The Sun.
London, England, 1860-03-15 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING, MARCH 15, 1k 60.

BRITISH C OLU MBIA.

(Front the Correspondent of the Times.)

VANCOUVER'S ISLAND, JAN. 22.
The elections of representatives to serve in the
new House of Assembly of Vancouver's Island are
just over, and give a very marked mijority in favour
of the Government.

The qualifications of electors, which were lately
established by an Act of the last Legislature, and of
which the recent elections are the first fruits, are
rather peculiar, and some of them novel in practice,
although not in theory. Here is an epitome :-
Ist. All British subjects who, as surgeonsor phy-
sicians, obtained a diploma in Great Britain, Ire-
land, or any of the colonies ; barristers, solicitors,
attorneys, and advocates and writers to the signet
(in Edinburgh), and graduates of any one of the
Universities of the mother country or of the colo-
nies. These form the first class of electors. The
second class comprises the occupiers of any real
estates in the colony at a yearly rental of £l2. The
third class embraces the following property and oc-
cupancy qualifications :—(a) A freehold estate of
20 acres of land ; (b) a freehold of the value of £5O
in any real estate ; (c) one-fourth part of the profits
of a farm held by a person in charge thereof (a
bailiff, for instance), The conditions as to residence
are, in the first class, four months; in the second
class, six months; and in the third class, three
months. The voters enfranchised under the pro-
fessional and educational qualifications may elect
to qualify under the first or any other class, but
they cannot vote for the same district on two qua-
lifications at the same election.

The voting is open, there being a great aversion

to the ballot here, where its effects are well known,
that the subject was not even mooted during the
discussion of the Act to amend and extend the re-
presentation.
The disqualification of alienage by reason of a
British-born subject having assumed allegiance to
another country can be removed by his taking the
oath of allegiance to the Queen three months pre-
vious to registration. All others who are disquali-
fied in Great Britain are disqualified here. So far
as regards the electors.

The qualification of a member is freehold property
of the value of £3OO owned for three months pre-
vious to the election, and a residence in the colony
for the same period. -

The following are disqualified from serving as
members—viz., clergymen, returning officers and
revising barristers, for 18 months after they shall
have acted in either capacity ; insolvents and uncer-
tificated bankrupts ; persons who have been con-
victed of felony, of bribery at an election, or who
have been outlawed in any suit.
The acceptance of a Government appointment, or
the taking of a Government contract by a member,
shall, ipso facto, vacate his seat; but he shall be
eligible for re-election.

The practical working of the Act is the same as
in England in similar matters.
The duration of the House is for three years.
The number of members is 13, of electors 478.

Such are the simple foundations of our young
political institutions, which their founders trust will
endure as long as those of the mother country from
which they are borrowed.

Of the character and standing of the newly elected
members, upon whose proceedings in the approach-
ing session of the Legislature the future fate of the
colony in a measure depends, it is safe to say, that
they are, on the whole, so respectable a body of
educated and intelligent men, whose individual in-
terests are linked with the general interests of the
colony, so as to afford a reasonable guarantee that
they will strive to advance its prosperity. They
very fairly represent the opinions and interests of
the constituency, and they possess sympathies com-
mon to all classes.

The greatest compliment I can pay to them is to
say that their sentiments are thoroughly English ;
and to this fact I attach much importance. It will
give a tone—a wholesome practical tone—to the
Assembly; and the force of this good example ',vill
tend to extend and to confirm the feelings of loyalty
and of attachment to our common country and to
our peculiar institutions which, happily, animate
the great body of the colonists. It is good and
gratifying to see our old and tried institutions re-
produced in so remote a portion of the new world.
The contest in some parts of the colony was keen
enough, and success was only obtained after a hard
struggle; but the conflict brought out much that
was manly, straightforward, and independent in
thought and action, and there was a singular ab-
sence of all improper influences. The result is a
triumph of the influence of property, capacity, ex-
perience, prudent reform, economy and progression
over demagogism and its kindred concomitants. At
the same time, it is proper to add that few popular
elections have left less acerbity of feeling.
The new bishop has been here for three weeks.
His fame as an able and efficient pastor had pre-
ceded him, and insured him a kind and hearty
reception. His presence, social intercourse, and the
performance of his sacred duties have confirmed the
estimate we had formed by reputation of his charac-
ter. He has been exceedingly well received by all
classes ofProteatants—Dissenters as well as Church-
men. Much of the favourable impression which the
Bishop has made is due to his very candid declara-
tion from the pulpit, on the first Sunday after his
arrival, that his church is self-supporting, and un-
conneted with the State. He threw himself boldly
and confidently upon the affections, zeal, and good
feeling of the laity for the future maintenance of
religious instruction; and, as a large majority of
the people is averse to State connection, the decla-
ration has had the desired effect.

