The Sun.
London, England, 1864-12-10 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES,—The unhealthiness of London during the
past year has scarcely attracted so much attention as
it deserves. Week after week and month after month
the Bills of Mortality have been far above the ave-
rage, and if the demand for a complete decennial
epitome should be satisfied at the end of the current
decade, the quota of 1864 will materially raise the
mean result. If we take the last week only, we find
that 1,624 deaths were registered, being in excess
of the estimated number by 86, and still more in
excess of the normal rate in mild winter weather.
This return, however, unsatisfactory as it is, is an
improvement on the return for the week before, and
far more favourable than that for the week ending
on November 19, when 1,742 deaths were registered.
This unusual mortality, whatever be its general
cause, appears to be distributed with tolerable uni-
formity among the various types of disease. Zymotio
disorders are al ways rife at this time of year, and
among these scarlatina and typhus maintain their
bad preeminence ; but no particular epidemic of
fever or smallpox is just now raging in the_metro.
p
olls, and a decided increase of bronchitis among
elderly and middle-aged persons is perhaps the only
abnormal feature of the Registrar-General's Report.
Such being the case, we naturally look to what may
be called the permanent conditions of public health
for the explanation of a phenomenon which does not
seem to depend on any special visitation. The first
thing that will occur to every ene in connexion with
the unhealthiness of the last 12 months is its extreme
dryness. Such a drought as that of the season
through which we have just passed is almost
beyond the experience of any living person, and
in many parts of the country the failure of the
water supply has occasioned the greatest distress.
It is true that the reservoirs of the metropolitan
water companies held out beyond expectation, but
a thundershower flushes the sewers more liberally
than any company will ever be induced to do,
and many sources of impurity are inaccessible
to anything but rain. It is impossible not to
suspect that deficient moisture has had some-
thing to do with the prevalence of disease, espe•
chilly when we contrast the year 1864 with the year
1860. That summer was as wet as this has been
dry, and it was the healthiest on record. The truth
is, or appears to be, that our London atmosphere as
well as our streets cannot be washed too thoroughly
or constantly. There is little fear of damp, what
with drainage below ground and combustion above,
and no fog can resist the penetrating influence of
a pouring day. It must also be remembered that
a continued want of rain too often implies an undue
proportion of east wind—a wind which poets may
idealise as " the wind of God," ,but which suffering
mankind, with one voice, refers to a totally diffe-
rent quarter, and the action of which, in its rela-
tion to the earth's rotation, philosophers have aptly
compared to that of stroking a cat's back the wrong
way. It is difficult to say whether the properties
of this veritable sirocco of London are more noxious
in July or in November—when it scorches and
closes the pores at the same time, or when it irri-
tates the bronchial tubes of the West-end with black
and nauseous particles from the chimneys of White.
chapel. Certain it is that few tempers are proof
against the effects of this odious blast after it has
swept the arid table-lands of Asia and Europe and
absorbed the impurities of its own capital ; and that
which damages the tempe.r. seldom improves the
health. We aro not in a position to prove it by me-
teorological statistics, but we have very little doubt
that east wind has been in excess for a long time
past, and has contributed materi▪
ally to depress our
vital powers. Still, there are many obvious para.
dozes in these fluctuations of health which have
hitherto defied scientific research. What we know
of the laws that govern the health of a large popu-
lation is as nothing compared wi▪ th that we do not
know: Not long ago the vitalising qualities of the
atmosphere were supposed to depend a good deal
on the presence of "ozone, and it was said to
have been ascertained that on mountain heights
and spots exposed to sea breezes, like the chain-
pier
at Brighton, the quantity of this life-giving
agent was very great If we mistake not, how-
ever, Mr. Glaisher found in some of his balloon
ascents that the ozone tests exhibited a diminu-
tion, instead of an increase, as he rose above the
vapours of the earth, and there is no telling that
the new element " antozano" may not prove a for-
midable rival for popularity. Even generalisations
of longer standing and higher authority have to be
corrected, and sometimes almost reversed from time
to time. Such is the comparison between the sani-
tary effects of town and country life. From the su-
perior longevity of those who live in country districts
it has been inferred, much too hastily, that bad air,
bad drainage, and bad water are the prime causes of
premature death. There is, of course, much truth
in this conclusion, partial as it id, but a minuter
analysis of the fact discloses several errors. The
drainage of large towns is, in general, far more per.
