The Sun.
London, England, 1865-07-07 00:00:00

in the light were the Asiatic cholera landed from a
Mediterranean fruit or wine ship upon our shores.
Of course, it is easy to deal out precepts to the wives
of mechanics, and preach liberalism to the com-
panies. The art of concealing dirt, however, is
familiar to the lower orders of the London popula-
tion, and what are the results ? Plainly, that when
epidemics are imported into England they attack
and ravage the east end of the capital with a
severity double that which is felt in the west ; that
they follow poverty and squalor ; that they make
themselves at home amid vice and discomfort ; and
that whether as fever, consumption, or scrofula,
they assail the neglected districts. From those
districts, however, their influence expands. In
1843 and in 1850 the radiating centres were
Bethnal-green and Whitechapel, Shoreditch and
Rotherhithe ; but how long was it before the '
infection reached St. George's and St. James's,
Highgate, Hampstead, and Marylebone ? It is far
from being an ascertained fact that the cholera, in
its most terrible form, is on its way directly to Eng-
land. Still, the probabilities are calculated to
justify alarm, and to suggest the utmost precautions
which the Administration or the public can adopt.
After a spring and summer of irregular temperature
these maladies work with very capricious and often
deadly effect, and it is as well to remember, before
the curse is upon us, or near us, what the cholera
actually is. They call it a new malady—that is a
question for the doctors to settle among themielves.
What we know is, that in the fourteen years pre-
ceding the year 1831, it had suddenly burst forth
and destroyed fifty millions of the human race,
desolating the brightest regions of the globe, mas-
tering every variety of climate, surmounting every
natural barrier, conquering every people, and taking
root in the soil, so to speak, as the small-pox and
plague have done. We are bound, then, to regard
even the faintest possibility of this epidemic among
us, after all our fatal experience, as a most serious
matter. Any lascar may bring it from India, where,
it is now intermittent, though not general. Any
sailor may introduce it from Egypt, where it is eat-
ing up the population. History records how the
pestilence ravaged India ; passed thence to Ceylon,
swept over the Red Sea, was carried to the Mauri-
tius in a French vessel freighted with oil, scattered
itself over the Levant, and at last broke forth, from
the latitude of Golden-square to that of Kiatchta,
on the Siberian borders, with a virulence which will
never be forgotten. When the tenants of houses in
Brewer-street, near Piccadilly, were dying by half-
dozens, ten or twelve years ago, the same ravage
had crossed the great Chinese wall, and was deso-
lating the tent cities in the desert of Gobi, the flat-
roofed houses of Muscat, the Delta of the Ganges,
and the little towns on the coasts of the Persian
Gulf. But how did it invade Europe ? Always .
from Asia, and at a hundred points at once. It
touched us first in the Valley of the Volga. It
took the warm and the cold climates impartially ;
and it is at this moment assailing the Egyptian
and the Baltic shores. And its progress, be
it noted, is extremely rapid—the more rapid
where the means of communication ale complete.
It depends not on heat, humidity, vapWar, or elec-
tricity ; it clings to unclean and crowded popula-
tions ; to the badly fed and clothed ; and it is never
extirpated except through the extirpation of corrupt
and odious habits among the people. This is a
topic worth considering, no matter how the political
questions of the time may preponderate. The
cholera has within a period of three months slain
nearly sixteen hundred people in the town of
Alexandria. It travelled thither a distance of more
than 2,000 miles. Now, with that city many of
our large ports hold frequent communication. The
country of Lower Egypt is our high road to India,
and from it we had the pestilence which decimated
our population in 1832. No doubt, a mystery
exists with regard to the exact nature of the malady
at present epidemic there. The country is in a
generally healthy state ; its climate, whin not
affected by malignant influences which have passed
over entire continents from the uttermost corners
of the world, is rather invigorating than otherwise ;
but this is an exceptional and transitory visitation,
which, when it comes to us, if ever, will be cholera
of the well-known type. Strange to say, it has not
attacked Cairo, a much more unhealthy city than
Alexandria, but this fact only suggests that it is
upon a course of progress or migration from the
East towards the West. At any rate, the proxi-
mity of such an epidemic to the great commercial
outlets of Europe is a subject for serious considera-
tion. The policy of our law and the necessities of
our trade are hostile to all principles of quarantine,
which, after all, are only adaptations of artificial
systems to purposes they fail in securing ; but it is
never too soon to be upon our guard, and the
prospect of a hot autumn renders even the remotest
hint of a general cholera formidable. What are we
doing with our great towns? There is a vr st amount
of brag in the market of popularity, and yet it is a
fact of serious import to all, that the Cholera
Morbus, the hereditary scourge of Asia, might visit
us again, and find us again unprepared. Let it
not be so.