The Sun.
London, England, 1847-02-01 00:00:00

Obeening ;AM

LONDON, MONDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 1847.

Before many days have elapsed the great national
question of the improvement of our sanatory system
will be submitted to the deliberation of the Legisla-
ture. It would be utterly impossible to exaggerate
the importance of a matter so intimately connected
with the health, the comfort, the morality, and the
commonest decencies of society. And it is a pecu-
liar satisfaction to know that the modification and re-
arrangement of our sanatory laws will not be under-
taken prematurely or precipitately ; that the Govern-
ment is not blundering into a concession merely for
the purpose of stopping a momentary clamour ; that,
in short, the consciousness of the necessity for some
such modification, and some such re-grangement, has
grown upon the mind of the nation through a gradual
succession of years, becoming day by day more
obvious to the multitude and the Ministry, both from
the unanswerable logic of Reason and the India- '
putable statistics of Experience. Conspicuously as
the name of SOUTHWOOD SMITH has become asso-
ciated with this remarkable movement in favour of
cleanliness, the extent to which that movement has
become diffused throughout the community is not
alone attributable to him ; the cause has found advo-
cates in a thousand quarters, the people themselves
have acknowledges 070 ndvisabillry of some slipr.t;o»
in their parochial proceedings, and for a very consi-
derable time the Press has endeavoured to stimulate
the thirst for social reformation and to enunciate the
real anxieties of the population. All the preliminary
measures, indeed, for insuring a change in the laws of
the land have been taken ; the potential impulse of
National Opinion has been given to the Legislature ;
the SOVEREIGN herself has recommended the consi-
deration of the sanatory wants of her subjects to her
faithful Lords and Commons ; the Ministry is deci-
sively pledged to the introduction of some compre-
hensive scheme to Parliament—a scheme bearing
directly upon the monster exigency, and calculated to
dissipate all the existing evils.
With so many villanous pests to remove, so many
difficulties to obviate, and so many and such compli-
cated interests to consult, it is only natural that the
Ministerial proposition about to be laid before
both Houses of Parliament should be characterised
by many deficiencies. This, we repeat it, is
but natural. In the first step of a grand
reform it would be folly to anticipate a panacea for
all the ills which it is intended to correct. We must
discard the advice afforded by HORACE as inappro-
priate to legislation, whatever it may be to poetry;
we must advance with all rational caution up the
scale of Innovation, instead of plunging in mediatots,
and surrounding ourselves with new and yet more/Ik-
tricate difficulties. Meanwhile, it would be equally
pernicious to nullify the efficacy of our legislative
enactments by an exaggerated timidity and an over-
weening precaution. Either extreme would be most
prejudicial, and, as with almost everything else, the
best course is the preservation of a proper medium.
There are two things, however, which we would
emphatically impress upon the minds of our country-
men—first upon Parliament, and secondly upon the
people in their particular localities. And we would
the more especially impress these things upon them
at this moment, seeing that the Ministerial proposi-
tions are on the very eve of their appearance.
First, upon the Legislature we would earnestly re-
commend the extension of their scheme of reformation
in the sanatory laws to every one of the more con-
spicuous abuses. We would see in the measures in-
troduced by the Cabinet no glaring omission or re-
markable oversight. We would see in those mea-
sures an individual remedy to every individual
evil manifestly tending to diminish the health of the
population. Rejoiced as we should be to find the
Parliament called upon to aid the more extensive
establishment of public baths and washhouses, we
should be more than disappointed to find the Govern-
ment silent upon the question of intermural inter-
ment. In the same way, the introduction of a good
sewerage Bill would be a great boon, it is true, but
it would be no compensation for a complete disregard
of the advisability of forming abattoirs and of sup-
pressing the system of private slaughter-houses. The
diminution of the smoke nuisance, again, would
scarcely satisfy us for the postponement of any effort
for the better introduction of fresh water into our
towns. To be brief, we shall not be contented, and
the people will not be contented, unless the Legis-
lature sweep away all the most crying abuses of
social life.

....„........-.
Secondly, we would enforce one consideration
upon the people in their municipal capacities. We
would see them prepared for the more necessary en-
actments of our rulers, so that the sanatory mea-
surea of the Legislature may be carried into opera-
tion with as little delay as possible. The various
local and parochial authorities should be ready to
advantages
correspond at once with the generous intentions of
Government,
so
of the newtbatthep üblic
generally
asly a
rampaidyreap
thesystems 1
possible.
Let it never be forgotten that sanatory arrange-
ments, of whatever character they may be, must
more or less, influence the mortality
of the nation • . ' ........____......._

We have perused M. GuizoT's very lengthy
dispatch, of the 25th instant, to Count ST. AULAIRE,
and we are perfectly satisfied that, not only England,
but France herself, whose honour and national in-
terests have been so shamelessly tarnished, and disre-
putably sacrificed by her IVlinister for Foreign