The Sun.
London, England, 1849-10-24 00:00:00

CHOLERA.

Dr. King has addressed a further communication
to the Earl of Carlisle, of which the following is a
copy :
My Lord,—ln my communication of the 12th
instant I recalled to your mind the hot blast which
swept over the Goodwin Sands, and felled to the
earth the strongest and healthiest men, marked with
the disease then raging as an epidemic, and known
by the name of cholera, and I narrated similar blasts
which had similarly marked the inhabitants of Salis-
bury and Walworth. I have now to direct your
attention to one of the great laboratories where
such blasts are generated—the Warwick street and
Kenilworth•street sewers.

In this great laboratory, that process of decompo-
sition and collection of gas has been set up for two
long years which is daily in operation in the labora-
tory of every chemist: the means adopted by the
chemists and the Metropolitan Commission of
Sewers being the same, a trough as a digester, and
and an inverted cylinder as a receiver. The only
difference is, that in the one case the receiver is
placed perpendicularly, and in the other case hori-
zontally, to the trough—the Warwick-street sewer
representing the trough, the Kenilworth• street
sewer the receiver, of the Metropolitan Commission
of Sewers.

Into the great Kenilworth-street gas receiver the
three unfortunate sufferers, Attwood, Pert, and Gee,
entered about mid•day, when it was warmed by the
heat of the sun, which shines all day long upon its
termination—and this day a thermometer submitted
to it indicated a temperature of 96 degrees
and fell lifeless on their faces without a struggle;
a death so instantaneous, that their hats remained
on their heads—a death so complete that even that
muscular effort was denied to these powerful men
that the new-born infant is permitted to exert to save
itself, the moment it has entered upon its mrw life,
from threatened asphyxia, consequent upon its lying
on its face. In this great gas receiver—the re
ceptacle not only of the gases generated within itself
in an extraordinary degree, owing to its position with
regard to the sun's rays, but of the gases generated in
the \Varwick street sewer—was eliminated and re-
tained not only large quantities of suiphuretted hy-
drogen gas, but the vapour of prussic acid, and I am
bold enough to say, unknown gases—gases that have,
in all probability, destroyed insidiously the unfortu-
nate men upon whom a jury is now sitting. I say
insidiously, because the companions of Attwood, sen-
sible of his keen smell, maintain that the gas that
killed him and his two companions (Mr. %Veils and
Walsh)—and modified to a degree owing to the in-
troduction of atmospheric air from the breaking down
of the crown of the receiver or bricked-up termina-
tion—was one that he knew not the smell of ; gases
which I am satisfied generate colera—smell-less
gases—directly emanating from the sewage, and
immediately imparting the blue colour characteristic
of that fatal disease.

In the pent-up sewage, in a particular state of de-
composition, in the Kenilworth-street sewer, man
dies the death of blue asphyxia, in the same pent-up
sewage of Pilgrim-street, Walworth, and Lovegrove-
street, Camberwell, and Garden court, Windsor, man
dies the death of blue cholera. Are not the terms
blue asphyxia and blue cholera merely distinctive, and
not differential.

Of the gaseous origin of cholera I am as thoroughly
convinced as I was on the 10th of September, when
I addressed my third report to the Board of Health on
the state of Lambeth, Newington, and Camberwell

when I first broached these views, which were re-
peated in my fourth report, dated two days subse-
quently, in order to urge upon the hoard that remedy
which I considered necessary to mitigate the sufferings
of the afflicted, if not to save them from death.
It is not with the intention, however, of still
further directing your attention to these reports—
for your Lordship has informed me that you have
these reports under consideration—but of praying
you to continue your exertions in sanitary reform in
the direction of the sewers, notwithstanding your
separation from the Metropolitan Commission, to
whose charge the all important subject of sewage is
delegated; exertions absolutely essential as long as
that commission refuses to recognise science, and—
neglecting to follow the example of the brewer, who
has long since abandoned the human finger, in ascer-
taining the precise time for drawing off the wort, for
the less perishable and more certain test of the ther-
mometer—still uses man to detect by smell the pre-
sence of destructive gases into the history of which
the most advanced chemistry only supplies us with a
glimmer of light.
I never beheld a more beautifully developed nasal
apparatus, and a more strongly marked illustration of
blue asphyxia—and ethnological research has long
been my favourite study—than the sufferer Attwood
presented to my view ; and but for vulgar prejudice,
deeply rooted in the poor widow of the unfortunate
man, I should have preserved on canvass a record of
one of the most remarkable phenomena of the epidemic,
which we hope has now passed away.
The errors which have been commmitted in the
construction of the Kenilworth•street sewer, will
form the subject of a letter addressed by me to the
Metropolitan Commission of Sewers.
As long as plague, pestilence, and famine surround
me in my daily haunts, I hope your .Lordship will he
pleased to bear with me, and allow me to subscribe
myself your Lordship's most obedient and very humble
servant, RICHARD KIRG.
17, Saville row, Oct. 20, 1849.

. -
POSTPONEMENT OF TUE SECOND INSTALMENT Or
THE }lop DOM instalment
of payment of the second
of the hop duty due next month has been postponed
until October, 1850, the usual bond being required. The
payment of the first instalment of the 1848 duty com-
menced yesterday week at Tow
n Melling, and has con-
tinued throughout the week in the ditlerent districts,
and the growers generally have paid the duty.—Af aid-
stone Gazette.

EAST SURREY REGISTRATION. The Revising
Barrister (S. C. C. Fish, Esq.) for the Eastern Division
of Surrey concluded the revision of the county lists yes-
terday morning, at the Workhouse Committee-mom,
Bermondsey. The subjoined figures exhibit the number
of electors on the register now in force, the number of
them expunged, the claims allowed, and the number of
electors for the electoral year, 1849-50, namel) :—The
number of electors on the register for 1848-49, 6,351; of
them expunged, 561; the rest of electors, 5,790; add
claims allowed, 598; the number of electors for 1849.50,
6,388; increase, 37. Of the number expunged 234 will
be on the new register. and 155 are,dcceased.
RESIGNATION OF MR. SERGEANT MURPHY.—We
are authorised to state that the friends of Alr. Sergeant
Murphy have formally withdrawn that gentleman's name
from the list of candidates, as it is not their intention tO
persevere in a contest, and thereby divide the Liberal
interest. This decision settles the election of Mr.
M'Carthy, and secures the triumph of national principle
and political purity; for of the chance of the Conserva-
tives we have not the shadow of a fear, as they have not
the shadow of a hope.—Cork Examiner.
An immense turnip, weighing 27ilbs., and
measuring 3 feet 7 inches in circumference, was brought
to our office on Friday. It was grown by Mr. William
Robinson, of Eaatham, and is called " Skirvicit's rurpto
Top Turaip.".-2.iusrpool Aircur)