My own individual opinion is of no weight or im-
portance, but I shall not commit myself entirely to
these sentiments. They are very pleasing in theory,
' and as a general principle have much to recommend
them. I think, however, that a moderate endow-
ment in real property in aid of religion, where, as is
the case here, it can be done -without any injustice
to existing interests, is a duty incumbent on the
State—such endowment not to be limited to the
Church of England. This done, the further future
support of every church might with a good grace be
left to the members of each persuasion.

A clergyman who knows his part well, and plays
it, will find supp'rt under the voluntary system;
but I have yet to learn that this system possesses
vitality and attraction sufficient to induce the edu-
cation, training, and devotion of such a body of
learned men as the Church of England draws, under
State endowment, to her service. Having seen much
of the voluntary system where it exists on a large
scale, I cannot hesitate to declare that it has not yet
produced, and is not preparing, an educated body of
clerical gentlemen in any part of the world which
comes up to the standard I have mentioned. There is
much practical philosophy in Sydney Smith's doc-
trine of "prizes" in the Church.

I have now to take up a far less agreeable sub-
ject, San Juan, but I shall touch iapon it slightly.
By the determination of the home Government
we are now; it seems, to have a joint military oc-
cupation. The Americans have 90 men on the
island at present, and I suppose we shall send an
equal number. I stated so many objections to this
measure in a former letter that I shall not take up
your space with any more. My own opinion is
that the American Government will continue to
express its determination to keep the island so long
as they believe that we shall not go to war for it,
and that the moment we remove this belief from
tad: it minds, and convince them that we are deter-
mined to maintain our rights at all hazards, they
will give us up a possession which is of no value,
use, or utility to the American nation, but which
will be a source of expense to it, a continual cause
of annoyance ar.d irritation to us, a constant
menace in time of peace, and in time of war a key
by which they can lock us out of our possessions of
a great portion of 'Vancouver's Island, and out of
B itish Columbia altogether.

•
I naturally feel very strongly on this matter, en
have paid much attention to the question but
having so fully stated on former occasions 'both
sides of it, I will not at present go into its merits.
I wish, however, to express my conviction--a con-
viction which I share with all the best informed
men here—that if our Government shall commit
folly, and be guilty of the weakness of giving- up
San Juan, unless England shall at the same time or

soon after abandon also all her possessions on the '
Pacific, the possession of San Juan by America will
inevitably lead to a war.
San Juan American, and Vancouver's Island and
Columbia British, are incompatible wi h peace.
Our Government made a first false s' ep,—namely,
to enter upon negotiations before fir insisting upon
the restoration of the status quo ante bellunz. All
the American troops should have been removed,
and then negotiations could have been entered into
by the parties upon equal terms. This neglect of
our Government will give them more trouble than
they foresee and strengthens the pretensions of the
Americans.

There are some things in the conduct of the Ame-
rican Government which are very significant, and
which haye not been brought as they deserve under
the notice of the English public. I will mention
three facts. In the first place, the Government has
not, that I can learn, disavowed General Harney's
act of invasion, or whatever it may be called. In
the next place General Scott certainly did not dis-
avow it when out here ; and, in the third place, the
cause of complaint was not removed, but still exists ;
90 soldiers are still on the island, and General Har-
ney still commands them as well as the rest of the
force in his military division, of which he is still
the chief. We can learn nothing of his recall.
Some of his own officers do not believe that he will
be removed.

