The Sun.
London, England, 1853-11-25 00:00:00

DEAD MAN'S POISON.

" Sir,—l regret to be in a condition to confirm the cor-
rectness of your correspondent, Dr. Epps, whosa commu-
nication on The Prevalence of Eruptions,' was given in
the Lancet of Nov. 4, page sn ; for although seldom called
upon to perform vaccination, the prevalence of eruptive
diseases in children, during `the whole past period of the
present year,' has constantly forced itself upon my notice
and attention, whilst unusually severe diarrhoea, obstinate
(and, in two instances, fatal) dysentery, I have seen the
prevailing (epidemic) diseases of adults. The acute exan-
themata, scarlatina, and measles, have been more frequent
in my practice than at any period during my previous
eight years' experience in this neighbourhood.
"In several cases of rubeola (measles) the congestion
and subsequent inflammation of the lungs have been of an
unusually severe character. In a few cases of scarlatina
maligna that have come, incidentally and otherwise, under
mytaotice, the parotid, submaxillary, sublingual, and entire
chain of cervical glands, have been inflamed, and exces-
sively increased in size.
" Eight children, of various ages, have been treated for
acute and chronic pemphigus. In two of these cases, the
blithe were of unusual size, and discharged, in rapid suc-
cession, a most irritating fluid, which excoriated the sur-
rounding parts. Four cases of purpura have been under
treatment. All my young patients had been well and
sufficiently nourished.

" I consider, sir, that children are the truest (barometri-
cal?) indices of the sanitary condition of a crowded neigh-
bourhood. The acute exanthemata more especially, the
stock diseases of all such localities in the present shamefully
neglected condition of the earth's surface and sub-surface,
find in them the earliest, the most interesting, and the
most suffering victims.
" When children of a larger growth shall be fully
awakened to the conviction that in many localities disease
is manufactured by wholesale,' to be treated by `retail;'
when individuals or bodies of persons who, blessed with
the means to do good and the leisure to execute, will, in-
stead of crusading for the evangelisation of transinarine
heathen, attempt (and by the only sensible and immedi-
ately practicable meats) to Christianise our own ; when
they will take as much care of the breed of the human as
they do of the higher order of domestic animals ; when
men, women, and children who, in thousands of instances,
are worse lodged, worse fed, and worse treated than the
horses of the rich in their stables, or the beasts of the
Zoological Gardens in their dens, are, for the first time,
anxiously and efficiently cared for; when the spurious,
the rotten philanthropy above hinted at, instead of pa-
thetically lamenting the moral depravity of the millions
whom it has never seen ' • will set itself seriously to work
to improve the temporal condition of our own unhappy.
too frequently degraded and brutalised poor ; when it shall
study poor human nature in detail instead of in the mass ;
go into the so-called houses and neighbourhoods iu which
so many of our fellow-creatures vegetate, like fungi, not
live like men ; it will be the agent in producing enormous,
incalculably beneficial results—results that would be felt
in the minutest and most intricate ramifications of the
great human family.
"The annihilation of easily-recognised sources of discom-
fort and disease, with their invariable concomitants,
would by degrees produce great moral and physical re-
sults. The patriot, the moralist, and the divine would
ultimately discover and appreciate the invaluable truth,
that however sincere and anxious the ministers of religion
ofmay
c s
tt
ioa
ne lint
yc i,dtaht
ee ,perxo
iasi
ens,
(atnodtheen pf oor co
re, theo r
eg reesapt e te
aultl hy
)
of a happier, indefinite, non-tangible future, would
have a thousandfold more in • fl uence on their lives
and conduct than under the existing order of things ; be-
cause the finger of sophistry, scorn, and derision could not
then point with the self-satisfaction and malignity of a
fiend to the tangible, terrible realities of the present.
(Signed) G. A.
That is from a terrible pamphlet published in 1846,
by the Messrs. Longmans—a pamphlet crowded
with terrible revelations, and entitled Burial
Ground Incendiarism." Assuredly few pe
ople require
to be told, at this time, who "G.A. W. can possibly
be. We rather fancy that the ghouls have be en
pretty well scared from their grim pastimes innears last
the London graveyards during these to y
past by that same indefatigable 4, G. A. NV "—so
frequently, indeed, that the majority of the ob-
servant have long since come to recognise the value
of the services done to society at large by that ablest
of our Sanitary Reformers. _
ex-finger of Reform
his ind
If it b© asked whither
is pointed—we need only reply in one word to the
" Cemetery"—meaning one not intramural, but
extramural.
provincial contemporary, the Bed-
ford Our esteemed
ned, by the way, very recently,
Times, contained, by
lines on this t and meritorious
some benevolent
e cannot think undeserving sub-
ject,quo-
lines which w.
l signed " Dorcas," and run
tation. They are slinp.y
as follows, in one portion relating, first, to the cho-
lera, and then to—
THE CEMETERY.
ago—baneful Pestilence,*
Some years
grim, had crossed the sea and reaped
A spectre t for rapacious death ;
harvest A goodly •
igorous effort made to close
Then wa.sia v
unds within the city's walls,
The buns -gro
•sonous, gaseous exhalations rise,
Where poi
And
deal their deadliest influence round
By onet desirous for his country's weal,
Who with his single voice aloud proclaimed
The monster evil to his fellow-men;
And in
• as far as individual means
And moral courage, talents, time, could cope
With burial fees, and vested rights, and all
The varied host in Prejudice's camp,
Broke through the barrier with his single arm,
Unveiled, and laid these hateful secrets bare
The public mind at length bath slow] woke
From lethargy, and that inherent y
Of old association, which so lovelong
Hath held it like a child in leading strings,
And stepped forth crying out, Reform.
Three overloaded graveyards were then closed,
But "men in power," with tim'rous, feeble will,
Left incomplete the work--the measure failed
Till once again the Choleraic P courge
Comes creeping on ; and by experience now
Mankind have wiser grown, and do their best
To stop, with sanitary means, the foe.
For ever will the graveyards of the town
Be closed, and no rude sexton's hand shall dare
Disturb a lov'd one's dust ; henceforth the dead
'Within the cemetery's hallowed ground
Will be interred, beyond the city's walls.
Oh what a quiet, peaceful spot is this
flowers,
It's verdant bloom, its graceful shrubs a lawers,
flee,
It's airy, wide expanse, whence Vapour's
Make it an oft frequented, calm retrea
(A melancholy the' a dear resort)
For those whose lost ones lie in stillness there
Beneath the tombstones which affection rears,
'There springs luxuriant grass,
decaying urns.
Like sheltering arms o'er theirs, and branches stretch

• Tl2o cholera in 1832.
t George Alfred Walker, the great champion of sanitary reform.
Enough for once--though the "facts and scraps"
relating to this all-absorbing.. subject might be al-
most interminably