The Sun.
London, England, 1847-05-03 00:00:00

Itening 2int

A.ONDON, MONDAY, MAY 3, 1847,

Education is now occupying so much of the atten -
ion of the Government, that we are fearful lest the
present Parliamentary session may terminate with-
out any active movement in regard to a sanatory refor-
mation. To the Chief Commissioner of her MAJESTY'S
Woods and Forests we are indebted for the intro-
duction of a measure calculated to effect a very
considerable improvement in the social condition of
the people. Still the mere introduction of the mea-
sure, and its subsequent neglect for the furtherance of
other enactments, can in no manner tend to the dis-
sipation of those manifold grievances which infect all
our populous municipalities, and materially increase
the average mortality of the population. The voices
of miserable millions—emaciated millions—dying
millions--adjure the Legislature to interpose with its
majestic and authoritative influence, for the salvation
of the health and lives of the community. Often as
we have insisted upon the necessity of some exertion
on the part of Government for the better cleansing,
drainage, and sewerage of the metropolis and the
provincial towns, we cannot induce ourselves to dimi-
nish either the frequency or the urgency of our de-
mands in this particular, because we should regard
ourselves, if silent, as to no trifling extent responsible
for the lives of those individuals who must inevitably
perish through the dilatoriness of the Legislature, or
the procrastination of the Ministry. Not only is it
the bounden duty of every individual in the empire,
but it is especially the 'bounden duty of the Press, to
agitate with zeal and assiduity for the passing of
some comprehensive sanatory enactment. Lord N OR-
ANBT —honour to the Noble Marquis for
the utterance of his eloquent and argumen-
tative harangue !—Was the.first individual to bring
this important question under the considera-
tion of the Senate. Since then a multitude of
labourers have arisen both within and without the
walls of Parliament, labourers actuated by a spirit
of the purest philanthropy, and incited to perpetual
exertion by the increasing wretchedness of their fel-
low-creatures.
During the last Administration Lord LINCOLN re-
newed the discussion in the House of Commons, and
within the past few weeks Lord MORPETH has again
exposed the culpability of preceding Governments in
allowing such physical and moral degradation
to continue unchecked. To these admirable
but interrupted efforts must be especially added, in
our enumeration, the eminent labours of Dr.
SouTuwoon SMITH and the industrious activity of
the Health of Towns Association. A variety of mis-
cellaneous advocates of the proposed alterations have
appeared in all directions, and have tended equally to
the elucidation of matters that had hitherto been in-
explicable, and to the continual revival of the subject
whenever it apparently dropped into forgetfulness.
No plea whatever can justify the Executive in
delaying the investigation of a question which in-
volves, not merely the comfort, but the bodily health,
not merely the cleanliness, but the moral elevation,
not merely the happiness, hut the very lives of the
poorer members of the population. In comparison
with this great question all others sink into obscurity.
The modification of our fiscal arrangements, requisite
as it is to ensure the facile action of the machinery of the
State, is secondary to the removal of those pestilential
and execrable evils which decimate our cities and
tend to the depopulation even of our rural locali-
ties—even, we repeat it, of our rural lacalities! In
those elevated and open districts the natural advan-
tages of which have acquired for them a species of local
and sometimes of general celebrity as salubrious
places of residence, the utter absence of proper
management has placed the lives of their inhabitants

II jeopardy, and contaminated the atmosphere with

the most villanous exudations. The exudations
of vegetable and animal corruption, nay, the
mere exudations of badly ventilated drains, have
frequently proved as pernicious and as poisonous
as the fetid exudations of the metropolitan
graveyards. As a circumstance in point we would
direct attention to the facts recounted in an
admirable pamphlet, just published by Mr.
CHARLES F. J. LORD. That gentleman has enforced
the necessity of sanatory reform with an extraordi-

nary array of facts accumulated in his immediate

neighbourhood; and he has recounted the deplorable
statistics deducible from those facts with a ♦ery
praiseworthy ardour. According to Mr. CHARLES
LORD, the want of due ventilation, of moderate

sewerage, of care in domestic architecture, and of an
ordinary amount of cleanliness, has produced a nest of

wretchedness and disease in the very centre of Hamp-
stead—a suburban village usually considered as re-
markable for its invigorating influence.
We are almost inclined to despair of the enforcement
of one simple truth upon the comprehension of the pub-
lic—namely, that society, as well as cultivated

land, demands a certain amount of irrigation.
From the splendour and magnitude of the ancient
aqueducts one would literally be disposed to consider
that this truth was much more appreciated by a
Roman generation than by us English in these times
of vaunted civilization. Again, in our short-
sighted economy of space we were unques-
tionably surpassed of yore. In the days
of idolatrous ignorance (?) no such spectacles
were visible as are unhappily to be discovered in this
rich and flourishing city in this enlightened and
elevated age. It was this reflection which caused

------
THOMAS CARLYLE to exclaim in that most bitter

sentence, which has been selected as the test of the

pamphlet referred to—" The old Romans had their

.Edile9, who would, I think, in direct contraver

sion to supply and demand, have rigorously seen

rammed up into total abolition many a fou

cellar in our Southwarks, St. Gileses, and
dark poison-lanes. " Much as we vaunt our
superiority over our ancestors, these considerations
should assuredly induce us to form a more humble
estimate of our comparative social improvement, and
to imbibe some advantage from the experience of a
despised antiquity. Government must remember
that significant observation of the Edinburgh Review,
that England owes its greatness to" its miles of crowded
streets," and it should take the condition of those
streets into consideration ; it should, moreover, bear
in constant recollection the appalling fact that every
day that sanatory reformation is delayed costs, on an
indisputable calculation, no less than one hundred

and thirty-six jives in England alone 1 Those, there.

fore, who would wilfully procrastinate the passage of
Lord MORPETH'S Bill will, in effect, be abettors of

wholesale homicide.

The proceedings at the Court of Madrid, which
have just been brought to light, evince more than
ever the abominable policy pursued by Louis
PHILIPPE, respecting the marriages of the Queen of
SPAIN and her sister, and establish more than ever
the propriety and wisdom of the remonstrances which
our own Court presented against their contraction,
especially in reference to that of the Duchess of
AIONTPENSIER. However wide may be the differ.
ences in the personal characters of Queen ISABELLA
and her Consort, such as to preclude the probability
of their ever mutually realising the blessings of do-
mestic happiness, no doubt can now remain that the
primary cause of the lengthened rupture between
them, sprang from the desire of FRANCISCO DE
Asses to render, as far as in him lay, the
Government of completely subservient
to the influence and dictation of the KING
Off the Funtica. That Louts PHILIPPE never
one ewnitlycoannsaultuendseethmelypeersoornts of
or
alfelhiicsityeoilf
her, by moment
the Queen of SPAIN, but looked only
efforts
to forcing uponv
and corrupt agents, a husband, who would prove