Much has been attempted to be made by the
American Government and by the press of the re-
moval of the great body of the troops from San
Juan by General Scott, and he made as much of it

as he could himself. But what is the fact ? On his
arrival in Puget Sound Gen. Scott found, to his dis-
may, that Gen. Harney's rashness in removing as
he did very nearly all the troops from Oregon and
Washington territory had left the vast frontier of
these 'two countries entirely exposed to the incur-
sions of the Indians, who are hostile to the Ameri-
can people. If proof were wanting of the great
risks to which the denuding of the frontier posts of
their soldiers exposed the citizens of these two ex-
tensive countries, the general found it most conclu-
sively in the fact that just before his arrival some
of the soldiers in San Juan itself had to be detached
to repel an Indian attack upon the village of What-
corn, on the mainland in Washington territory.
Gen. Scott, seeing the danger of keeping his sol-
diers immured in San Juan, hastened to repair Gen.
Harney's imprudence, and sent them back to their
former qnarters. This was the true cause and rea•
son of the removal of the greater portion of the
American troops. They could not be left to remain
any longer away from their different posts without
exposing the country to the most imminent risks ;
and Gen. Scott tried to pass off upon us as a con-
cession what was really a necessity of his own po-
sition. lam not aware that the American Govern-
ment has yet made one step towards an amicable
adjustment of our difference with it. On the con-
trary, I am informed that the allusion.,to the affair
in the President's Message is not satisfactory.
Gen. Totten, the chief of the engineer corps of.the
American army, was here the other day on a tour
of inspection, to select, it is said, sites on the sound
and elsewhere in this neighbourhood eligible for the
erection of fortifications.
Business is brisk for this season of theyear, when
mining is partially suspended. The value of land is
steadily progressing in Victoria, anti is now very
high ; and the growth of the town continues with-
out abatement. Even the wet weather does not
stop building.
Her Majesty's ships Ganges, bearing the flag of
Rear-Admiral Baynes, Captain Fulford ; the Tri-
bune, Capt. Hornby ; the Satellite, Capt. Prevost;
and the Plumper, Capt.:Richards, are in harbour.
The Tribune leaves for England via Valparaiso in
a few days. The other vessels remain here for the
present. It is pretty well understood now that the
Government has decided upon making this the
head-quarters of the Pacific squadron. This is a wise
decision, and one imperatively called for, to pro-
tect the large English interests fast growing up in
this part of the world. A Government powder
magazine is about to be built at Esquimalt, and it
is to be hoped a dockyard will soon follow.
An English bark from London, the Sea Nymph,
arrived at Victoria twodays ago, after being out 13
months. She had to put in at two places to repair
damages. Nine passengers came in her.
In my last letter I spoke of the vast extent of
the goldfield of British Columbia, extending for
hundreds of miles east and north of the coast. Ever
since then we have been receiving accounts, chiefly
from New Caledonia, each succeeding one more
favourable than the preceding. The other day four
Germans came down from Quesnell's River with
24,000 dols., which they dug out of a small stream,
a tributary of that river, in the short space of five
weeks. I can vouch for the truth of this state-
ment, and I wish the Germans had remained in
New Caledonia five weeks longer, for they have en-
ticed away a gardener who was at work for me to
go back with them, and who spurned my 5 dols. a
day on seeing the pile" of his countrymen.
For the last few months so many successful
miners have returned to California with " piles"
that we are promised a considerable immigration
from that country in the spring. It is now ad-
mitted that the average earnings arc mush greater
in British Columbia than in the older goldfields,
where the surface digging are worked out.
A good deal of legislation has been passed for
British Columbia lately. So much of the English
Limited Liability Law as is locally applicable has
been established ; also so much of the County Courts
Act as will apply to facilitate the recovery of small
debts has been put in force. But the most impor-
tant measure by far is the passage of a law whereby
the acquisition of lsnd for agricultural purposes is
facilitated.
Under this law any British subject may acquire
160 acres of land which is unsurveyed and unoc-
cupied in any part of British Columbia, excepting
only such portions as are reserved for town sites
for the Indians and as may be required for mining.
To acquire a good inalienable claim to a perfect title
to 160 acres all that the claimant has to do is to
enter upon the possession as soon as he makes his
selection, record his claim to it (that is, report the
fact in writing) to the nearest magistrate, and give
a description of the land. On taking possession he
pays nothing for the land, but has to pay a fee of
83. for recording his claim. When the land shall
have been surveyed by the Government the claim-
ant or his heirs
acquire a title from Government on
ispa expected of a sum
thatthneoptrticoeevix,cheiecdh per
will re eralalybe. It
de-
manded will only be about ss. per acre. This will
depend upon the determination of the Imperial Go•
vernment, and it is to be hoped that they will agree
to the reduction, so
as to meet the competition of
land in the adjoining countries,
which is a dollar
and a quarter an acre.
With the view of encouraging improvement, a
person in possession can sell his land as soon as he
effects improvements to the value of 103. per acre.
This condition complied with, he can pass a good
title to the purchaser.
The acquisition of land under the law above ex-
plained is what is technically called" pre-emption.s
And any person holding land under pre-emption—
e., 160 acres, may, in addition to his 160 acres,
purchase at any time any additional quantity of
land he chooses, not otherwise appropriated, at a
price not to exceed 10s. an acre, of which 58. Far
acre to be paid down, and the residue at the time
of survey, it' demanded. As it must be some consi-
derable time before the land can be surveyed, it is
likely that parties taking up land promptly will
have several years' possession before they are called
upon for payment.

