The Sun.
London, England, 1860-11-01 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING, NOVEMBER 1, 1860.

TILE PUBLIO HEALTH.

(Front the Quarterly Return of the Reyistrar General.)
The quarterly return just issued by authority of
the Registrar-General comprises the births and
deaths registered by 2,197 registrars in all the dis-
tricts of England during the summer quarter that
ended September 30, 1860; and the marriages in
12,493 churches or chapels, about 4,307 registered
places unconnected with the Established Church,
and 631 superintendent registrars' ofaes in the
quarter that ended on June 30th, 1860.
The temperature during the past quarter has
been unusually low, the sky cloudy, the earth often
sunless, and the weather generally bad, in the lan•
guage of meteorology ; nevertheless the progress of
the phenomena the returns record is satisfactory.
The mortality was much below the average, the
births little differed from it; the marriages were
increasing, Sanitary improvements have gone on,
and the general result of the wet weather has been
a better supply of water, the purification of the
sewers, and the retardation of putrefaction, as well
as of the zymotic changes which produce diar-
rhoea. Fruit has been abundant, and its consump-
tion has also had a salutary effect. Mr. Leigh, of
Manchester, justly says, " the dependence of diar-
rhoea upon a high temperature seerns to be most
marked, for fruit has been unusually plentiful, and
it has been eaten most freely without ill effect."
The ultimate results of the extraordinary season
will be watched with interest as they are revealed
in future returns.

signs of improvement which cannot be entirely
accounted for by the flooding of the sewers by the
rains. The decrease in the mortality of Wolver-
hampton, Walsall, West Bromwich, and Dudley,
where the water supply was imperfect, is enormous;
and in nearly all of them certain sanitary arrange-
ments have been introduced. The deaths in Bir-
mingham and Aston during the last three summer
quarters have been 1,854, 1,815, and 1,244; the
mortality has fallen one•third part.
It is probable that the ordinary water supply of
a place is bad when its mortality is greatly reduced
by heavy rains.
The north midland counties lost less by 1,013
lives in the last summer quarter (5,454) than they
lost in the summer preceding. Diphtheria has
nevertheless prevailed in parts of Lincolnshire, the
inhabitants of which will do well to study the ex-
perience of Fiskcrton. There diphtheria was very
prevalent, and killed 11 persons. The drainage of
the parish was very defective, " there being open
dikes close to some of the houses, containing water,
&c., in a putrid and stinking state, without any
fall to pass it away." It was reported to the board
of guardians by the registrar, the defects of drain-
age were remedied, and there has been no fresh case
during the last month. The district is healthy.
In Belper vaccination is mach neglected ; small-
pox has made its appearance, and has been fatal in
nine cases. Fever has been very fatal in Dronfield.
In the north-western counties 13,959 deaths were
registered, the deaths in the previous quarter hav-
ing been 15,609. The system of middens prevailed
in Lancashire, and the dirt is there not washed
away by rain as it is in sewers; which may account
for the circumstance that the reduction of the mor-
tality is less in this county than it is elsewhere.
The registrars of the West Derby district, a part of
which is in the borough of Liverpool, call attention
to the diminished rate of mortality. " Sanitary mea-
sures," one of them says, " under the Health Act
have greatly improved this district." Scarlatina has
been very prevalent in the Lancaster subdistrict ;
it was fatal in 15 cases, and had it not been for the
superior sanitary arrangements the registrar be-
lieves "it would have been four times as fatal, for
in an ill-drained group of twenty houses a quarter
of a mile from the town the disease was the cause
of 3 deaths."

