The Sun.
London, England, 1864-06-03 00:00:00

assassins in their den, when the reins of power were
firmly grasped, and foreigners found that our first
consideration was the protection of our own rights
and the vindication of our national honour. Our
present GoNernment has made itself despicab'o by
its abandonment of the weak; contemptible by its
subserviency to the strong; and utterly unstatesman-
like, through the exhibition of prejudices and the
strong partiality that marks their conduct. Every.
where alike do we trace the evil influences, and
deplore the fatal consequences of such an unwise
and dangerous course; and it will be sn lamented;
in after days, when the busy generation around us
have passed away and given place to another, who
will turn with shame from this unworthy episode
that darkens and disgraces the glcrious annals of
English history.

One of the least disputed branches of modern
I science is that 'military knowledge in which our
generation has made such surprising advances.
Happily since the questions to whose solution it
addresses itself are of such incalculable importance
to the well-being of the human race, there is very
little doubt or uncertainty about what we know.
The laws of health are by no means entirely within
our ken. We wonder if physiology have not as yet
fully unfolded themselves to the most searching or
the most intelligent student, but enough has been
acquired to enable us, in many cases, to substitute
health for disease, ease for pain, and prosperity for
wretchedness, by a careful and faithful observance
of nature's immutable laws. Fortunately, too, the
main principles which now regulate our sanitary
legislation do not come within the range of those
vexed questions whereon " doctors disagree." We
do not find one man of science telling us that fresh
air is absolutely indispensable to the possession of
health, and another asserting it to be injurious;
we are not told by one chemist that pure water is a
necessary of life, while his rival informs us that it
is more wholesome when deteriorated; neither Is
there in any dispute as to the beneficial effect of
exercise and temperance ; of rest for the feeble and
labour for the strong. The importance of drainage,
too, occupies a prominent place in all saditory dis-
cussions and regulations, and certainly no theorist
or philosopher could be found bold enough or eccen-
tric enough to contradict the commonly received
notion on this point. But while all sides are thus
agreed upon the laws which should as far as possible
regulate all matters connected with the public health,
Englishmen are ruling overa country where they are
not only totally disregarded, but where ever y ag
gravation of such neglect which can be occasioned
by dirty habits, pestilential customs, and a tropical
climate help to increase the evil. The result is a
melancholy but convincing proof of the wisdom
of the men of science, and a startling evi-
dence of the consequence of such an outrage on
nature's laws in a pestilence that decimates the
population. A great part of Lower Bengal has
been, we were told, for years afflicted with a myste-
rious pestilence. Mysterious it may be in its
character and its symptoms, in the choice of its
victims or the course of its progress, but mysterious
in its origin it cannot certainly be called. When
we read of a mud hut surrounded with jungle
through which the fresh air never circulates, with
a hole scraped near to contain all refuse matter;
with a tank in the vicinity in whose slimy and
stagnant waters people bathe, wash their clothes,
and drink, we need not call any pestilence myste-
rious except as to the form it may assume. When
we add that the ryot who spends his life in the
manner described, is buried, when his time comes,
in a surface hole near one of these tanks, to be most
probably disinterred by wild beasts, we need not
wonder, though we may shudder, at thy statistics
of the mortality caused by the plague. According
to the official report, the graves which are made by

the aMahomedans, "are seldom made sufficiently
deep to insure the people against poisonous exhala-

Lions from the interred bodies. The bodies lie so
near the surface that sometimes, as is well known,
they are disinterred by jackals and dogs." The
Hindoos, as is well known, court pestilence in an-

other manner by throwing their dead into the
sacred river, to be washed up and down with the
tide, an appalling spectacle. After all these authen-
ticated details, need we marvel that a disease has
broken out of so deadly a character that medical

skill is perplexed, and the resources of science
baffled; that it has gone on increasing in intensity
and in extent, until it is calculated that 36 per
cent. of the dwellers in the infected part have fat•
len from it. Within six years, in one locality, 12,000
inhabitants perished out of a population of 18,000.

Llrge villages, which previously reckoned their
thousands, can now scarcely number hundreds; whole
streets are deserted, and places where 30 or 40 persons
resided are left perhaps with one solitary dweller.
The disease is sudden in ita attack, and clings to its
victim with fatal pertinacity. But the form or
manner of its attack is of comparatively little con-

sequence. What concerns us to know is how far

it lies in our power to stop its ravages by altering
the state of things which gave rice to it. It may be
true that India presents terrible obstacles to sani-
tary reform, from the prejudice and indolence of
the people ; but how comes it that we have ruled
with unquestioned sway for so many years without

more progress having been made in these important
respects. Indians have learned our language, our

sciences; have studied our abstruse speculations,

and entered with interest into intricate controver

sin, How is it, then, that they have not acquired a

further insight into the laws of health ? We fear

the culpable indifference of Englishmen to all

matters concerning the interest of Indians alone

has much to do with this unhappy ignorance, and

yet the condition of public health can never be really
a matter of no conezrn to any part of the popula-
tion. The fever or the pestilence bred in a Bengal

village may darken the City of Palaces ; the malaria
produced by neglected drainage and accumulations

of decaying matter may suit the wealthy Anglo=
Indian, as well as the humble Hindoo. It will, no

doubt, be a work of time and cant ion to uproot
those customs connected with native religious pre-
judice; but something can surely be done at once.

The religion of neither Hindoo nor Mahomedan

forbids cleanliness ; let us see, then, whether

something cannot be done by the erection of public
baths and washhouses adapted to the country. If

it be objected that there would not be a sufficient
water supply for such an undertaking, then there
is at once a work for the Government to undertake

with which national prujudice and native reli-

gious have nothing to do. It will be time

enough to say the Ilindoo is incorrigible
when we have given him the means of clean-
liness. Then, with regard to the disposal of the dead,
in waiting for the dearer light of a Christian civi-
lisation, let us do what can be done to mitigate the
evil. We are not reduced to a choice between
pestilence and revolution unless we choose to make
it so. Those whose religion allows them to bury
their dead should be assisted or instructed to dig
the graves of a proper depth, and to defend them
against the attack of wild beasts. Public officers
might bo appointed to supervise this department.
The Hindoos, who must choose between burning
the bodies or throwing them in the Ganges present

a greater difficulty, but it has been already sug-
gested that by the erection of places for increma-
tion at a pale distance from huplaa habitation the