Land pre-empted and afterwards abandoned may
be claimed and taken by any other person on the
original terms, even if improved by the first oc-
cupant.

Parties pre-empting land and occupying it have
the same legal remedies of actions of ejectment and
trespass against intruders as the. would have at
common law if they were seised of the legal estate;
and purchasers of quantities over and above 160
acres pre-empted have the same legal rights.
Questinas of boundaries and disputes between
parties may be referred to the nearest magistrate
for adjustment, who may summon a jury to dispose
of them in a summary way; an appeal to the courts

of law being reserved in cases of dissatisfaction with

the local decision.
The law gives to aliens who shall take the oath
of allegiance the same rights and privileges con-
ferred upon British subjects, so that any foreigner
who intends to become a British subject may take
up, purchase, hold, occupy, and enjoy land as freely
as any of her Majesty's subjects.
Such are the principal features of the land system
for settling the Crown lands in British Columbia.
Some of the details will, no doubt, require amend-
ment in practice. This can readily be effected on
further experience of the working of the measure.
The great feature—the beneficial character—of the
law is the reduction of the price from £1 to 10s.
per acre ; and the permission to occupy at once, and
without waiting for survey, so as to suit the conve-
nience of settlers, is not less important.
The only objection I have to the principle of the
measure is that the price is too high. Incredible
as it may appear to persons accustomed only to the
transfer and business of land in the old country,
where a thousand circumstances go to raise the
value of land, yet 10s. an acre is really too high a
price for the wild lands of British Columbia.
The parties wishing to settle there are, as a
general rule, poor men, whose means will be ex-
hausted in the expense of transport, the cost of
implements of husbandry, of farm-stock, and of
buildings, and who, after these charges, or even
some of them, are defrayed, cannot afford to pay
10s. an acre for their land. And these are the very
classes most needed in the new country, whose only
capital is their labour, and who are the most efficient
pioneers of civilisation and material progress. In
my humble opinion, it is a serious mistake in the
Government to attempt to make revenue out of the
public land. Cheap, or a free gift of land, upon
condition of improvement, ought to be the attraction
held out to immigrants, and the success of this plan
would in the end be a source of a much larger re-
venue to the State than a high, or even a moderate,
or indeed any, price put upon the land can ever be-
come. Statesmen overlook the fact that every
settler becomes a taxpayer direct, and a consumer
of taxpaying commodities. The result is inevitable
that if you increase your settlers you increase your
revenue, and that permanently. The amount col-
lected from 10s. an acre purchase-price soon vanishes
from the treasury. Taxation periodically replenishes
it. But, independently of a thousand arguments in
favour of a low price, we can never people the new
colony- unless we compete with our neighbours,
whose land, in unlimited quantity, is as good as and
more accessible than ours, while it is also cheaper.
The fine phrases of "loyalty and attachment,',
" admiration of time-honoured institutions," and
the like fall heavily on the ear of a poor man whose
means are so limited he must go to the cheapest
market for land to settle his family upon. It was
distressing to see hearty, stalwart men hanging
about the street last year waiting for a reduction in
the price of land in Vancouver's Island, and at last
forced to go to Washington territory and settle
there. Ido not mention these cases for the sake of
" effect." They are facts of which lam cognizant,
and grave facts, which must not be overlooked.
It is sincerely to be hoped the Government will
take the matter up, treat it in a wise, patriotic, and
practical spirit, and authorise the Governor to re-
duce the price at once and finally to ss. an acre.
The land measure will not be successful else.
Several persons are availing themselves of the law
already, it is true ; but they are men already com-
mitted, who have been occupying land in expecta-
tion of a reduction, or who, being in the country,
cannot do better ; and it is proper to state dis-
tinctly that all who are settling on the land are
