The Sun.
London, England, 1865-08-19 00:00:00

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LONDON, SATURD_IY, AUGUST 19, 1865.

The threatened epidemic of cholera naturally
turns one's attention to that theme, and now that
there is a chance of our being visited by that de-
plorable calamity, it behoves us to consider well
what is best and wisest to do. One of the most dis-
tressing circumstances connected with the arrival
of the fearful guest among us some years back was
the reflection that want of care had greatly increased
the evils and added to the miseries attendant upon
it. It will not be consistent if we allow the same
thing to be said again, and, therefore, instead of
indulging in unavailing regrets or giving way to
foolish apprehensions and morbid fears, it will be
right and reasonable for those who are ignorant to
seek information, and for those who are in responsi-
ble positions to acquaint themselves with the man-
ner in which they may best provide for the emer-
gency, and protect those entrusted to their care or
dependent upon their foresight. On Thursday a
Conference of medical officers of health was held in
Adam-street, Adelphi, at the National Association
for the Promotion of Social Science, and the peru-
sal of their reports and torments cannot but prove
most instructive and interesting to all parties. The
Chairman said that there was very little hope that
the "dreaded disease" would not visit this country
in the coming winter or spring, and added, very
truly, that there would be no excuse if the severity
of itn visitation was not mitigated by the
adoption of all possible preventive measures,
which may be gathered from the statement of the
sub-committee of health on the threatened epidemic,
which was read by Professor CrItEENHOW. It states
that many circumstances conduce to prove the pro-
ticability, if not the certainty, of this dreadful
scourge approaching our shores. The epidemic
affections of cattle are generally regarded as the
common " precursors" of epidemic visitations to
human beings, and that herald has already appeared
among us.

It is shown by recorded evidence that the attacks
of the last visitation of cholera were much diminished
in number, fatality, and intensity in those places
where timely measures were adopted, and founded
upon the experience gained from careful observation
of previous occurrences. All the most serious
attacks were " forewarned" upon those places where
people suffered then as now from " foul-air dis-
eases," such as are quite unknown, or almost so,
in situations where proper management prevails,
even in public establishments of the lowest classes
of the population. These diseases, it is said, are
comparatively few and slight in improved common
lodging-houses or model dwellings, and seldom
occur in the houses of the better classes, but " are
never absent from the wage classes, living in
crowded, ill-drained courts and alleys, ill-supplied
with pure water, and ill-cleansed, close, filthy, ill-
ventilated and foul-aired, and which slay nearly
100,000 per annum of men, women, and children
of Great Britain alone." Surely these words
should be deeply graven upon the minds of all
and every possible precaution be adopted, and
every earnest endeavour used to allay the mischief
where it cannot be stopped, and to check 04

growth and strength of the attack. No more
suicidal measure can be adopted than the idle, care-
less, do-nothing course that so many follow ; and
it is very certain that several hundred will suffer if
they are not themselves exposed to the fatal agen-
cies of their unhappy brethren. Disease never leaves
any part alone if it once enters into a crowded
metropolis ; and as many will not be able to escape
from the danger, they will be left a prey to tor-
menting anxieties and sad reflections. How dread-
ful it is to consider that so many thousands are now
leading lives and dwelling in places which expose
them to the attacks of dire diseases, and make them
act as almost certain victims to any awful visita-
tion that may approach our shores. It is a reproach
to our boasted civilisation, and a blot upon our
social management. There is something intrinsi-
cally bad in a state of things which permits and
sanctions such horrors. It is a violation of the
most approved principles of divine precept and
human understanding that life should be thus wan-
tonly sacrificed, and high and holy opportunities
thrown away for want of common thought, care,
and management.

