The Sun.
London, England, 1865-06-12 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

" THE SATURDAY REVIEW" ON THE CONSERVA-
TIVES.—In personal merit the leaders of the Oppo-
sition compete with their antagonists on tolerably
equal terms. Although no member of the Liberal
party would think it right to vote far Mr. Disraeli,
any caprice of the Buckinghamshire electors which
should exclude him from the House of Commons
would cause general regret. If Mr. Disraeli repre-
sents no opinion or conviction, he vindicates the
claims of personal ability and vigour. He forced
himself on his party nearly twenty years ago, and
he has since successfully defied internal jealousy and
dissatisfaction. Although his judgment is often un-
sound, he baffles his opponents by the non-coinci-
dence of his own weak points with the characteristic
defects of his party and his cause. It would be ab-
surd to taunt Mr. Disraeli with bigotry and preju-
dice, and on the other hand, his clients in the country
house, the parionage, and the farm are not open to
the charge of Machiavellian insincerity. The gift
of critical sarcasm is one of the most valuable qua-
lifications for the post of an Opposition leader, for
a Minister who sees Mr. Disraeli watching him from
the opposite bench has strong motives for abstain-
ing from any act of conspicuous absurdity. The
minor accomplishment of, skill and propriety in
ceremonial observances is not to be altogether de-
spised. With the exception of Lord Palmerston,
Mr. Disraeli is almost the only leading member of
either house who can be trusted to deliver a formal
eulogium on the dead. Many years ago he com-
mitted a strange blunder in his borrowed speech on
the Duke of Wellington, but his stately and elabo-
rate tributes to Mr. Cobden and Mr. Lincoln con-
trasted favourably with the less felicitous addresses
of his rivals. Lord Palmerston himself, though he
never trangresses on such occasions the limits of
good taste, is perhaps too elaborately and consciously
commonplace. In the conduct of Parliamentary
struggles the relative superiority is reversed. Mr.
Disraeli has more of the nature of an artist, but Lord
Palmerston is by far the more adroit tactician. Na-
tional instincts and popular sympathies of his own,
carefully cultivated and sedulously displayed, are
among the most useful possessions of a statesman.
A politician who depends exclusively on intellectual
speculation is as much at a loss as a weather-pro-
phet without a barometer. A competitor not less
formidable than Lord Palmerston shares with Mr.
Disraeli a certain incapacity to think or to feel with
the world of Englishmen ; but Mr. Gladstone has
greatly the advantage of his rival in eloquence and
in knowledge of business. In finance, in statistics,
in political economy, and in familiarity with admi-
nistration, Mr. Disraeli is only a brilliant amateur ;
and when things rather than persons are under dis-
cussion, he is too often a tiresome speaker. Of his
former colleagues and political allies, there are seve-
ral who could ill be spared from the House of Com-
mons. Mr. Henley has long since established his
character as a sagacious humomist and a thorough
man of business. General Peel is perhaps person-
ally the most popular leader of the party, which
trusts him with a confidence scarcely accorded to
his chief. Sir John Pakington, though he is the
most wearisome of orators, serves his cause by a
tendency to liberal opinions on questions of educa-
tion. Mr. Walpole, while he represents too faith-
fully the prejudices of his rural constituents, -Com-
mands respect and esteem by the cultivation and re-
finement which befit the member for a univer-
sity. Mr. Gathorne Hardy was born to be Home
Secretary in a Conservative Government, and in the
meantime to defend by plausible arguments every
good orbad institution which happens to be attacked.