doing so under the impression that the price to be
demanded will be only ss. an acre. This conviction
is general, and I have heard nothing to impair its
accuracy or justification from the local Government,
although I cannot say how it got abroad. We want
the price so low as to attract strangers.
The progress of British Columbia in commerce is,
on the whole, considering the smallness of the popu-
lation, satisfactory. The value of the imports for the
year ending December 31, was £177,219 is. 5d.,
as taken at the Custom-house. The Customs duties,
including harbour dues, in the same period, were
£18,461. The other sources of taxation are :
Miners' licenses of £1 a-year each; spirit licenses,
in towns £25 a-year, and in rural districts £lO
a-year; wholesale licenses, in town and country,
£lO a-year ; trading licenses in the mines, 10a.
a month; which will in the aggregate, and added
to the Customs duties, bring up the total revenue
of this year to about £50,000, and which will leave
a surplus, after defraying all the civil and judicial
expenditure cif the colony.
There are taxes upon carriers, &c., lately im-
posed, but their produce is to be specially applied
to the improvement of river navigation and the
making of roads in the interior—both objects of the
first necessity, but which, I fear, the taxes set
apart for them will not be sufficient to accomplish
I fear much misconception on the true state and-
condition of the new colony prevails in England.
The kind interest taken in its affairs, and the
generous efforts made by the most distinguished men
in the mother country to provide the means of re-
ligious instruction and of education, entitle them to
information upon the subject of crime, which, I
doubt not, they fancy prevails to a great extent.
I applied to Mr. Begbie, the Judge of Columbia, for
information on this head, he being the most re-
liable source of information; and I will trespass
on your space so far as is necessary to snake a
few extracts from a paper with which the judge has
kindly furnished me.
The Judge writes :
" It is a legitimate subject of no small congratu-
lation that in a country so wild and almost path-
less (certainly roadies:) as this, with a population
generally pointed at as the refuse of California—
with a magistracy weak in numbers, weaker in
their great inexperience, from the judge down-
wards, every one of them new to judicial and ma-
gisterial business—with a police never 20 in num-
ber, and never more than four or five in one place
—the population all armed, and all engaged in the
most exciting and demoralising pursuit which men
can follow (namely, gold-hunting), there should
have been in the whole of the present (now last)
year not one murder, not one attempted murder,
not one duel, and but one assault with a deadly
weapon at all in the whole of British Columbia.
Under Providence, this wonderful result, unexam-
pled in the history of new gold-mining countries,
has been without doubt produced by the firmness
of the Governor, and the unhesitating sternness with
which one or two difficulties' which occurred at
the close of the past year had been met and
punished. It has been thoroughly impressed upon
our whole population- that the cowardly and ruf-
fianly outrages perpetrated to so lamentable an ex-
tent elsewhere, under the above euphonism, will
here consign the offenders without the hope of
mercy to the gallows, or a life-long imprisonment."
The Judge remarks with reasonable pride that
Blackstone is more regarded in his jurisdiction than
Judge Ly ncli ; and while he draws an accurate and
just comparison between " the statistics of blood"
on the south and those on the north side of the
49th degree of north latitude favourable to the
latter, yet he does ample justice to the Californians
who have come to British Columbia. Of them he
reports that they have always—
" Manifested a great desire to see justice fairly
done, and great patience with the difficulties which
the magistrates silt! a tle shaanvde the
frequently judiciary
complimentedhave ha d to conl
y-
rough auditory—sometimes 150 miners—on the
good order
and manly respect observed in my
iudeelis.aotfi
nthoef
yudougre'6sppactepe'2,
court."
ranldnyeintlyomeuiltl eau tf e ofw
scattered sentences in
conl‘si
conclusion, on two subjects
of interest—the Chinese theand lndians :
" The effect of this orderly conduct upon general
immigration cannot fail to be felt. Her e alone of
all milling countries will you find Chinamen not
protected, but standing in no need of protection,
unmolested.

