis-
tered houses without being struck with the manifest
improvement effected in their condition; the strict
and salutary limitation of numbers in the occupants,
&c." It is good that these resorts of the wandering
poor should be thus improved, inasmuch as
the chances of the spread of contagious
disease are thus diminished. But though the num-
bers of occupants of these houses are diminished,
the numbers of applicants for admission are not
diminished. What has become of the rejected ?
They have been thrown back upon the private
dwellings, the overcrowded condition of which had
already been aggravated by the demolition of whole
districts of the metropolis formerly inhabited by the
poor.

_
The inadequacy of the Common Lodging Houses
Act to improve the dwelling houses of an immense
majority of the poorer classes is indicated in more
than one of the papers to which we have been refer-
ring. Mr. SQUIRE, surgeon to the Marylebone work-
house and infirmary writes on the 26th of April
last : " Could its operation be farther extended to
the lower class of dwelling-houses, many serious
evils may be remedied." But, as " limitation of the
number of occupants" in each house would be one of
the results, where are those who would in conse-
quence of such an extension of the act be turned out
to find houses.

&bides, the Common Lodging Houses Act leaves
untouched many of the most deadly sources of
disease. Mr. RENDLE, surgeon to the St. George-
the-Martyr District (where HICICIE died eight days
ago of Asiatic cholera), says on the 19th of last
April : " How far these regulations (of the Aet)
will continue to succeed, time only will declare. 1
have a very strong opinion that the deficiency of
water and its bad quality, the presence of the
festering dung-heaps, bad drainage, and very bad
forms of houses as well as their localities, may, after
all, cause these dreadful but preventible diseases to
come again, as they have done, like pestilence, de-
stroying the poor, and spreading to the richer
classes." And on the 29th of the same month, Mr.
BABBAGE, medical officer of the same district, after
stating his opinion that the spread of infectious or
contagious diseases has been much diminished and
checked by the Act, adds : " I regret much that the
police have not the power to order the removal of
nuisances, and compel the owners of filthy and ruined
houses to cleanse, and properly repair the same, and
to supply the crowded alleys and coarts of Kent-
street and thu Borough with a sufficiency of pure and
wholesome water ; I am sure it would be a great
boon to the inhabitants, and the means of preventing
much disease among the poor."

The fact that nothing (or next to nothing) has
been done to cleanse, drain, and supply with good
water, the districts inhabited by the poor—and that
the rooting out of whole districts of dwellings
occupied by the poor, without even asking
where their inmates were to find refuge,
has increased the overcrowding of these
spalid courts, lanes, and alleys, is a reproach
b the zactropolis. We Lave been opening up stately

streets, erecting splendid (if not tasteful) public edi-
fices fur the accommodation of the wealthy and the

amusement (it may be) of al:, and for the admiration of
strangers ; but we have taken little care how the poor
are housed. la so far as " metropolitan improvements"
arc concerned, we have literally been whitening the
outside of a great sepulchre which we bare left full
of festering human rottenness. The lack of charity
herein displayed is not greater than the folly, for all
these wretched receptacles of disease which lie dove-
tailed among our splendid districts—as certainly as
valleys lie between aceliviies in a mountain region—
are so many sources where pestilence is from
time to time engendered and disseminated among
wealthier neighbours.
We have nothing to say against new Legislative
Palaces or National Galleries—nothing against
stately and picturesque streets; but while we care
for these things, let us not neglect the weightier mat-
ters of the law. To build palaces, and open magnifi-
cent thoroughfares, while the poor are squeezed into
narrower limits, and the whole city denied good
thorough drainage and water supply, is like a tawdry
drab, trying to cover torn and soiled under-garments
with a silken gown. The truly magnificent city is not
that which, like old Rome, is built over a substantial
and sufficient Cloaca maxima. Let us begin our im-
provements at the foundation; let us care for the
sanitary condition of all classes. As yet our amateur
philanthropists have made only trifling and timid
experiments in this vast field ; while official quackery
and jobbing have done little more than throw discredit
on the good work.