The Sun.
London, England, 1865-09-05 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.—We are neither contagionists nor non-
contagionists, and should be very sorry to take up
thb gauntlet thrown down by the champion of either
theory. We may even go further ; for we have
already committed ourselves to measures of exclu-
sion and insulation—insisting, however, at the same
time, that our principal security must be in keeping
ourselves and our cattle healthy and strong, and in
a general war with all manner of nuisances. This
is to accept what is reasonable of both theories, and
not to mount one hobby in order to ride down the
other. We are ready to admit that there are specific
poisons, and that there may be one in the case of
this cattle disease, which, under conspiring circum-
stances, and in a predisposed state, may produce a
disease difficult to cure. The very evidence offered
by the gentlemen who are loudest for the theory of
a Russian pest proves that the exciting cause, that
is, the infection, has very little influence in a healthy
and undisposed state. According to this theory a
particular cargo has entered the country from an
infected quarter, and has diffused itself so far and
wide over the country, infecting herds, stables, rail-
way trucks, sidings, fields, and common roads, as
to be accountable for all the losses we hear of. If
it has done so much mischief, why not more, and
why are any of our cattle spared to us ? The loss
is certainly trifling compared with the whole stock,
and the plague is certainly not increasing, though
the weather is unusually hot and close for this time
of the year. It is evident that an overpowering
proportion--say, forty-nine out of fifty, have with-
stood an infection which we have been told is uni-
versally disseminated. The reason of this exemp-
. tion must be in themselves, and not in accidental
circumstances. The cattle are healthy and strong,
and the supposed virus is only a fleabite compared
with the whole stock of vitality. There is a
quantum of health and strength, combined, pos-
sibly, with special powers of resistance, which will
enable a man to move about in a plague and take
no harm. No doubt there is some degree of
mystery in such escapes. But the great thing is
health and strength, and the outward circumstances
that produce health and strength. It is sheer folly,
if not worse, to let the earth reek with deleterious
gases that lower the system and envenom the blood,
to neglect personal cleanliness, to let the pores of the
skin be closed, to leave the body by a low diet and
an excessive use of stimulants liable to fits of pros-
tration and collapse, and then to charge on an un-
known utterly impalpable agent the natural results
of a bad system. It may not be possible for any
one man to secure perfect immunity from the pest
that destroys all around; but it is a fact that the
same pest that decimates the miserable populations
of filthy cities will only strike a few score, and those
not so fatally, where there is not so much misery
and dirt. On the extreme theory of contagion Eng-
land itself is an infected house, in which insulation
is almost impossible as between one inmate and
another. Within its shores it is impossible to pre-
vent contagion or infection. Any individual might,
perhaps, insulate his own stock by an amount of
care and precaution incompatible with profit, but
very few individuals will do this, and the very wind,
it is alleged, carries the infection. Undoubtedly one
may smell a cigar a hundred yards at least, and so
far travels the breath of the smoker, with all the less
fragrant but perhaps equally substantial matter with
which that breath may be charged. So far as regards
the present epidemic, by this time the disease is
naturalised. This compels us to direct, practically,
all our attention to the sanitary part of the matter.
Accordingly we are not surprised to be reminded
by a vigilant functionary, that if there be no im-
provement in the state of the dairies and cattle
stalls about the metropolis, the disease will pro-
bably break out afresh, with increased fury, when
they come to be filled again to their proper comple-
ment. In fact, all now depends on the disposing
causes, and where there exists the magazine of lethal
influences the plague sparks flying about are sure to
give it deadly activity. For our part we can truly
say that we are only surprised there is not always
a cattle disease in this country, and particu-
larly in this country. People talk of Siberia,
of the swampy banks of the Volga, of Southern
Russia and the Danubian Principalities, and no
doubt a marsh must be bad lying by night, and a
burning sun with swarms of venomous insects un-
pleasant by day. But we should doubt whether they
are much worse than the continual closeness, the
stench, and the very artificial food of a London
dairy, and a good many stables, where there is less
excuse for heat and dirt. If, as is suspected, it should
turn out that these abominations are the nest of in-
fection, and the disease is fostered in them, revived
in them, and disseminated from them, it is time to
put them under proper control. It is of no use to
place inspectors at lauding quays and at markets if
there is to be no inspection at the very manufac-,
tories and reservoirs of the plague—carried, as we
are told it is, and as we can well believe, by the
saliva, the excreta, and the far-travelling breath of
the diseased cattle. There is another point to which
it is high time our scientific agriculturists should
give a little attention. They boast, not without
reason, that they have achieved marvels in the crea-
tion of the varieties best suited for human use. All
our cattle are now forced to a premature develop-
ment, a precocious obesity, and a form that chimes
in with a rather artificial idea of animal beauty.