This is gratifying in view of a Chinese innigra-
tion expected to set in shortly :
" The great vice and sin in the country is the
sale of liquors to Indians. And how to quell this
seems a secret unknown as yet to the police. It is
perhaps not to be quelled by police. It must be
left to public opinion and public feeling, which it
is to be hoped will soon be definite enough and
powerful enough to put it down for ever.
" It is to be hoped that order and economy, of
which an excellent example is given by all the offi-
cials, will bear good fruit and preserve a homely

English feeling, which is every day solidifying it
self throughout the colony."
The Judge's statistics of crime refer to white
men. During the year two Indians were executed
for murder, and one sentenced to imprisonment for

life, for wounding with intent to murder. Two
Indians are at present under examination or trial at
New Westminster on a charge of having murdered
two Italians on the Fraser River some months ago.

JAN. 27.

A paragraph purporting to be an extract from
he President's Message on the San Juan affair has

just been brought to me in anticipation of the Mes-
sage itself, which has not yet arrived, in which
General Harney's absurd charge of an attempt
having been made last summer by Mr. Dallas,
Governor Douglas's son-in-law, to take an Ame-
rican from the island by force is reiterated. If the
Message does contain such a statement there is
not a word of truth in it. The whole story is a
fabrication, refuted long ago by the Governor. I
was myself on the island when the circumstance
which forms the groundwork of the story oc-
curred. Mr. Dallas is at this moment in
such distress by the death of his only child, not yet
buried, that I will not speak to him on the subject,
but I am sure he will set this unfounded charge
finally at rest in due time.
We were very much grieved at the death by
drowning of Mr. Bloomfield, the late Bishop of
London's son, on the wrecking of the steamer
Northerner, the other day. The deaths in all were
35. The ship was so old and rotten that she went
to pieces very quickly. The mails were saved.
The mail bags were washed on shore.

2,229 deaths from all causes, of which 592 were by
diseases of the zymotic class.

It may be instructive to compare the fatality by
some of the diseases' of London now and in the 17th
century. In the 20 years 1660-79 the mortality in
Southwan•, and in the city within and without the
walls was at the rate of 7 or 8 per cent.; so the
mortality within the bills may be set down at the
rate of 7,000 annually in every 100,000 living, of
which 3,400 were by zymotie diseases.
The diseases were not always distinguished ac-
curately. But by putting them in groups any fal-
lacy from this source will be obviated, and the de-
crease of some of the worst forms of mortal disease
will be placed beyond doubt. To render the com-
parison easy, the number living is taken to be the
same in the two periods-100,000 in 1660-79 and
in 1859. The annual deaths by small-pox were 357
in the first period, 42 in the second period ; by mea-
sles 40 and 47 in the two periods. Medical science
was imperfect, and the science existing in tint
century was very imperfectly applied. Croup and
scarlatina were not generally recognised, but were
confounded with measles and fever. The mortality
by fever, continued or remittent, and ague was at
the rate of 749 and 59 in the two periods ; or, in-
cluding scarlatina, quinsy, and croup, the mortality
was 759 and 227. Thus a person was in four times
as much danger of dying of these diseases at the
Restoration as a person living in London now.
Women are not yet entirely exempt from peril in
childbearing ; the mortality by that disease is now
17, it was then 86. Again, a few (8) in 100,000 die
now of dysentery ; then, out of the same number,
763 died annually of that disease. By diarrheca, a
milder form of disease, 11 died then, 120 die now ;
cholera was fatal in 1859 to 7, and the 20 years
1660-79 to 130 annually. Syphilis was twice
as fatal as it is, the numbers being 21 and 12.
Scurvy and purpura bear testimony to the im-
perfect nutrition of the population ; the annual
deaths were then 142 and are now 2. Vegeta-
bles, fruit, and fresh meat could with difficulty be
procured in winter. Worms and all parasitic crea-
tures that crawl over, bite, and prey on the body
of man were prevalent ; 10 deaths were ascribed

