The Sun.
London, England, 1855-03-17 00:00:00

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LONDON, SATURDAY, MARCH 17, 1855.

The Right Honourable Baronet the Member
for Marylebone is entitled to much credit for the
patient industry and judicious consideration be-
stowed on the important and complicated subject
which he last night brought forward in the House
of Commons. By his temperate and simple, but
at the same time lucid statement, he established
the existence of flagrant abuses and crying
grievances, imperatively demanding immediate
legislation. The most thorough-going advocate
of local jobbery could not have denied the neces-
sity for remedial measures to abate the existing
nuisances, and prevent the clashing of jurisdic-
tions that occasioned everything to be attempted
in the worst and most extravagant manner, the
different Boards being engaged rather in counter-
acting the efforts of their neighbours than in
removing the universally acknowledged evils.
Where friendly co-operation was essen-
tial to the welfare and comfort of the
inhabitants, the petty potentates—generally
self-elected—vrere vindicating their own preten-
sions to dignity by snubbing and quarrelling with
those who had the management of contiguous dis-
tricts. The number of cases in which collisions
might arise may be judged from the example of
the Strand, where the 1336 yards from No. 1 to
Temple Bar, about three-quarters of a mile, was
divided into no less than nine divisions ! with nine
distinct governing bodies. Generally speaking,
" the boundaries of the different jurisdictions all
through Westminster ran through the centre of
the streets ; so that, while one side of the street
was paved by one authority, the opposite side was
paved by another." Can we wonder at the in-
terminable dissensions of almost daily occurrence,
or at the absence of any fixed plans as to the
paving and repairing of thoroughfares. The gen-
tlemen who determined that " one side of the
street should be watered in the morning,
and the other in the evening, so that both
sides were covered with dust during the whole
summer's day," were not singular in their
inconsistency. We venture to assert that
many examples might be cited of equally ridi-
culous perversity, by which the money of the
inhabitants was squandered, while their interests
were disregarded. Such a state of things could
not be suffered to continue. Indeed it is only
astonishing that it was allowed to last so long.

Raving decided that legislation was indispen-
sable,o:B._the next question was, What should be
considered as the metropolis ? What districts
should be included
within the' operation of the
new law? After duly weighing the comparative
advantages and disadvantages_Lein
of the district sub-
ject to the coal tax,
b
having St. Paul's
as its ncg
ta circle of 40 miles,
a circle of 3° °f the metropo-
litan police district,
miles, with
Charing-cross for its centre, and um
Registrar-
General's district, which has recenuY been used
for the census and other statistical objeet9, d
extending from Hampstead in the
rio'rtliant -
o
Wandsworth in the south, and from Stepney in
the east to Chelsea in the west—the Right
Hon. Baronet has zelected the last mentioned,
probably from the convenient divisions into which
it is already divided, and which will save much
trouble and delay in fixing tha new quasi munici-
pal districts.

Three principles have been chiefly regarded by
the President of the Board of Health in framing
the measure so ably brought forward.
Ist. That there should be a uniform system of
local self-government.

2d. That there should be a consolidation of
many of the beards. And

3d. That those boards should be elected by the

ratepayers.

There is, however, to be no interference with
ecclesiastical affairs, nor with the powers of the

Poor-law Board, exclusive of the City of London,
which is to be dealt with by a separate bill.
There are to be 36 District Boards, to which the
different parishes will send a certain number of
representatives, proportioned to their relative
populations, so that to the District Board they
would stand in the same relation as wards to
municipalities in provincial towns. The Boards
thus constituted would have important duties to
discharge. They would have the power of " cleans-
ing, lighting, paving, watering, and generally of
discharging the duties of surveyors of highways ;"
would also have control over the local sewers,
and the powers conferred by the Health of Towns
Act on local boards of health.

Tn addition, there is to be a Central Board,l
consisting of 42 elected members—selected bythe
different districts, the City of London sending two
representatives and a chairman, to be one
selected by the Secretary cf State, from
three persons chosen by the Metropolitan
Board. This board would have the main sewers
under their control, and have power to make in-
tercepting sewers on each side of the Thames, and
to levy rates for general improvements. The
Treasury may advance the sums necessary, to be
re-paid, principal and interest, within 50 years.
Such are the leading features of the great plan
last night introduced by Sir BENJAMIN HALL ;
and without prematurely deciding on its details,
we venture to say that it will be not only a great
improvement on that now in operation, but that
it is well calculated to effect the important object
for which it, is designed.

