The Sun.
London, England, 1869-08-12 00:00:00

COMPrI.SORY VACCINATION.

A strong deputation from East London has waited
upon Earl de Grey to request that gentleman to
present to the House of Lords a petition praying
for the abolition of compulsory vaccination. As
this interview took place on Tuesday, the last
werhing clay of the s(asion, the league against
vaccination must be accused of dilatoriness
but Dr. Pearce and others found an opportunity of
expressing their opinions. They denounced vac-
cination on the ground that it is ineffectual.
Eighty-three per cent. of the patients in Iligligate
hospital had been vaccinated. The mortality was
not much greater amongst the unvaccinated suf-
ferers. Very many children died from the effects of
the operation. The deputation even thought .that
diphtheria and consumption were the direct result of
this " poison "—and, on the whole, it seems .sur-
, prising that hanging was not attributed to
the same fruitful cause. One gentleman delivered
himself of the opinion that the Privy Council doctors
ought to be indicted for poisoning the nation. Earl
de Grey disagreed altogether with the speeches; but
of course he promised to present the petition.
The " League" ought to remember that there are
two sides to a question. Nobody claims for vaccina-
tion the property of absolutely preventing smallpox;
but it is urged that in the vast majority of cases
vaccinated persons aro not attacked, and that
the few who are suffer only in a very small
degree. In 1803, from the accumulated neglect of
vaccination under the previous lax law, which, when
nominally compulsory, provided no machinery for
enforcing its prpvisions, the deaths from smallpox in
a single town in England--Sheffield—were nearly
-ten times as numerous as the deaths from the same
cause in all Scotland and Ireland put together, where
the law has been strictly enforced since 1804.

UNIVERSITY EDUCATION IN IRELAND.

The question raised by Mr. Fawcbtt has given rise
to a stern discussion amongst the Catholics them-
selves. The point at issue is this: the moderate
Catholics support the member for Brighton's plan of
throwing open Trinity College seats, in the
governing body and all, on equal terms to members
of both creeds ; but the Ultramontanes, as might
have been expected, favour the opposite scheme.
They want an establishment to themselves, thus
rendering university education still more sectarian,
instead of secularising it, after the plan of Mr.
Fawcett. One graduate urges, in favour of the
separate scheme, that if the Junior Catholic Fellows
are allowed to become Senior Fellows—the
governing body—it will be twenty years before
they rise in the ordinary course of nature
to the Senior board. If, on the other hand, they are
elevated to the Senior board at once they will delay
the rise of those Junior Fellows who have well earned
their promotion. The Telegraph expresses the opinion
that the Irish laity are determined, in any event, to
prevent any such increase of the priestly power as
would accompany the grant of a State Charter to a
Roman Catholic University, with its clerical teachers
and its essentially clerical instruction. " For the
first time in the history of Ireland we shall see a
bitter contest within the Roman Catholic Church."