The Express.
London, England, 1866-11-14 00:00:00

THE HEALTH OF LONDON.

It appears from the return issued by authority
of the Registrar-General that in the week that ended on
Saturday, N ovemberlo, the births registered in London and
twelve other large towns of the United Kingdom
were 4,427 ; the deaths registered 3,000. The annual rate
of mortality was 26 per 1,000 persons living. In Loudon
the births of 1.132 boys and 1,050 girls' in all 2,212 chil-
dren, were registered in the week. In the corresponding
week. of ten years, 1856-G5, the average number, corrected
for increase of population, ens 2,015. The deaths regis-
tered in London during the week were 1,361. It was the
forty-fifth week of the year ; and the average number of
deaths for that week is, with a correction for increase of
population, 1,378. The deaths in the present return are
leas by 17 than the estimated 'umber. Sixty-seven deaths
from cholera and 33 deaths from diarrhea were registend
in the week. The death from the two forms of disease in
the last five weeks were 254, 199, 144, 101, and 100.
Seven deaths from cholera occurred last week in
Whitechapel, and 13 in Greenwich, Deptford,
and Woolwich. A large number of the deaths
from cholera have latterly occurred in Woolwich,
and the outbreak is described in the appendix. In refe-
rence to the statement that cases of cholera had occurred
in Charlton without any premonitory diarrhea, Dr. Mac-
Loughlin has addressed a letter to the liegietrar-General
upholding the doctrine which be advocated so forcibly in
1854, to the effect that cholera is invariably preceded by
premonitory diarrines. Great credit is due to him for the
labour which he bestowed in inquiring into the cases of
1535, and contributing to establish the doctrine now pre-
valent. Eight persons were killed during the week by
vehicles in the streets. A carpenter aged 58 yeah died in
the Westminster Hospital on the Ist November from
hydrophobia. A female hawker, aged 21 years, died 31st
October in St. Gibs Workhouse from pneumonia, accele-
rated by want and neglect.
The annual rate of mortality last week was Z) per 1,000
in London, 37 in Edinburgh, and 33 in Dublin ; 2'.! in
Bristol, Zi in Birmingham, 29 in Liverpool, 27 in Man-
chester, 24 in Salford, 23 in Sheffield, 25 in Leeds, 19 in
Hull, 37 in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and 29 in Glasgow. The
rate in Vienna was 41 per 100u.during the week ending the
27th ult., when the temperature was 12.0 degs. Fahrenheit
lower than in the same week in London, where the rate
was 24 per 1,000.
Cholera, although slowly declining in those of our large
towns it b.is visited, has yet far from disapeared. The
deaths referred last week to this disease inn he following
. towns, independently of the 67 cases in London, were, re-
. spectively, Dublin 82, Etlinbuigh NI, and Liverpool 14.
; In Newcastle, however, the threatened outbreak of cholera
appeals to have been checked, and the fatal oases reported
in the other large towns furnishing weekly returns are but
, few. In Vienna during the week ending 27th ult., of the
439 deaths 135 were referred to cholera • the numbers in
the previous four weeks having been 072, i 53, 521, and 304.

-
THE REV. THOMAS BINNET ON THE RITUALISTIC
MovEmEirx.—On Sunday morning a sermon was preached
by the Rev. Thomas Binney, at the Fish-street-hill Chapel,
on the ritualistic inoveineut, which the preacher charm-
terised as the great religious question of the day. Mr.
Kinney selected for bis text the 13th verse of the 17th
chapter of Judges : "Now know I that the Lord
In willthe
do
me good, seeing that I have a Levite to my priest."
course of an amdysia of the subject he drew the inference
that ritualistic practices were not sanctioned by direct
Scriptural authority, nor yet by analogy. Not only the teach-
ing of Christ, but the example and writings of his apostles,
were all against the use of ceremonies and ordinances, and
it was a marked characteristic of Christ's ministry that
lie systematically opposed devotion to ceremonial,
and dwelt always on the supremacy of the spiritual and
moral, and that he said things again and again which were
calculated to shock, and did shock, the observers of
ritualistic forms. Still be admitted that ritualism was not
without its brighter points, and it had awakened a spirit
of improvement in the construction of religious edifices
which had been followed in other communities. After
passing a high eulogium on the earnestness, benevolence,
and devotion of the ritualists, as a body, Mr. Binney con-
cluded with these emphatic words:—" Nothing can recon-
cile the food sense of the religious people of this country
to the ministrations of those who, on the one hand, turn
God's worship into a show of dresses, sowers, banner.,
and gaudy trumpery ; and on the other make such irre-
verent and impious claims as, if generally admitted, would
bring back the worst days of papal supremacy, and lay the
whole world prostrate under the heels of the prisak"