This is done by suitable feeding and crossing, and
by a manner of life which certainly is not natural.
Now, the case of animals cannot be so very different

from that of human beings. So we may venture to
ask how this treatment would answer in their case.
What if human beings could, by any diet and ma-
nagement, be made men and women, as to bulk, at
14 or earlier ? What if they were pampered and
stuffed, shut up in a high temperature, kept without
exercise, and, if possible, without even passion or
excitement ? We cannot think this would be favour-
able for health and strength, and we should certainly
think it not unlikely that such beings would fall
early victims to some dangerous epidemic. The breed
would certainly become weaker, and even if the
favoured specimens flourished after their fashion,
the less fortunate, inheriting constitutions weakened
by this treatment, would not be so well able to
resist morbid influences as a more hardy class. We
ask, then, whether there may not be this danger in
the present direction of agricultural science, which
is to produce the greatest quantity of food in the
shortest possible time. The consumption of fresh
meat is enormous and still increasing, for every
class will get meat if it can, and thinks itself hardly
used if he cannot. The price of meat is the chief
reason of " strikes," as neither bread, nor clothing,
nor even lodging, is high enough to make a griev-
ance. Meat is ahnost the only thing that is appa-
rently safe from the fluctuations that old house-
keepers tell us of. So how to make meat cheaply
and expeditiously, and how to turn over the capital
quickly, is now the great object of scientific hus-
bandry. Be it so. We shall not presume to cri-
ticize a process in which John Bull is supposed to
be so deeply interested, and in which we certainly
should have all his family against us. We only ask
the question as we have been asked it,—Are animals
thus forced and thus unnaturally developed as likely
to resist deleterious influences—are they as likely to
be safe from typhoid infection, as animals more in
a state of nature, and therefore more hardy ? We
should only be too glad to find that the misgiving is
quite groundless, and that what is commercially
profitable is also favourable to physical health and
strength,

Post The autumnal railway " campaign" seems
to set in again with its usual excitement, inconve-
nience, and fatality, Indeed, if a dispassionate
examination of the casualties is made—as disclosed
in an appalling list of killed and wounded—which
this year have signalised the endeavour of directors
to swell their dividends by the questionable pres-
sure of " excursion trains," the military term
which we have applied to their proceedings will
convey but a mild idea of the disastrous dangers
incurred in what ought to be pleasant . journeys,
characterised by a due combination of speed
and security. But the recurring approach of
those periods of the year when the great mass of the
working classes are allowed their scanty holidays,
and are supposed to have laid by a little hoard
devoted to their gratification exercises a fatal influ-
ence. There are railway directors unable to with-
stand the temptation of directing a partial flow of
that genial stream over their own pastures. Excur-
sion trains become more profitable than ordinary
traffic, usurp their place, and disturb their order.
Increased business on the line produces inevitable
confusion, confusion ends in disaster, and the results
of Christmas, Easter, Whitsuntide, and the " Dog
days," may be confidently traced in immediate in-
quests, subsequent actions for compensation, and
the half-yearly confession of mistaken economy in
reduced dividends. What the Staplehurst accident
altogether cost the South-Eastern Company, what
was " set off" first and last for the terrible disaster
on the Shrewsbury line, has been hitherto shrouded
in prudent mystery. But only last week the "report "
of another company admitted that £50,000
had been devoted to an " unto ward event" of this
nature. Though it is true that the train which flew
over the bridge at Staplehurst was " tidal," and not
" excursion," it detracts but little from our proposi-
tion, for it is notorious that nineteen out of every
twenty calamities of this nature, which of late years
have spread dismay among railway travellers, have
been, either directly or indirectly, traceable to the
immoderate and careless use of this dangerous
expedient for profit. If not happening to the excur-
sion trains themselves—though that has been gene-
rally the case—the "accident," orrather the "moral
certainty," is always to be tracked up to the delay,
the haste, the confusion, and, above all, the unfair
strain upon the strength of the officials, which
this additional and precarious work entails. We
should have imagined that the losing game which
has thus unequivocally been played by so many
companies would open the eyes of all to the
necessity of reducing their hand at speculation
within rational limits. It might have been taken
for granted that the lives and limbs of her Majesty's
subjects would thus obtain some further security
from the commercial prudence even of railway
boards. But the facts will not bear ns out. The
excursion season is again in full swing. The
columns of the public journals teem with advertise-
ments on the subject. Gigantic posters on every
hoarding offer a transit to anywhere almost for
nothing, and it would be marvellous indeed if the
weary London citizen could withstand such tempta-
tions to gaze even for a few hours on the blue sea,
or to revel, but for an afternoon, among hills and
valleys, rocks and woods, of " real country." But
those to whom the public interests are a care can-
not but see the danger inevitably contingent on the
abuse of this system. They have a right to demand
that it shall be so limited and supervised that, whilst
it provides recreation, fairly enough earned, Heaven
knows, for the working classes, it shall not en-
danger the safety of any. Their interference with
that view is only too apropos of the present period,
since within the last few days of these dreaded
events, the one directly, the other indirectly, pro-
ceeding from this increasing system, have occurred.