Lord Stanley is a statesman of higher pretensions,
and probably of loftier ambition, but it is evidently
only by accident and family connection that he re-
mains in his present position. Although public
expediency is the only legitimate test of institutions,
the adherents of Church and State regard utilitarian
advocates with involuntary suspicion. In some future
combination or coalition Lord Stanley will find fitter
occupation for his energy and
suntirin a industry. On
opposite grounds, the veterans of the party regard
with hesitating approval the active and energetic
consistency of Lord R. Cecil. Truth, perhaps, can-
not be too boldly asserted, nor error too resolutely
denounced, but elderly politicians are accustomed
to hold principles which they have no desire to push
to their extreme logical results. At other times more
timid Conservatives probably appreciate the vigour
of a combatant who never spares his opponents ;
and, as Lord R. Cecil is exempt from pedantry and
fanaticism, he will certainly hold high rank in his
party. If Lord Derby should either obtain a ma-
jority at the elections or find an opening through
the dissensions of his antagonists, he will have no dif-
ficulty in forming a Cabinet, especially as he has, in
Sir S. Northcote, Chancellor of the Exchequer who,
having drifted into the party by accident, will
sedulously adhere to the theory and practice of
Mr. Gladstone. The most conspicuous errors of
Conservative policy were gratuitously committed
by Mr. Disraeli and Lord Derby himself, at a time
when the whole country, including the great majo-
rity of the Canservatives themselves, was deeply in-
terested in the regeneration of Italy. The interest
of foreign affairs has now receded into the back-
ground, and though Englishmen generally think
that the Continent requires
,political changes, they
are not hasty to alter their own institutions. The
party which is supported by more than half the
wealth and half the respectability of the country
ought to possess a considerable share of political in-
fluence ; and though its functions are perhaps best
discharged in opposition, it is desirable that, in case
of need, it should be competent for office. On Lord
Palmerston's retirement, it is possible that personal
incompatibilities may shake the Liberal predomi-
nance which lasted so long. The Conservatives
have, by lapse of time, shaken themselves free from
many of the anomalies with which they were for-
merly hampered; and if they are judiciously led,
they may perhaps not only succeed to power, but
retain it for a considerable time.
" THE SPECTATOR" ON METROPOLITAN WORK-

HOUSE HOSPITALS.—The attention of the public
having been directed to the treatment of the sick
paupers in workhouse hospitals, particularly by the
case of Daly at the Holborn and that of Gibson at
the St. Giles's Workhouse, we are gratified to find
that the Poor-Law Board are directing such in-
quiries to be made as will fully expose the defects
of the present management, and suggest remedies
for their removal. A report has just been printed
for the House of Commons which shows the condi-
tion of these hospitals, particularly in respect to the
amount and nature of the accommodation of the
sanitary arrangements, the character of disorders
admitted for treatment, and the kind of nursing
provided for their care. With respect to the amount
of accommodation, we find that of the male hospi-
tals in the 35 Unions of the Metropolitan district
from which correct returns were made, 10 were full,
3 were overflowing, and 13 had spare beds not ex-
ceeding 10 in number ; so that in 26 workhouses the
hospitals may be said to be quite full. The female
hospitals are somewhat less crowded ; in 7 cases,
however, they were quite full, in 1 overflowing ;
and we have heard that it is the practice to make
up beds upon the floor in order to supply the
extra accommodation thus required. Two work-
houses alone appear to be provided with a large
number of spare beds, and when we find that there
are besides the sick in hospital 6,549 aged and in-
firm persons who require constant medical care, we
cannot help thinking that many of these would
be better in hospith,l, provided there was room for
them. In the next place, we observe that the kind
of accommodation is extremely defective. There
are 461 wards, of which the cubic contents are given
and the number of beds. In more than three-fourths
the space allotted to each bed does not exceed 600
cubic feet, whilst in 33 instances it is less than 400
cubic feet. The regulation of the Poor-Law Board
provides that each sick bed shall be provided with
500 cubic feet of space, but this regulation is evaded
in 185 instances, showing the great necessity of
placing these hospitals under competent medical in-
spection ; but it may be remarked that the provision
of the Poor-Law Board is much too little. In the
Army every hospital bed must have 1,200 cubic feet
of space ; in the metropolitan charities, from 1,300
to 1,500 cubic feet is the very lowest estimate, whilst
the wards of several contain 1,700 cubic feet, and
one at least 2,000. There is no poison so subtle or
depressing as the emanations from the sick, and no
remedy so cheap or so effectualas a large space and
unlimited supply of fresh air. Cure is all but im-
possible, and convalescence is always retarded in
confined sick wards, and it is to be feared that the
enormous amount of chronic disease which incum-
bers the workhouse hospitals must be greatly
increased from this cause. There are at the present
time no less than 6,400 sick in the workhouse hos-
pitals, of which not quite one-third are acute cases
susceptible of cure. As the able-bodied inmates
form a proportion of only 13 per cent., there is
scarcely any of this class who can be spared from
the household duties which the large proportion of
aged, infirm, and children necessarily entails. What,
then, are the means provided for nursing the sick ?