The deaths in Yorkshire were 9,806, or less by
1,177 than the deaths in the summer quarter of the
previous year. There is no reduction in the high
mortality of the Leeds or of the Hunslet districts ;
indeed, diarrhoea prevailed there, and the deaths
were 1,481, or 170 more than in the summer quar-
ter of the precious year. The causes of the high
mortality deserve the careful attention of the in-
telligent authorities of that important town.
Hull and Sculcoats experienced a great reduc-
tion of mortality.
The deaths in the northern counties amounted to
5,185, and were to some extent below the average
number. Scarlatina and typhus have been preva-
lent in Durham and Tynemouth.
The mortality in Alonmonthshire and Wales was
below the average ; 5,500 deaths were registered.
The weather of this quarter iiay be looked at as
an experiment on the health of the people. Em-
ployment has been easily obtained by workmen,
but the prices of provisions have been high. And
this general survey seems to establish the fact, that
the salubrity of the season is chiefly due to two cir-
cumstances ; the reduced temperature of summer,
and the abundant supply of water by rain. The
low temperature retarded the putrefaction of the
town impurities ; and the water washed them
away; so both the forces acting in the same direc-
tion, gave a great result. A careful study of the
circumstances of each locality by which the result
was produced, cannot fail to be instructive, and to
confirm the faith of the authorities in the simple
sanitary elements with which nature works.
If Wolverhampton is, as the registrar conjectures,
extraordinary healthy, " because the frequent rains
have swilled away the impurities from which in
hot summer weather noxious effluvia arise, thereby
preventing the sickness, and diarrhoea more espe-
cially, caused by such vapours in the air, and im-
purities in the water supply," why should Wolver.
hampton ever be again as unhealthy and as dan-
gerous to its inhabitants as it was before ? It is
true the town has no command over the rain ;
but it has unquestionably the power to wash
away the impurities from its cesspools and its
sewers. Its engineers can supply the town with sweet
water in abundance for the use of the inhabitants.
If the Birmingham and Aston district too loose
only 1,244 inhabitants by death when the town is
well washed, why should they ever die again at the
rate of last summer when 1,815 of the people
perished
The remedy is too simple to obtain immediately
all the attention it deserves from the municipal
authorities. But they cannot do better than imi-
tate the great oriental dignitary suffering from
leprosy, as our towns are now suffering from other
diseases, who, although he was wroth when told to
" wash and be clean," yet finally obeyed the in-
junction and was healed.

PRUSSIAN POLICY.

German newspapers are affecting surprise that
the English people should allow themselves to be
provoked by the incident on the Bonn Railway
into finding fault with everything Prussian, and
judging the acts of a first-rate Power and a friendly
nation under the influence of petty resentment.
As the same charge is made by a portion of our
own press, it is worth while to contradict it, and
to say that, though the insolence of the Prussian
officials will not be easily forgotten here, it has in
no way affected the judgment which we as a free
people have passed on the political acts of the
il
l-used
and If an Englishman has been
and his country deliberately insulted by a judicial
functionary in open court about the same time
that a retrograde foreign policy has been avowed
by the Regent's Cabinet, the concurrence of the
two events must rather be looked upon as showing
that they proceed from the same impulse, and that
the antipathy to liberal institutions which is
expressed decorously by the statesman takes the
form of vulgar abuse in the mouth of the pro-
vincial pettifogger. We are, however, disposed
still more to regret that
he scandalous affair ever
took place if it leads the GermaL.7 people to believe
that the discontent which is felt at the policy of
Prussia springs from no other source tha.' tempo-
rary pique. The fact is very different, as the winter
in the National Zeitung plainly sees. For man,
years there has been a smouldering dissatisfaction at I
the manner in which Prussia has fulfilled her inter-
national duties, and in this crisis of European
history the dissatisfaction has broken out into
anger. We need not now dwell on the Russian
War, and the parr which the Court of Berlin
played during that time. We are now told by the
apologists of the Regent's policy that Baron Man-
teuffel is no longer in power, and that, though his
creatures still cling to the bureaux where he plac-,..d
them, the spirit of the Government is wholly
changed. It would give us much pleasure to be
convinced of this. We would gladly learn that the
Prussia of to-day was something different from the
State which allowed itself to be reduced to insigni-
ficance six years ago.
But no proof of this change is afforded us. Prussia
is evidently as week in purpose and as wavering in
counsel as when King Frederick William listened
to every piece of pious sentimentality with which
Russian agents plied his infirm mind. The policy of
Berlin was then neutrality—it is neutrality now ;
and yet the demands of a manly policy are much
smaller now than then. In the late war Prussia
was asked to fight; now she is called upon only to
give her moral support to a people struggling for
freedom. But she could not decide then, and she
cannot decide now. In 1954 Prussia perfectly
agreed with the Western Powers, and two years
after she became a party to the Treaty of Paris.
She was a steadfast opponent, on paper, of Russian
aggression. She desired the indeptidence of
Turkey, the freedom of the Danube—all, in fact,
for which those who asked for her alliance con-
tended. But she would take no part in supporting
what she approved and in carrying out what she
desired. Her first appearance was when the victory
had been won, and then she came unbidden to the
Council-table to join in discussions when all had
been practically decided. The present position of
Prussia is scarcely less undignified. True, for the
present, non-intervention is the order of the day,
and no practical result follows, whether the views
of the Court be for or against Italy. But no one
can say how long this state of things will last, and
Prussia has no right to count upon it, and to fancy
that she can conciliate despotism and liberty by an
equivocal note. She was asked by public opinion to
give such a countenance to the efforts of Italy as
should prove the sincerity of her alliance with Eng-
land, should discourage Austria from any military
folly, should check the agitation of the German re-
aetionists, should take away from France all pre-
text for hostility to the Federation, and should
secure the peace of the world by making it plain
that at least one strong and wise Government ruled
in Central Europe, and might be depended upon to
think with ability and act with vigour. The course
taken by Baron Schleinitz or his deputy has dis-
appointed these hopes. Although Prussia was
asked only to express an opinion, ',yet that opi-
n. ion is the test of her progress and of her weight
Europe. We now know that in this Italian
question, which looks so threatening to the
general peace, Prussia may be drawn to either
party. Austria need not despair of winning the
Regent's support, for is not her enemy condemned
as a violator of treaties and fosterer of revolutions ?
Italy may expect that the decision will be on her
own side, for she is fighting for nationality, a prin-