It is worthy of notice that in periods of epidemic
visitations like the cholera there is a wonderful
coincidence between the ravages of the disease
and the ordinary death-rates among the different
classes. In those unhappy localities where
" typhus" is prevalent cholera is invariably present,
and common fever often assumes the character of
typhus in such places. It appears that taking one
year as the average, the deaths of children in Lam-
beth were as follows :—ln the different ranks among
professional persons and gentry, 31 ; shopkeepers
and tradesmen, 57 ; artisans, 60. The sanitary
condition of the dwelling-houses has a great deal to
do with the average rate of mortality, and if no-
thing else could rouse people from their lethargy,
and make them zealous reformers in this respect,
the inspection of the Registrar-General's returns
may well do so. In awful characters the figures are
presented to their notice, and they may read, mark,
learn, and inwardly digest the sad and startling
information which they contain. They will find
that in the heart of this busy metropolis, in the
centre of this teeming industry, and in the midst
of wealth, luxury, and enjoyment, there are spots
which are nurseries of sickness, hotbeds of conta-
gious disease, and where all kinds of foul complaints
abide and flourish. Childhood is blighted, and the
vigour of manhood destroyed, while old age is
seldom reached, or if so, in how pitiable and de-
plorable a state. It is to these places that attention
should be directed, for the enemy is mating upon
them, and will slay his thousands and tens of thou-
sands if unmolested in his course. No more forcible
warning can be given than has been over aad over
again repeated ; and unless we would willirgly see
our streets thronged with mourners, and our ceme-
teries crowded with dead, we shall take heed to the
warning that bids us prepare. There is, indeed, no
time to lose, for much must be done, and it is dif-
ficult work at the best to better the condition or
improve the care of such localities. Still, when a
solemn and sacred duty has to be done, no excuse
can sanction delay, and unwillingness is a crime.
To adopt all possible sanitary measures would seem
the most expedient mode of proceeding in the first
place, and to facilitate this desirable end due care
should be taken to study the reports given by those
well qualified to judge of such matters. We learn
for one thing that ventilation is much neglected in
many places, and that incalculable mischief ensues
therefrom. The evil effects of the close and crowded
workrooms have often been shown in the rise in
health of the working classes when the factories are
closed and their inmates in the open air, as was
especially noticeable at the period of the cotton
famine. It would be well for visits to be paid to
such places, which are so likely to prove violent
auxiliaries to the epidemic, and to suggest any
remedies that are at all practicable. The sooner
this important task is undertaken the better it will
be for the future consequences to all concerned.
As was truly said at this meeting, the most ruthless
invader from a foreign land could not in modern
times inflict so terrible a slaughter as that effected
by the cholera in its last visitation, when " seventy
thousand" perished during its stay among us. This
work of sanitary reform is indeed one in which
no efforts can be too great, and no zeal
thrown away. It is a cause which demands
the greatest skill, the most unselfish feelings, and
the most steadfast endurance, but it is one which
will abundantly repay exertion, and which has for
incentives faith, hope, and charity in its gOod and
glorious mission. The opportunity is plentiful, and
it is to be trusted that many workers may be found
able and willing to help. It will be a sad thing if the
threatened epidemic should find us unprepared, and
too late we should awaken to the awful truth, that
want of care has been as hurtful as want of heart to
the suffering and stricken community, who, " like
reapers, descend to the harvest of death." Fore-
warned is forearmed, and as it cannot be urged in
extenuation of further neglect that due notice has
not been given of the advancing danger, so now is
the fitting time to be up and doing with the spirit
that cannot command success, but will do more by
deserving it.

One of the principal advantages which a young
country offers to the small capitalist is the easy
rate at which land is usually procurable. The
class which more than any other is recommended
to try a new world, when the old country does not
supply room enough for enterprising competition,
is the agricultural class. Professional men, clerks,
and others accustomed to a studious and sedentary
life, are often warned by well-meaning friends that
they must not think of emigration to any rising
colony, since it is the hand rather than the head
that is wanted in such settlements, the strength and
training to till the soil and speed the plough, rather
than the education and the faculties requisite for
the lawyer, the physician, the litterateur, or
the divine. Strange to say, however, in one of
11 our most thriving and fertile colonies the farmer
has hitherto met with almost insuperable difficulties.
Thanks to immense advantages conferred by old
and obselete acts when land was of little value ;
some of the best agricultural tracts in Victoria
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sition which has frustrated every attempt to bring
about a better and more equitable state of things
has been the perplexity of successive Australian
statesmen ; and more than one measure has
been passed with the express purpose of
throwing the public lands open to fair com-
petition without producing the slightest result.
Whatever the quality of the land held by the
squatter, whether rich agricultural soil or mere
pasture land, he held it at a nominal rent, and grew
rich upon it. Naturally he opposed every scheme
which threatened to deprive him of the advantages
he was enjoying, and his agents were not slow in
devising difficulties which defeated the practical
working of every successive measure. But at last,
when the evil was felt to be growing intolerable,
and the anachronism of Crown lands being held
under a monopoly in a new country was being
everywhere denounced, came the Act of 1865,
which came actually into operation in May last, and
as yet bide fair to attain the long sought for object.