The Sun.
London, England, 1865-09-29 00:00:00

lancholy theme. Sir E. IffrroN reminded his hearers
of his remarks some three years back, upon the
report of Professor SAWYER, the veterinary surgeon,
of Edinburgh, as to the increased and increasing
progress of disease among our stock, attended with
no symptoms of an epidemic nature, " dating from
the free importation of foreign cattle." These
prophecies have indeed been fulfilled in a very un-
satisfactory manner, and the best plan to adopt will
be to follow the advice here given, and use every
possible precaution to guard against the introduc-
tion of the evils mentioned, and also to remedy
their fatal effects when once they are in
action. The disease is increased in virulence
when it reaches our shores by our very faulty
management. In the first place, among the predis-
posing causes may be mentioned the cruelty and
suffering to which they are exposed on board the
ships that carry them over ; and next, the bad man-
ner in which their railway travelling is conducted.
A third cause was named by Sir EDWARD as the
" pestilential mode in which mulch cows have been
huddled together in places reeking with filth by the
London cowkeepers." Considering, as the right
hon. baronet said, that there is no known means
of cure just now despite all the efforts being
made by skill and science, it behoves us to
lend ready co-operation to the preventionary
methods advised by Government, and also
to take advantage of that safeguard which insurance
presents in individual cases of loss and destruction
of property. It appears that in Hertfordshire an
insurance society of this nature has already been
established, and it is to be hoped that so excellent
an example will be followed in other counties, for it
must offer great securities to persons whose means
of livelihood is rendered doubtful by the uncertain
state of their stock through this malady now raging.
Certainly Sir E. B. LvTroN could have given his
hearers no wiser counsel than to urge them to take
advantage of the warnings they had received of. the
advent of the plague, and improve all that has hitherto
been so much miss in our mode mode of procedure.
The right hon. baronet concluded his most interest-
ing speech by alluding to the peaceful state of our
relations with our continental neighbours, of which
we have just had so happy an instance in the recent
interchange of hospitalities between the navies of
France and England. " Yet," said he, "if the hour
of peril should indeed arrive, it is in societies like
the present, composed chiefly of those who live by
the soil, that the soil will find its most enthusiastic
patriots, and, if need be, its strongest defenders."
This address appeared to give the greatest satisfac-
tion to all the auditory, and it was warmly received
throughout.

The threatened visitation of cholera has done us
some good service. It has brought into notice old
abuses, which havebeen so long left undisturbed that
they have. become established customs. It has
aroused the vigilance of our reformers, and has
given them support and encouragement in making
their complaints and representations to the authori-
ties. There still remains, however, very much to
be done, and as is invariably the case, in matters
that are everybody's concern and nobody's busi-
ness, the necessary forms are deferred from day
to day, because no one sets them on foot.
Whenever there is an alarm of cholera, or any
other special epidemic—for with fever in all
its forms we have unfortunately grown so familiar
as to become indifferent—startling facts are brought li
to light, and evidence is given of such great and
widespread evils that we can only wonder that such
scandalous neglect has not long ago avenged itself
tn.". tin; Ivhole popnlotic.m. But when the alarm
passes by, the subject drops, the revelations are
forgotten, and all goes on as before. Typhus, in
some of its forms, goes on quietly mowing down
the people, and little notice is taken of the gra-
dual increase of his victims until a fresh alarm of
pestilence rouses the authorities from their lethargic
indifference. The sanitary condition of Lanca-
shire has long been disgraceful. Though one of
the most populous of our counties, its drainage,
sewarage, paving, &c., have been almost en-
tirely neglected. The cotton famine which has
been productive of so much immediate suffering has
effected lasting good, by means of the Public
Works Act, and the consequent expenditure of two
millions of money on these useful and necessary
undertakings. With this large amount of capital
and so much unemployed labour, it is no won-
der that great results have been achieved
and that now the tide of business once
more begins to flow and to absorb the
energies of masters and men, the results of the
cotton famine may be considered as decidedly bene-
ficial. But, unfortunately, in some respects the
business is only half done. If the towns are
drained into the rivers, and the water of those
rivers is used in the mills, it is at once evi-
dent that very little is gained. Yet such
it seems has been the case in some parts. The
Irwell and its tributaries are becoming what the
Thames was a few years since, and the practice of
making the nearest running stream the receptacle of
the sewage has been carried out with the most
unpleasant and injurious effects. What a
pity it is that while the works were
being carried on the business was not done effectu-
ally, and an arrangement made for the utilisation or
deodorisation of the sewage. The local boards have
been very energetic in pushing forward the works,
but they have stopped half way. The description
given of the course of the Irwell by a resident of
Blackburn is certainly not very inviting. It rises
in Rossendale as a small stream, and very soon
passes through several factory steam boilers, and a
turkey-red dyework, so that at a few miles
from its sources its colour has undergone a
complete metamorphosis. At Bacup the sewer-
age operations have been vigorously carried
on, and through all the populous valley of
Rossendale the Irwell receives tributaries charged
with refuse matter containing as vile compounds as
itself. Yet it goes on turning the wheels of mills
and supplying the water of boilers till it reaches
Manchester, having meanwhile passed Bury, Rad-
cliffe, and other crowded districts, and having been
enlarged by the contributions of the Roach and the
Croat bearing the sewage and refuse of Rochdale
and Bolton. The result of all this in hot weather
may easily be guessed. In the mills where the water
of the Irwell
is employed thelocal ipetiople corn-
plain of sickness and want of appetite,eson and
s
all through the crowded
banks the evil odours are remarkable. Yet,
instead of anything being done to remedy the evil,
it is only made worse and worse. "When the drainage
works now being carried on are completed the
waters of East and South Lancashire will be still
more unwholesome, still more laden with pestiferous
matter. Yet, as Lord PALMERSTON once said, it is
only matter in the wrong place. Another element
would absorb it with as such profit as health. If
the amount of sewage and refuse committed to the
water were given to the earth, the result would be
as directly beneficial as it is now positively
injurious. y Surely, then, this question de-
serves -some attention, and the local autho-
rities can hardly exonerate themselves from
the charge of neglecting their duties if they do not
attempt to remove the evil. With a rumour of
cholera approaching us, any inattent..on to sanitary