The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1853-12-31 00:00:00

nected with emigrant vessels, are the scape-goats
upon whom this High Priest of Journalism would
fain cast the awful responsibility of the emigrants'
misery, disease, and death. "A ship," observes
the Times, "may leave the land without any indi-
" cations of disease, having satisfied the vigilance of
" the inspectors under the Passengers' Act, and
" complied literally with the stinted and niggardly
" provisions of that most narrow and paltry mea-
" sure; but after a few days have been spent in
" the pestilential atmosphere created by the fes-
" tering mass of squalid humanity imprisoned
" between her damp and steaming decks, the
" scourge that every day more and more constantly
I" waits upon the uncleanness of crowded, un-
washed, and unventilated dwellings, bursts out,
" and to the miseries of filth, of foul air, of
crowding, of darkness, and ceaseless din, is
" added the dreadful presence of cholera. Amid
hundreds of men, women, and children, dressing,
" undressing, washing, quarrelling, fighting, cook
" ing, and drinking, are heard the groans and
" screams of a patient in the last agonies of this
plague. This is no imaginary picture; so con-
stant a concomitant has this disease become of
" the voyage of an emigrant-ship to America—so
;" uniformly does it break out after the first three
" or four days at sea, and so relentless are its
" ravages, that it has come to be a received theory
" among persons who feel the necessity of ac-
counting for the fact in a manner as little
disgraceful as possible to the proprietors of these
".floating charnel - houses, that the cholera is
domesticated in certain degrees of latitude and
"longitude, that the atmosphere which broods
" over the waters of the Atlantic is loaded with
". death, and that between us and America is raised
" a barrier more formidable than dretded \finds
r, and waves- —a barrier of pestilence and infection.
1" It is no time to make theories, for the facts
" multiply fast upon our hands, and demand an
" explanation of some sort."
No time to make theories, forsooth 1 so that
,an explanation of some sort is better than none
at all. But—

" Leas dang'rous is th' offence
To tire our patience than mislead our sense."

The argument here adduced is compleetly over-
thrown 'by the fact; that so far from malignant
disease continuing to augment, after it makes its
first appearance, until the vessel reaches port,—
which would infallibly be the case if the causes
assigned by the Times be correct—it invariably
diminishes in intensity and extent after the lapse
of a few days. The testimony of the physician to
the ship Marathon will be• regarded as conclusive
on this point. The :''arathon sailed from this port
with 531 emigrants on the 22d September, and after
a protracted voyage of fifty days—a most unusual
circumstance—arrived at New York on the 29th
ult. The mortality on board this vessel was very
great, amounting to 64 deaths. The following is
the narrative of the medical officer :—" Ship Ma-
" rathon left her dock at Liverpool, September 22,
" and sailed from the river on the 27th, with very
" stormy weather. No sickness occurred on board
" untiLOctober 10, when cholera broke out on the
" lower deck. The first case was an Irishman ;he
" was seized at eight o'clock in the morning with
" cramps, coldness of extremities, excessive purging
" and vomiting, and pulse almost imperceptible.
"He died at twelve o'clock the same day. By
" Monday October 17, the disease had materially
" decreased in virulence—so far, that only three
"or four died per day. On the 27th it again raged
" fiercely, when the number of deaths were an
" average of five per day. From November 4 until
" the arrival in port, no deaths from cholera oc-
" curred. During that time, however, several
" children died of diarrhoea. At the period when
" the disease was at its height, there was an average
"of 15 sick per clay, The total ilun*er of ca....,-
" was 91, of which 64 terminated faStally. Cases
" were from four hours to a week, from the time
" of infection, before terminating fatally."

Hence we find that the disease broke out a week
after the vessel left the Mersey, but ceased to be
fatal after the expiration of a fortnight—a circum-
stance not at all probable if the accommodation,
diet, and sanitary condition of the numerous emi
grants were disregarded. If the internal condition
of emigrant ships be such as the Times charac-
terises as " noisome dungeons, airless and light-
" less, still reeking from the ineradicable stench
" left by the emigrants of the last voyage, which
"no fumigation can remove, no perfume over-
" come." If " cleanliness is impossible," and "no
" attempt is made to purify the reeking dens,"
why we should have had a far more melancholy
tale to tell. Contagion would have continued to
spread—mortality to increase --- until scarcely a
survivor would have been left to describe the hor-
rors of a passage across the Atlantic.
The New York Courier and Inquirer also nega•
tives the arguments of the Times. It observes :--
" It will bc asked, of cholera, why is it confined to
," emigrants who suffer from imperfect ventilation,
" filthy and crowded decks, and bad food? The
" reply is simply that such is not the fact. The
" ship Constellation is, as we -have already men-
" tioned, one of the best arranged, and best
" managed ships that sail out of this port. She
" was not over crowded. Her second cabin is en-
" tirely isolated from the steerage, roomy, airy,
" and with good state rooms; yet .in that cabin
" there were four deaths, Other cases might be
"mentioned where 'the officers, their wives, and
"-the, grew have suffered from attacks of cholera,
" and in some instances died. If the disease be
" cholera, and it is impossible to doubt it, it does
not result from the imperfect sanitary condition
" of the ships."
Other causes besides those alleged by the
London Oracle must be sought for-as occasioning
this extensive mortality. And we are strongly in-
clined to favour the opinion which the Times sneers
at, but which, nevertheless prevails in scientific
quarters, is favoured by American physicians
of • distinction, and advocated by intelligent
American journalists, that the mysterious agency
of the disease, vomited forth from the foul dens of
India, is now careering over the broad bosom of
the Atlantic ocean.

•The day after the arrival of the Marathon, seven
emigrant ships __reached New York, five being from
this port, conveying altogether 2,416 passengers,
out of which immense number, 'only seven died
during the voyage, viz., four on board the Man-
hattan, one on the •Princoton, and two on the
Neptune. Thee first two sailed from Liverpool
with a complement of 869 emigrants. On board
the Cambria, Universe, and jos. Walker, conveying
respectively 349, 631, and 443 passengers, .not a
solitary death 'Occurred !' These,' we need hardly
inform our readers, are all Liverpool vessels. And
yet the Times will rant, and rave, and vituperate,
and taunt :Its abOut our "sordid and heartless
avarice," in extracting "booty - from . helpless
"poverty and ignorance !" 'Tie really too
bad to fulminate such accusations. It. shows ill
taste and worse perception:' .The Hew York Times
was induced to indulge somewhat also in the
imaginative, and spoke of the filthy condition of a
certain emigrant vessel—but in the same 'journal
the statement was subsequently contradicted on
affidmit, • ;

Amongst some Southerns there seems to be a
great prejudice against anythingbearing aLiverpool

Lem,)

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