The Sun.
London, England, 1847-12-06 00:00:00

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.

SlR,—May I beg to call your attention to the petition
presented by Sir R. Inglis on Wednesday last, from
Llandaff, against the admission of Jews to seats in Par-
liament. Any person perusing it would very naturally
attach great importance to it, as emanating from an
influential and numerous body of the community, and
as all of your readers are not, perhaps, aware of the
population of Llandaff (which does not contain 200
houses of all descriptions, and the greater part of those
of the humbler class), it would not perhaps be amiss
were Ito state that it is considerably under 1,000. Sir
R. Inglis should have denominated it the " petition of
the Dean of Llandaff," from the form which was pub-
lished by him (the Dean) in the Cardiff Advertiser, on
Oct, 16th last. I made a humble reply to it in the
Monmouthshire Merlin on the week following, and
nothing,has transpired since then, until I read a report in
The Sun of the presentation of the petition from
Llandaff. My only aim is to expose such "hole and
corner " work, and leave it in your able hands, sa the
liberal and strenuous advocate of civil and rvligious
liberty, to make what use of it you may deem expedient
against bigotry and intolerance.—l beg to remain, Sir,
your most tit:edit:in servant,

MARK MARKS.
9, St. Mary-street, Cardiff, Dec. 3, 1847.

THE EPIDEMIC INFLUENZA.
The influenza which has been prevailing for some time
past in the northern parts of Europe, has recently made
its appearance in the metropolis, and from information
which we have received it has been exceedingly preva-
lent in all quarters. Some thousands of all ages have
been attacked by it.
mild ; there is The symptoms are, on the whole,
great languor, with depression, frontal
headache, chilliness in the course of the spine, with
pains in the limbs, and aching in the loins. With these
symptoms there has been cough and sore throat, accom-
panied by enlargement of the parotid and submaxilary
glands. A stimulating plan of treatment has been found
to be most conducive to recovery; and, after a few days,
the patient has been restored to convalescence. In the
aged the disease has been attended with serious conse-
qronchituences,
is.by terminating in an aggravated form of
b
As we might suppose, the great prevalence of this
disorder in the metropolis is not in any way indicated
by the Registrar-General's table of deaths. On turn-
ing to Influenza, we find enumerated from this
cause, only four deaths during the last week; and of
tht se three were among infants, and one in an indi-
vidual above sixty. The deaths from bronchitis,
chiefly among old and young, have increased nearly
fifty per cent. above the average. Here, then, we
have a proof that the weekly table of deaths can •
not throw any light upon the amount of illness in the
metropolitan population, unless the prevalent disease be
of a very fatal character. We require what Professor
Casper has appropriately denominated weekly tables of
morbility as well as of mortality. Under a well-con-
stituted Board of Health, it would be by no means diffi-
cult to organise a regular system of weekly returns of
cases of disease admitted into the principal hospitals and
infirmaries of the metropolis.
We might be disposed to refer the appearance of
this epidemic to the very sudden and Rxtensive changes
in temperature which have recently taken place, and
to the large amount of moisture with which the air has
been for some time saturated ; but local meteorolo-
gical causes will scarcely account for it, since the dis-
order exists at the present time with equal intensity in
various parts of Europe remote from each other. In a
late number of this journal we announced the existence
of influenza at Copenhagen, where it had attacked a
large portion of the population. In the daily papers it
was erroneously reported that the disease which had
thus broken out in Denmark, was the cholera. We now
learn from the Continental journals that the influenza
(la grippe) has appeared in Marseilles, and that within
the short space of a week it attacked one half of the po-
pulation, viz., 80,000 persons. It is of a mild character;
but great alarm has been excited there, and in other lo-
calities where influenza has appeared, from the prevalent
belief that it is the forerunner of the Asiatic cholera. In
this country, however, the most severe form of epidemic
influenza was observed to follow the malignant cholera
of 1831-32.
We have thus evidence of a similar epidemic disorder
attacking almost simultaneously three cities forming a
triangle on the map of Europe—Copenhagen being nearly
equidistant (about 700 miles in a right line) from Mar-
seilles and London. To add to the difficulty of account-
for the origin of these epidemics by medical theories, we
may mention a curious fact that may throw some light
on the diffusion of cholera, by showing that an epidemic
and a quasi-contagious character may be observed in one
and the same disease. The French steamer Luxor,
which runs between Alexandria and Marseilles, recently
arrived in Egypt with the influenza on board. The crew
were so severely affected that the vessel did not make its
usual passage to Syria. To say that influenza is an in-
fectious disease, would be contrary to the general opinion
of those who have watched the progress of epidemics;
but how is it to be explained that a vessel, sailing from
a port where influenza is very prevalent, can transport
with it an epidemic in a severe form over so large a por-
tion of the sea? It is not stated whether, after the arri-
val of the vessel in the port of Alexandria, influenza had
appeared among the inhabitants.—Medical Gazette.

DEATH OF COLONEL SIR RICHARD BONN] CASTLE.
—We have this day the melancholy task of announcing
the decease of Colonel Sir R. Bonnycastle, at his resi
dente in this city, late of the corps of Royal Engineers,
and for may years the chief officer of that department in
Canada West. Sir Richard recently retired from active
service.—Kingston Chronicle, Nov. 3.
On Saturday a Special Court of Aldermen was
holden to receive a report of a Gaol Committee, recom-
mending that all female convicted persons should be re-
moved from Newgate and Giltspur-street Prison to the
Borough Compter. Mr. Alderman Humphery intimated
that they could not be legally detained in prison out of
the City, and the Recorder said it could not be done ex-
cept by the authority of an Act of Parliament, and that
every person so detained would have a right of action
for false imprisonment against those who detained them.
The Court, nevertheless, agreed to the report, and referred
i“ back to the Committee for eieoution.