Upwards of one hundred thousand human be-
ings are annually perishing in England from pre-
ventable disease, while in Scotland and Ireland
the preventable mortality is even greater in pro-
portion ! What an appalling amount of needless
suffering and misery is suggested by these words.
What a waste of national power ! Never, per-
haps, did Great Britain need strong men more
than at the present time, and yet we have to
record facts like these. Twenty or thirty thou-
sand men are lest unnecessarily in the Crimea,
and the nation is in a blaze of righteous indigna-
tion. Yet, year by year, there perishes in our
midst a force numerically large enough to man our
fleets, recruit our armies, replenish our police force,
and go far to strengthen and consolidate our distant
colonies, and hardly any one seems to be aware of it.
Slaughter in our streets, slaughter in our courts,
slaughter in our alleys, slaughter in our villages,
slaughter everywhere, with mourning, lamenta-
tion, and woe in its train ; and when the country
is told of the fact, it is listened to with less inte-
rest than would be excited by a single murder or
an old woman's tale of dances by an unearthly
visitor on the snows of Devonshire.

There is something really astounding in the
apathy of the public in relation to this great life-
and-death question—something totally inexpli-
cable save on the supposition that they don't be-
lieve what sanitary reformers tell them. They
don't believe that typhus and cholera, and a host
of other epidemic diseases, can be prevented.
They look on the workers in the cause of health
as so many well-meaning but weak-headed enthu-
siasts, entitled to some degree of respect, but to a
great deal more pity. We wish their estimate
were correct, and that there was no reason
to believe that mere than a million of our
fellow-subjects are sacrificed every ten years,
as Mr. HOPLEY tells us, through culpable
neglect. Let any one, however, who may think
the statements of this gentleman exaggerated
take the trouble to compare them with
the three or four last volumes of the Registrar
General's Annual Reports, or with half a dozen
of the various Blue-Books on the subject, issued
from the Health-office during the last two or threo
years, and we venture to say they will find ample
reason for altering their belief. They will then
find that the figures put forth by Mr. HOPLEY,
including others even mere startling, have been
so carefully compiled and calculated as to preclude
the possibility of the word exaggeration being
fairly applied to them.

In a paper drawn up a year or two ago, under
the supervision, we believe, of the General Board
of Health, and entitled " Comparison of the Cost
of Life by War and Pestilence and Civil Vio-
lence," theaverage annual amount of deaths in Eng-
land from preventible diseases--i. e., from "typhus
and other zymotic diseases," is estimated at one
hundred and fifteen thousand 1 The calculations
on the subject are arrived at by comparing the
mortality of healthy districts with the mortality
of other districts rendered unhealthy by known
and removable causes ; but, startling as they are,
it must not be supposed they perfectly represent
the case, for it cannot be doubted that even the
healthiest districts are not so healthy as they may
be made. L2,t it_be granted that the death roll
for the whole country can be reduced as low as in
some of the "model dwellings," and it must be
admitted that the preventable mortality is far
from being adequately represented by the above
figures.

How long, it may well be asked, is this fright-
ful state of things to continuo ? How long is
society to go on living " contrary to the dictates
of reason ?" How long are the poor to be deci-
mated by preventable diseases ? How long are
entire communities to be compelled day by day to
imbibe more or less of poison which, though it
may not seem to occasion positive disease, must
render the individual less physically, intellec-
tually, and morally capable than lie should be—
less strong to resist morbific influences, and, there-
fore, more liable to be attacked, not only by any
prevailing epidemic, but also by every other kind
of sickness and disease ? How long, we ask, is
all this to last ? So long, we reply, as the many
are indifferent to their own interests ; or, rather,
so long as so little interest is taken by the few
to teach them what these are. Let the many
but realise the true state of things as regards dis- '
ease and mortality, and it will go hard if a vast
change is not speedily effected. Once lot but a
grand popular opinion be formed upon the
"solemnly momentous questions of Health and
Education," and interested clamour and opposi-
tion will cease, and the country will be blessed
with some Legislative enactment which will give
long life to the people.