On Wednesday, at the Colney Hatch Station on
the Great Northern line, there occurred a " colli-
sion." The word has become familiar enough; but
only those so unfortunate as have been included in
one can picture to themselves the awful reality of
such an incident. On Wednesday a train, luckily
reduced by the imminent danger to a speed of only
12 miles an hour, ran into a coal train standing at
the station. It smashed the coal trucks all to pieces,
and scattered them all over the line. Of course, in
doing so, it inflicted frightful damage on its own
inmates. In one instant, between 50 and 60 indi-
viduals lay lacerated and stunned amongst the
chaos of wood and iron. Some were jammed in the
broken timber of the carriages, others unable to
move from the frightful nature of their injuries,
and many, alas ! stricken with that spinal " shock"
which so frequently, on such occasions, ends in
paralysis 4 blindness, and loss of all mental vigour.
Now, the train was an excursion train. The
coal train in front of it had evidently but just
time allowed to precede it in safety. But in
attempting to start from the station, some-
thing gave way, and before there was time to shunt
it the excursion train dashed into it. As far as can
be at present ascertained, no blame can be traced to
either the drivers of the respective trains or to the
officials at the station. All did their utmost in the
way of signals and breaks to mitigate the inevitable
collision, and the breakage which caused it was
clearly beyond their control. But a deep responsi-
bility lies with those who allowed the two trains to
travel so close to each other—a proximity plainly
owing to the intrusion of an excursion train—and
nothing short of a judicial investigation into the
matter, in all its bearings, with a view to future
remedy against such disasters, ought to satisfy the
public mind that a due regard is accorded by the
Government to their interests. The second calamity
of the same nature to which we allude presented
still more painful features ; for it was caused not
only by the unwarrantable crowding of the line by
the managers, but also by the most reckless and re-
prehensible behaviour on the part of one of their
servants. On Saturday last a train from Liverpool
was due at Wolverhampton at 10.5 p.m. It was a
quarter of an hour late. Nearly at the same time
was due, at the same station, a train from Walsall.
But that was late also. Naturally in this crisis two
trains both late, and both momentarily expected—
one would have supposed that some extra means or
other would be taken to prevent the possibility of a
collision, which otherwise would only be too pro-
bable. The ordinary signals, however, seem alone
to have been used, and these, by some unaccount-
able madness on the part of the driver on the Wall-
sall train, were utterly disregarded. Though he
was bound to stop at that station, and though the
ordinary danger signals were " on," he ignored
all, and dashed at full speed into the Liverpool
train, which had arrived -there a minute or two
before him. The return of the " killed and
wounded" in this instance has not yet been re-
ceived, but its extent may in some measure be
inferred from the fact that some eight or nine
of the sufferers are lying at different hotels in the
town. Now, this is rather a wholesale commence-
ment of the autumnal " campaign." What it will
arrive at if the weather continues " settled," the
hospitals and the Registrar-General alone will be
able to tell. That it all arises from the overcrowd-
ing of the lines, is as plain as the bright sun that is
blazing over our heads, and which lures on the
directors to " more excursions." For it is the
reckless and injudicious intrusion of the excursion
trains which are the last feather that breaks the
managerial back of the best conducted lines. We
are far from objecting to the institution of them
itself. On the contrary, we hold them to be a
bounden duty on the part or railway companies, a
privilege due to the working classes of the realm,
in return for the privileges granted to these com-
panies by the Legislature. But their ordinance
ought to be regulated by a discretion far more
felicitous than any which has yet been extended to
them. They have, doubtless, been designed as
sources of enjoyment, but it is no exaggeration to
say that they have proved the origin of more per-
sonal suffering and domestic misery than could be

conceived possible from a scheme so well adapted
both for profit and pleasure. It is all owing merely
to mismanagement, but that mismanagement is
becoming too serious to be overlooked. If the
directors will not extend due care to the interests of
their shareholders, but will continue to lay such
odds against an event which is more than probable,
and which, if it does happen, is next door to ruin,
it is high time for the guardians of the public in-
terests to interfere on behalf of life and limb, which
are sorely perilled in the venture. But whether
railways gain or not, it is clear that neither excur-
sionists nor ordinary travellers should be subject to
the hazard which a reckless auri fames thus imposes
on them. The excursion season is on ; if the direc-
tors will not employ it discreetly and judiciously,
they must be compelled to do so.