feet than that of country villages, and the stagna-
tion of putrefying matter is far commoner in the
latter. This consideration, therefore, taken by itself,
rather tells the wrong way, and it is more than
doubtful whether the rural poor draw a more whole-
some liquid from ponds and so-called springs than
is supplied to the town poor from public water-
works. The question of air remains, and hero it
must doubtless be admitted that cottages in the
country ought to have an advantage over houses in
the streets of a crowded city. They ought to have
it, but do their inmates always avail themselves of it
by opening their windows at proper times to admit
the fresh air of heaven ; do they avoid overcrowding
indoors, and wage war against domestic nuisances
Everybody knows that they do not, and that the
labourer who imbibes health unconsciously while
he is working
.in the fields often does his best-to tor•
felt it for him self and his family by tolerating a fetid
atmosphere in his home. Air is, no doubt, an impor.
tant condition of health, but it is not enough that
it should surround a domicile ; it must be breathed
by those within it, and there is good reason to be-
lieve that sedentary pursuits in houses with closed
doors and windows are nearly as prejudicial to vigor
in the country as they are in towns. The sanitary
differences, then, between London and Westmoreland
or the Isle of Wight may be due to other circum-
stances than climate and density of population, and
among these circumstances diet, clothing, and occu-
pation claim a prominent place. Happily. the two
former, though neglected, are peculiarly within our
own control, while the influence of unwholesome
occupations may be counteracted to a great extent
by the cultivation of wholesome habits. If all
people knew how to manage themselves and their
.dependents as well as some do, the death rate would
infallibly be lowered, and its variations in different
years proportionately reduced. Scientific agricul-
tnre, though it cannot command the resources of
nature, keeps famine at bay, and simple precautions
against contagion have greatly mitigated, if they
cannot wholly repel, the ravages of pestilence. Is
it too much to expect that as the secrets of health
—that is, of sustaining as well as restoring it—are
further revealed, the whole tribe of fevers may
yield to the same preventive means which have
already banished the black-death, the sweating-
sickness, and the plague, and have brought the
formidable small-pox of the last century into com-
parative subjection ?
POST.—The density of the intellectual atmo-
sphere of Horsham has just been pierced by a ray
of light from Mr. Seymour Fitzgerald. Amid the
mundane reveries of a cattle-show, Lord Derby's
Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs has carried an
audience of admiring listeners over the whole field
of politics, with especial reference to the two great
maxims of modern days—non-intervention and
reform. It is hard to quarrel with Mr. Fitzgerald.
We have all freely recognised his tact and his
talents. Indeed, it was chiefly by his ability and
address that the dignity of the English Foreign-
officio was upheld during the late Administration.
But really, allthough he takes care to tell us that
the responsibilities of Opposition are as great as
those of Ministerial life, we find a good deal of
recklessness in many of his assertions, and a height
of paradox to which official responsibility does not
very often ascend. He does not attempt, indeed,
the flights of Lord Stanley. It required a good
deal of moral courage, and a good deal more of
utilitarianism than Mr Seymour Fitzgerald pro-
fesses, to describe Rome as a quagmire of ruins.
Mr Fitzgerald is not exactly the man who would
dissuade the King of Italy from going to the Eter-
nal City, on the ground that the atmosphere was
unhealthy, and the public buildings were out of
repair, as Lord Stanley did the other day in his
speech to the electors of King's Lynn. Indeed, he
expressly told the good people of Horsham that he
by no means agreed with Lord Stanley's centralis.
ing and revolutionary proposal to divide the minor
States of Germany between Austria and Prussia,
and so to make two great military monarchies of the
whole Confederation. Mr Fitzgerald, however,
need hardly have taken the trouble to disown his
support of an eccentric international programme
which can merely have the effect of incapacitating
Lord Stanley from ever holding the office of Mini-
ster of Foreign Affairs. But the member for Hors-
ham has his paradoxes also, though they ara of a
far lets positive or practical kind, it is a little sur-

h

prising to hear the doctrine of nonsintervee
foreign affairs set up as that of Lord Castl creel p
and his school. Mr Fitzgerald, indeed,
hiism Alot 00
th '• and
clear in his argument as is usual with
there Ai etia.
costs a point d appui aeainst the .
there a little too much disposition to disco
dminvs tr er: ' at tall
4•-,posed to
tHhee
pterlilnseuirsleinoofnfeerpeilgacneta
ar ,d this prin-
ciple he supposes the present Goverr
`went to have
carried out in the recent instance oft
t intervention he
i s
quite. r
ne Danish war.
