The Sun.
London, England, 1863-11-20 00:00:00

The Weather—Sun Office, Nov. 20, 1863.

THERMOMETER.
This daylat Two o'clock 5O
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Barometer-30.11.
Wind—South-Wect ; light, and fine.

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0:1 ,
/jj

LONDON, FRIDAY, NOV. 20, 1863.

It may be regarded as a matter of tolerable cer-
tainty that the Congress proposed by the French
EMPEROR will, after all, be eventually assembled.
The proposition was regarded, by some of our con.
temporaries, at the outset, we are aware, as ail but
impracticable, as the result of a sort of diplomatic
hallucination on the part of NAPOLEON 111. It
was treated ill euuie quarters even with an ap-
proach to the disdainful, as the most extrava-
gant of all the Idecs Napoleoniennes. And
yet Cabinet Councils were being held upon it all
the while here, in England for example. Minis-
ters and Sovereigns were gravely and even
anxiously deliberating over the proposition.
Several evenings since we announced that the pro-
babilities were, that already this proposition of the
French EMPEROR'S had been virtually accepted
by the majority of the Chief Powers of Christendom.
That anticipation is now being formally and
deliberately justified. Several of the minor Powers
of Europe have already given in their frank adhe-
sion. The others have, most of them, already made
up their minds to do likewise, a few amongst them
accompanying their intimation of their agreement
With certain very stringent, but, for the most part,
veryr reasonable, stipulations. It seems only a
'"al precaution, for instance, to insist upon it,
a 3
n"earsa l' •
the de y pre iminary to the commencement of
be
perfectly well
of any such Congress, that it should
subject.m:ttavell understood before, and what the
t-r of their:deliberations was likely to be.
OOtherwise;h
an by conforming to a definite pro-
gramme before Lhe of the sittings of such a
Congress, the Conwould be all but certain gress
itself might, indeed, float off,
to float off into all kinds
of vague generalities
Granteda that there is such
a Programme carefully-
awn
sovereign like the on, turaup, say by a veteran
r now points to as the
one consulted to that very
pe.:d by his Majesty
the Emperor of the vp
aged constitutional seN,ereign.
on; meaning the
Belgium, King
LEOPOLD_there is no earthly reason why good
should not eventually come front
such a Con-
gress as this one now proposed to beholden
at p
aris
in 1864. The proposition emanating,,,s the
world
knows full well, and would not fail always
to
re
member, emanating directly and individually froth
the most powerful and gifted of all the Sovereigns
of the European Continent. An pair°.
peen Congress, born of a Peace, /tight
just as reasonably be looked to, for the remodelling
of the world so far as relates to that portion of it, as
a Congress born of a Great War, a Congress like
that cf 1815 following immediately upon the dying
out of the stupendous crash of a giant battle like
that of Waterloo, upon the downfall of a Colossus
like the Emperor NAPOLEON THE GREAT. Diplo-
matic negotiations are, in point of fact, a far more
rational preliminary to the convocation of an
European Congress than the squandering of
war-subsidies, and the shedding of rivers
of human blood. " The bloated arma-
ments" denounced two years ago, so very strongly,
by he mere utterance of that happy phrase, by
Mr. ntettaetet, are, in one sense, as urgent a reason,
if
only from th, ir magnitude and their long con-
tinuanee—c •
"rolbh quite as urgent and quite as im-
pressive a Tea
-
son for the calling together thus of a
great European Congress as might bo yielded by
any amount of
expenditure in blood and money,
by any number of alternate - v
victories and defeats,
by any series, no
matter how long protracted,
of Campaigns,s, and warlike Coalitions. With
modifications, with stipulations,
tll preliminary
negotiations, with a plain matter-of-factl'. categorical
- carefully mapped
programme out, and unanimously
we
accepted beforehand among the Sovereigns,
regard the French EMPEIMP.'S scheme of a Congress
for the readjustment of Europe as eminently feasible,
instead of looking upon it es be:ng, what many have
been insisting sardonic 11y ever since the filet

suggestion of it by NAPOLEON, that, it is, namely,
a project wholly and absolutely impracticable.
A t the very least, Europe can but try whether it is
feasible, whether it is practicable.

Despite our Boards of Health and san;.tary in-
spectors, there is unhappily no room left us for
doubting that some parts of our w(!althi; metropolis
are in a state which is a disgrace to our civilisa-
tion. Foremost among these i 4 Bethnal-green, to
which the present high role :)f mortality has lately
attracted so much of j' üblic attention. Instead of
feeling any surpris'j at this mortality, those who
read the revelatio•
as made at the coroner's inquest,
lately held i' Bethnal-green-road, will only
wonder that the deaths have not been still more
numerous.. The condition of the locality in which
several 'deaths have taken place, the last of which
was o„he subject of the inquiry, was described as
sorr,ething appalling. The stench was a subject of
v.niversal complaint. One woman, the mother of
seven little ones, said that her eldest child often
complained of it. Well it might, for it was bad
enough to prove fatal to a younger sister, the latest
victim to the prevailing malaria. The poor child,
only five years old, was ill for five weeks, her ill-
ness
being of course ushered in by violent sickness.
This probably excited little notice or alarm, for
one woman who lived close by described the stench
as being so overpowering that a person " would
almost retch his heart eta" when he went into the
yard. The houses are small enough, consist-
ing of only four rooms, and cheap enough,
for the occupant of three-fourths of one
only paid ss. a week rent, but one of
the foremost requisites of a decent and. healthy
habitation seems to be altogether wanting, and the