In 41 workhouses there are 71 paid nurses, but as
30 of them are employed at St. Pancras and Maryle-
bone, there remain 41 nurses for 39 Workhouses.
13 hospitals have no paid nurses, and 16 have only
one each. In ,swo of these the persons so returned
act in the capacity of assistant-matrons, and have
but little to do with the management of the sick,
who are therefore coknmitted to the, care of paupers
suffering from old age or infirmity of some kind.
There are 859 pauper nurses—of 11 employed at

one place 6 are over 70 years of age, and only one
is less than 50. Of 7 employed at another the,
majority are over 60, and they have charge of 83
beds, nearly all full, without any paid assistance
whatever. Such a state of things surely cannot
last in this civilised country. In Paris we cannot
visit any quarter of the city without being struck
with the palaces which have been converted into
hospitals for the incurable and aged. We have so
neglected a great duty. We have consigned the
sick, aged, and infirm to workhouses, which were
intended as a test to prevent imposition upon the
poor-rates. They are no longer inhabited by the
idle and dissolute, but by those whose age or mis-
fortunes should entitle them to better fare. We
hear that the Workhouse Visiting Society, which
has for so long a time past directed its attention to
this important subject, has urged upon the Poor-
law Board the importance of placing those and similar
hospitals under the inspection of competent medical
men. Such inspectors are found necessary in the
army and navy hospitals,and asylums for the insane.
This department of the public medical service is the
only one not subject to medical control, and we
cordially hope that the recommendation of the
society will be speedily attended. to.

THE "EXAMINER" ON THE COTTON SUPPLY.—
Kirby Smith has surrendered all the forces .of the
late Confederacy in the States beyond the Missis-
sippi, and the great American Civil War is by that
act brought completely to an end. The Cotton
Famine also, if it really deserved this name, has
passed away, leaving us unscathed ; an ever memo-
rable proof of the strength and elasticity of the in-
dustry of these kingdoms. The country which had
furnished us with the largest and the best part of
the raw material of our chief manufacture, and on
which its very existence was thought to depend, has
been in the throes of a mighty civil war for four
long years, and had nearly ceased to supply us alto-
gether, yet we have not only not been overwhelmed
by this catastrophe, as many expected, but, on the
contrary, our manufactures and our commerce have
greatly increased. The cotton manufacture no
doubt declined when it had to pay a three and four-
fold price for its raw material, but the sister manu-
factures of wool and flax and hemp sustained a great
increase. Our exports to the belligerents of Ame-
rica fell off by at least one-fourth in value—a loss
compensated by a two-fold increase in our exports
to France. But what, it may be asked, will be the
ultimate effect of the American Civil War on our
own industry ? In so far as the contest of armies
is concerned, the war is at an end. After heroic
exertions on both sides, such as the history of man
affords no example of, six millions of Anglo-Saxons
have, after a four years' contest without a navy,
been overpowered by three times the number of the
same race with a powerful navy. The minority is
ruined in its political position, in its liberty, and in
it property, and to restore its chief industry, the
growth of cotton, to what it was four years ago,
when the servile labourers by whose means it
was conducted have been emancipated by force and
without remuneration, will not be possible for, at
least, a generation. The victorious majority has,
in four years, incurred a debt the interest of which
will probably not fall short of that of our own debt,
which it has taken near two centuries to incur. The
bold proposal has been made, to pay off the whole