He looks upon this as a violation •jf bat he ealls,
;
by an extraordinary mental distr ertion, Lord Castle'
reagh's principle of noneiricervention--an error.
which is, perhaps, 'the happiest antithesis to Lord
t Macaulay's delusion, that everything thatc ,i°
L good came from Willie= of Orange. Mr Sep.
etiour Fitzgerald, by the force of leis position, 4
inev:teb.lY a party men ; but we ourselves, who
are in :4 way tied to party obligations, may
ecee
re
mind him te, 'at, if there were one point of Cliffatle4
more marker than another between Lord Cse
Tdberals, it was that the latter je"
reagh and th k e
si3ted that the le..cessant intervention of the Teri,
Ministers in the afie, 'rs of Europe should be brough!
to a close ; and it wad, really quite as much on thin:
point as upon the quest._ on of Reform that the fiTt,i.
triumph of the Liberal le irty was obtained. la;
principle of non-intervene. ga, whether pol e°,
otherwise, represents the grcre. th of Liberal opinicr_
insomuch that those who wo1114• carry it out to its
farthest extreme are the ditesiciles of Mr. Cobdes.
and Mr. Bright. Lord Palmerete‘n and Lord Itee_
sell have endeavoured to preserve I.‘ mean betiv!_:'
these two extremes of opinion ; and it seems ratu_e:.
surprising to bo told that Lord Castles'eagh and .Mil.
Cobden are both on the same side of .the questitobe
If it were otherwise we should wench r 0f1313/ibs
war of the French revolution and the Crusewe 4O
Hundred days arose. But it is not very ease' t°,ite.
where Mr. Fitzgerald's own juste nzilieu 'so
He ear th.` debate on the Danish questiog, 7ho
altered for the future the foreign policy oft .',
country ; and yet in the same breath he declair;
against against Mr. Cobden's views on the 1)011°A
of noneintervention. If the latter are fully uPe, .
we do not see how Mr. Fitzgerald and his friene Pi.
can be said to have changed our foreign Poli°oi
for that is equivalent to saying that the doctrine 0
non-intervention is repudiated, and yet that it
..'e
enforced. It is strange that a politician so just 0 l'i
acute in practical life as Mr. Seymour Feie! .l'oh
should not perceive the false conctusions into WI aid
he is led by his partisan Oteoriee. Mr. Fitz,rlsis
sees but little amendment in the constitutional Pilo
Lion, so to speak, of Europe, that is to BeY 'n
Ivo
growth of liberal ideas and s elf-governmeet. :',O
observe that he adopts as a certain fact ';',
restoration of the Holy Alliani le of which We g° 00
evidence early in the summer„ and which 'that ica°.o 0
much disputed at the time. N o doubt na
confederacy against .he libertii3s of mankind, lid
so long as it lasts and the sphere of its autholl,,
extends, it is a very powerful one. Fortuna has
however, there are already signs that what eis
been done in the north and centre of Burn,P,"„ii,
provoking a liberal reaction elsewhere• i.": 00.
at any rate has breathed the freer in e°."o.
quence of it. The Convention of the 15th ser'esse
ber has been one of its leading results. Nor Oture
take a desponding view of the constitutional fu„ire,
of Austria, although the progress of the era[ole.
towards representative Government must be,,l3.,any
In passing to the question of our naval and 111"140
establishments, Mr Fitzgerald endeaviaurs. 'OO
some success, to develop the true distinction 101 - to
efficiency and economy.. He calls upon. no, Eno
consider whether we cou,'d not do as much NO' all
money. " Let us," ho say 8, "by all means bl 0;
army of soldiers, but by no L'ieans an army of elf 00t
We are afraid the army of soldiers evonl'etiso
prosper without civilians to cserry out the reeoio
of its daily wants; but if Mr. l'itzgerald can pill
out how savings in this respect can be made balite
be doing great service. He says, howeceee', OA
much truth, that the department in. whieu,"l:oild'
least afford to save our money is ths‘t of 81311)-f Of
ing, for we must always have the bes't shie° lei
that the resources of the country can vrodeee• 0
deed, the peculiar burden of the expo. etlit,ure 00
have had for the last few years to enco nnAl'%oesi
consisted in the progress of artillery an
te-clO
architecture, where no one has any certain) euite
the most approved ships of 1864 may not be Id at
out of date in 1870. Mr. Fitzgerald then gla..°w-ser
the subject of Parliamentary Reform, and %lye!
fusses the great difficulty of dealing with the ai-njeco
to lie in the fact that no satisfactory, of 44
practicable, plan of representation for the Iv°'„," eig
classescr has yet been hit upon. There is an inere:ool.
risposition, whenever the fabric ef the repres:ool°
Lion is next pulled about, to build up a repro- eye
:on for the working man on a compreben 00
the basis
and while it would be impossible to do e 0 04
of a numerical equality of votes withard
classes at present holding the franchise, it is 0
to see %hat kind of fractional • sc°l representation ado
be received ' with satisfaction. We confess //n-ion
not altogether share Mr. Fitzgerald's apprellee-6eo
for "serious times" on the Continent, and vv° ,74:1t0
therefore, that we shall have the more leisti-e
bestow on internal sffeirs.