ciple which Baron Schleinitz honours with his
highest approval. It is this weakness and insin-
cerity which makes Prussia distrusted, and pro-
vokes the anger of Englishmen. And nothing, in-
deed, is more likely to produce fresh complications.
The Prussian Court, no doubt, thinks that the Note
addressed to Turin will be the beginning and end
of its business in the matter, but such unsteadiness
is often the cause of the greatest dangers. Let it be
known beforehand how each Power will act, and a
war is scarcely possible in Europe. It is Govern-
ments like that of Prussia which cause nations to
drift into hostilities, by making it uncertain on
which side the balance of strength will lie. The im-
potence of mind which will not allow the most libe-
ral Prussian to say at once that union under one
crown is the only solution of the Italian question,
and that Francis Joseph must be prevented at all
costs from exposing his States and all Germany to
danger by a war with France, may have conse-
quences the most serious to the general peace.
We were therefore fully justified in complaining
of the Prussian Note, and those are wholly in the
wrong who regard it as merely a decent evasion of
a question which did not require an answer. But,
after all, this is only an outward sign of the inward
spirit of Prussian statesmanship. No man can ob-
serve the course which the Monarchy has taken
during these complications without feeling that
Prussia is drawn in opposite directions by forces so
nearly balanced that it is impossible to calculate
her behaviour at any conjuncture. Sometimes the
victory seems to be with the Liberals, and then our
much-trusting countrymen congratulate themselves
on having at least one sympathetic Power on the
Continent. Then, again, the party which we fan-
cied had fallen with the King's retirement again
makes its voice heard and its weight felt. The pen-
dulum seems nuw to oscillate towards a stricter alli-
ance with the two other Northern Powers. Let it
be so. We may regret that a nation of promise
should be unable to develope anything better than
Prussia has yet produced, but that is the concern of
the Germans themselves, and not of us. We would,
however, warn them not to alienate too completely
the only nation whose alliance can save them in
time of need. If Prussia, following up the spirit of
her late Note, attempts to play fast and loose in the
event of any future struggle in Venetia ; if, in
accordance with any fantastic dream about the
Adriatic beirs, a German sea, the Court of Berlin
takes upon itself to uphold Austrian domination in
Italy, then the consequences to Germany will be
serious indeed. Or if; in defiance of justice and
the opinion of Europe, any attack be made on the
little State of Denmark, Prussia must expect to be
left alone to deal with an enemy who probably
desires nothing better than a pretext for a quarrel.
If Prussians be, as they assert, the Liberals of Ger-
many, let them, for their ow a sake, walk sincerely
in the path they have chosen. They have work
enough to do at home. If they want a nationality
to help, let them look to that portion of the mangled
carcass of Poland which was flung to them as a
bribe by Russia. If they do otherwise it will
matter very little to us, but a great deal to them-
selves. We can fight our battles, whether it be
neeeasary to defend our own shores or to send
100,000 men to the other side of the earth to recon-
quer an insurgent province. Prussia unaided could
not keep the Rhine or the Vistula for a month from
her ambitious neighbours. England fought Re-
volutionary France for 20 years, defeating her
enemies continually by land and sea; Prussia was
overthrown by a war of three weeks. A good
understanding between States so different in vigour
and resources must be for the benefit of the weaker,
and the Prussians should have great expectations
from Warsaw when they deliberately condemn the
policy to which this country is attached, or suffer
their unmannerly underlings to insult British sub-
jects in their passage through their straggling
country.—lames.