drainage entirely neglected. Complainta were made
to the collector, who could not deny the evidence of

his eyes, but contented himself and silenced the
complainants by assuring them that things would
be better when the drainage was settled. It might
have been thought that the frightful condition in
which he found the houses was a sufficient evi-
dence that it was high time it was settled ; but
neither landlord nor collector appear to have

troubled themselves overmuch about the matter.
Perhaps the reason adduced by one of the witnesses
for remaining in such miserable premises helped
to increase this indifference. Mrs. DE COSTA, the
mother of the dead child, said that she did not leave
because it was difficult to get a house for her large
family without paying more rent. As some excuse
for her remaining, it may be said that she had lived
there for several years, but it was only lately, she
said, that the drains were so very bad. The rooms
in which they lived had not, it seemed, been white-
washed or cleaned for three years ; but, of course,
with the prevailing ignorance of the poor on all
physiological matters the occupants of these
wretched places were unaware of the deadly injury
to health arising from the fatid vapours. The
reckless indifference of landlords is only too much
encouraged by the lamentable want of knowledge
of the very laws of life among the lower classes.
It is a pity that our school teachers and home mis-
sionaries who visit much among the poor do not suc-
ceed in inculcating a little of this sound and prac-
tical knowledge. The closeness of the rooms in
which they live adds tenfold to the inevitable

evils arising from overcrowding. They do not avai,
themselves of the scanty means of ventilation which
they possess, while in workshops, factories,
the dislike of the hands to open windows deprives
them of the one great antidote to a thousand ills.

It is not for want of ocular demonstration, as well
as scientific assertion, that the benefits of fresh air
are so little understood. It is a matter of common
observation that anyone who is much in the open
air invariably enjoys better health than those en-
gaged in any indoors occupation. The able and
intelligent Coroner for Middlesex lately observed
that he found less disease among the children of
the very poor, than among those belonging to the
class above thew. This difference he attributed
entirely to the fact of the former being constantly
out at play in the streets, whereas the others were
kept indoors in close rooms. Facts like these de-
serve to be borne in mind, since the state of our
public health does not bear a due proportion to our
advance in other respects, and we must look to
the wider diffusion of sanitary knowledge for
improvement. But valuable as fresh air un-
doubtedly is, it will not supply the place of good
and efficient drainage, and so long as houses are
left in the condition of those in Hollybush-gar-
dens we may expect fever, cholera, and malaria
to reign triumphant. So long as the roadway
leading to such places is "six or eight inches

deep in mud, green and stagnant in places," so
long as the ill-drained closets almost open into
the kitchens, and no attempt is made to make sur-
face drains, or otherwise provide for the proper
drainage of the houses we must expect to hear
of a string of deaths from preventible causes. We

must confess with shame that our cumbrous scciai

machinery is inadequate to secure the necessities of
life to honest working people and their families,

and incompetent to protect them against the shame-
ful cupidity, or culpable negligence, of landlords.

Too much attention can hardly be paid to the
question of prison discipline, A few remarks here
and a proposal there will not exhaust the subject or
produce the desired improvements that are so much
wanted in that direction. The letter of the Right
Hon. C. B. ADDEItLEY to the Times of yesterday is
well worthy of attention, and seems to enter into
the discussion of the subject in a right spirit and
with a due amount of zeal. Although various pro-
posals have been made, it is still incumbent upon
the public to consider the question gene-
rally, and to reflect upon what remedial measures
will be the best to be adopted. Considering the
extreme failure of our present mode of discipline, it
'lets not appear that the remarks of Mr. ADDERLEY
re too strong when ho says that penal treatment is
tenlltiable for " complication, unintelligibility,
uncertainty, and weakness." Indeed, no language
seems
°° emphatic
the „triable or too censorious that exposes
indulgence that has been shown to the
prisoners who
have been convicted of crimes of the
deepest dye.
usual in such cases, the very
s
marked partiality
that
was displayed, in time
pass at which the
worked out its owe exposure, and things came to a
y could
no longer be tolerated.
When once it is an acknowledged
fact that crimi
nals only look upon prisons as 5 a plats of temporary
i
I confinement, irksome n its \ca..,
with no very terrif.ing
x ne doubt, but yet
associated ideas, it, is highsome stringnt
time that measures should be
ie some measure, ht ,
adopted, and least, that
wholesome terror be restored to the experience
u
prison discipline.is, more.
All this. takes time,
and
.e cc of
over, a very difficult thing to do. It is much
easier to point out the errors and to trace the
defects in a system than to explain exactly how
they may be remedied, or what will constitute a
cure. This is why it is so reprehensible on the part
of the authorities to alter the regulations and to
modify the arrangements in so great a degree, ba.
cause it seems almost impossible, or, at
all events,
very difficult to restore anything like order to the
confused system of prison discipline, or to re-adjust
the plan of penal servitude. A comparison is here
instituted between the separate modes proposed by
Lord GREY and Sir A. COCKB URN. After dwelling i