debt by voluntary subscription. But if it be found
labour enough to pay the interest upon it by the
requisite taxation, to pay this interest and to sup-
port great fleets and armies, indispensable to main-
tenance of authority over a conquered people bred
to freedom, and occupying a territory as great in
extent as that of the conquerors themselves, burden-
some taxes must, of necessity, be imposed. We may
very reasonably fear then, that to restore the Ame-
rican Union to the condition in which it was four
years ago will be most difficult, an overpowering
incongruity in its elements discouraging the hope of
an harmonious Union. Let us glance, however, at
our own prospects of a supply in cotton, in so far
as it depends on America. Before the Civil War,
the value of our whole supply of cotton was, in
round numbers, £38,000,000, of which the United
States, that is the insurgent States, yielded
£24,000,000 worth. The quantity imported from all
countries has fallen off by not less than one-half, but
the diminished quantity has increased in price, and
for half a supply we have been paying at least
£60,000,000. A bounty equal to three and four-
fold the normal price, continued for four years, has
not enabled all the other cotton-producing countries
in the world to supply the place of the Southern
States of the American Union, such is their supe-
riority in climate, in fertility and abundance of land,
in internal facilities of transport, and skill in culti-
vation. It is in vain that we have gone to China,
and Japan, to Turkey and Australia, for a supply,
while India, to which we chiefly looked, has proved
a virtual failure. We must not, then, expect that
American cotton shall for years, if indeed ever,
return to its normal price of 6d. a pound as before
the war, or Indian to 4d. After the defeat and
surrender of the Confederate armies we find the
price of ordinary cotton still quoted at New York
at about 2s. a pound. But, besides this, we may
reckon with certainty that the American Govern-
ment will impose a permanent tax on the export of
cotton, and their advantages for its production are
so great that they may do so legitimately, thus
making foreign nations contribute to the public re-
venue, in the same manner as we ourselves make
the Malays and Chinese contribute through the juice
of the opium poppy. No doubt the Americans will
find means to compel the emancipated Africans to
labour, but, from our experience of the race, that
labour will not be the organised labour of the slave-
holder, while the skill and capital that directed it
will have to be created, for they have been de.
stroyed. We cannot, then, look to the time when
the Southern States of imerica shall produce four
millions of bales of cotton, more than half of it for
our own supply. Thus, in one shape or another,
the producers of cotton in India and other countries
will be still protected against the competition of
American cotton by a considerable bounty.

" THE LONDON REVIEW" ON SMOKING.—The
smokers continue to increase in numbers and their
opponents 'diminish, the smoking-room has become
an institution of the country, and the cigar-case is
a companion which few of the rising generation
appear disposed to get rid of. Thus it becomes
necessary to put the question seriously—ls tobacco,
as used by the smoker, injurious or not? If it really
possesses the dangerous properties which anti-
smokers attribute to it, then should we employ all
means in our power to put a stop to smoking ; but
if, on the contrary, it is only a gentle and harmless
stimulant or sedative, we should not discourage its
use. In any case it must be regarded as a luxury,
but if it can be shown to exert no serious action on
the body, then it must be considered a luxury of a
very unobjectionable character. In order to ascer-
tain what the operation of tobacco on the system is,
we must be first informed as to the nature of the
substances which it contains, or rather which are
developed from it during the process of smoking.
If, as the recent researches of Dr. Richardson have
shown us, a cigar is lighted and placed in the mouth
of a pair of bellows so constructed as to draw in the
air after the manner of a smoker, then the various
components of tobacco smoke may be separately
examined. What are these components ? Briefly,
they are as follows :—Water, carbon or soot, am-
monia, carbonic acid, an empyreumatic oil, a bitter
extractive matter, and nicotine. The simplest
method, then, of discovering the action of a cigar
upon the system will be to consider the effect of
each of the foregoing compounds separately. The
water can clearly have no action of any import,
except, perhaps, that of presenting
.the other
constituents in a more soluble condition ; we
may therefore dismiss it from our consideration. It
is the carbon that gives colour to the fumes which
rise from the cigar; it exists—those portions at least
which are taken into the mouth--in a state of ex-
tremely fine division; and though it attaches itself
to the mucous membrane of the fauces, it can hardly
be regarded as a very mischievous agent. No doubt
the minute particles, whilst embedded in the sarco-
dous lining of the epithelium cells, tend to produce
a feeling of thirst ; but the rapidity with which the
external mucous layer is secreted must prevent any
lasting effect of an injurious nature. The ammonia
is probably a product of the combustion of tobacco,
which, when it gets into the blood, effects more
marked alteration than any of the elements we have
mentioned. Ammonia, though an alkali always pre-
sent in circulating blood in small quantity, is, when
introduced into the vital fluid in more than the
normal proportion, of an injurious character. Its
action is twofold. It acts specially upon the nervous
system, which it stimulates in some way at present
unknown ; and it operates upon the blood corpuscles
in such a manner as to cause them to shrivel, and
lose their natural form and appearance. Such are
the effects of the ammonia when introduced in toler-
ably large quantities. The amount of the substance,
however, produced during the burning of a cigar is
so exceedingly small that, with the exception of any
action it may have in producing that parched feel-
ing of the throat to which smokers are liable, we
may fairly disregard it altogether. Dr. Richardson
conceives that the carbonic acid may have the
power of stupifying the smoker, and of producing
a feeling of lassitude, but we arc not prepared to
acquiesce in this opinion., If tie carbonic acid and
ammonia are both disengaged simultaneously—of
which there appears to be very little doubt—the
two meeting within the smoker's mouth must com-
bine, and form carbonate of ammonia, in which
state they would be absorbed by the capillary blood-
vessels, or thrown out in the saliva. If the latter
occurrence took place, then no injurious action
whatever could eventuate ; whilst, if the salt pro-
duced by the union of the two gases were absorbed,
the action, if any, could be attributed only to the
ammonia. The empyreumatic oil, which comes

next in the order of substances obtained by coil'
bustion of tobacco, may be said to be innocuous.
To it is due the smell of burning tobacco, whether
it be that of a cigar, or of Cavendish, bird's-eye,
grass-cut, or Turkish tobacco. The two last sub-
stances are those to which tobacco-smoke owes ite
best-known properties. It has hitherto been the
custom of those who have written upon the
chemistry of tobacco to confound together
the
bitter extractive matter and the true alkaloid under
the one term " nicotine." This is a mistake, for the
physiological action of each substance is peculiar.
It is the extractive matter which gives to the cigar
of tobacco its characteristic flavour, and hence it is
more abundant in what are called strong than what,
are known as mild tobaccos. Thus, " Cavendish'
and " Shag" contain a greater proportion of this
principle than " Returns" or " Turkish," and show
_
us, too, what its special action is. The effect laic"
the bitter extractive matter produces is best exhi-
bited in the young smoker whose system has 1143 u
become Inured to its use. In him it acts upon the
pneumogastric nerve, and through it upon the
stomach, producing, by this means, nausea, gide'
ness, and, finally, vomiting. The system of the
confirmed smoker has acquired the power of resist-
ing the action of this extractive principle, and hence
he never suffers from nausea. The last substance/
the alkaloid of tobacco, is really the only injulte,..g
or poisonous compound of the entire series. 1.116
bitter extractive may inconvenience the yours„
smoker, but it does him no serious mischief. But
the nicotine, which gives least annoyance, produces
the most dangerous consequences. Nicotine, when
absorbed into the blood in any considerable quantity',
acts upon the nervous system in a very violent
manner, and produces serious disturbance of the
heart, respiratory organs, and muscular apparatus:
Anti-tobacconists must not, therefore, assume thaD
tobacco smoked in moderation produces the evil in-
fluences to which we have referred. The quantity
of nicotine produced during the combustion of a.
single cigar amounts to very little, and, if it enters
the blood at all (which is exceedingly improbable),
the impression it produces can hardly be aPPre-
ciated. Hence it may be concluded that moderate
smoking does no great mischief to the system
generally.

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