to worms.
Dropsy, a result and sign of scurvy and fever,
was exceedingly fatal ; 298 died of that disease
then, and 26 now. Apoplexy, paralysis, epilepsy,
affections of the brain, and suicide are more fatal
now, according to the returns, than they were in
the proportion of 57 then to 151 now.
Consumption and diseases of the breathing or-
gans were uncommonly fatal; 1,079 then and 611
now are the figures of the mortality. Diseases of
the digestive organs were fatal then and now in the
proportion of 146 and 91. Stone and diseases of
the urinary organs are now as fatal as they were
then ; the deaths being 21 and 30. Children were
rapidly cut down; of convulsions and teething
1,175 died then, 136—t00 many—now.
Of the violent deaths some are now more fre-
quent, as the forces by which they are occasioned
are greater; of fractures and wounds 19 died then,
25 now ; of poison, more accessible, 2 now and then
only 1; of burns, as fires are probably more common
and dresses more inflammable, now 13, then 3 ;
drowning and suffocation were then twice as fatal
(23 and 20) as they are (10 and 10) in the present
day.
Five in 100,000 of the people were executed then
annually ; now 1 in the whole population.
In addition, the inhabitants of London were then
destroyed by the terrible plague ; which, upon an
average of the 20 years, carried off 1,132 lives.
In 1635 nearly a third of the population perished
by plague. It is difficult to conceive this frightful
destruction of human life ; the imagination, the
wailing notes of writers, the details of Detoe in a
work which would have immortalised any writer,
fail to bring all the horrors before our minds.
The mortality was at the rate of 7 per cent. on an
average during the 20 years. If the mortality of
London had been at the same rate in the last year,
instead of 61,617 about 194,204 deaths would have
been registered.
The plague was the more appalling as the mor-
tality overwhelmed the people in particular years ;
thus the burials from 15,356 in 1663 rose to 97,306,
" whereof 68,596 were by plague," in 1665 ; and
this was equivalent to more than 600,000 deaths by
plague in the Fresent population of London. In the
third week of September 8,297 deaths were regis-
tered, which represents a rate of mortality equiva-
lent to about 85,000 deaths in a week on the actual
population of London.
In these recurring plagues vast numbers of people
fled in panic terror from the fatal city ; servants
and workpcople were discharged in great numbers;
commerce was paralysed ; few ships ventured up
the river, and merchant vessels were occupied by
their owners as asylums on the water. Sextons,
gravediggers, bearers, bellmen, and drivers of death
carts were in demand. The dead were buried in-
discriminately ; some bodies lay in forsaken houses,
others across the paths in the streets no longer
traversed by carts or coaches. At the end of the
summer grass was growing in Bishopsgate-street
and Cornhiil, where the people thronged no longer.
The loud voices, shrieks, and sobs of the delirious,
the desolate, and the dying were heard in the
streets; at times too disturbed by reckless revellers
and by raving patients, who had escaped from their
dwellings, converted into prisons. For according
to the regulation "infected houses" were siva up ;
a red cross and "Lordhavemerey upon us!" were in-
scribed on their portals ; while watchmen jealously
guarded the doors. These quarantine regulations
were at first rigidly carried out and were only
gradually abandoned when they were found useless,
pernicious, and impracticable.
It is° of some use to ask whether these past oc-
currences possess merely a historical interest for the
inhabitants of London. Are the diseases of those
times ever likely to recur? The answer must be—
undoubtedly they will recur, if their causes come
again into action, and not otherwise. If a comet,
if the stars, if volcanic action, if some mystical tel-
luric influence destroyed the population of London
at the rate of 7 per cent. annually, and at times in
paroxysms at the rate of 20 and 30 per cent. in a
single year, such powers are evidently beyond the
,reach of the will and of all human effort. The
population must resign itself to ias fate. Vesuvius
may perhaps be extinguished artificially; but the
cause of the volcanic action which pervades the
world is inaccessible.
All the evidence, however, goes to show that
comets, stars, and volcanic action had as much to
do with the mortality of the population of London
in the 17th century as with mortality of the British
troops in the Crimea ; and no more. The supply
of food, and particularly of vegetable and fresh
animal food, in certain seasons of the year, was de-
fective, so that a large portion of the population
became scorbutic. The houses were nearly as close
and dirty as the houses now are in Constantinople
and Can o; the water supply was imperfect, as
London-bridge Works and Hugh Middleton's New
River were for many years unappreciated. Water
has in itself little attraction for people unaccustomed
to ablution. Parasitic insects and diseases of the
skin betrayed its impurities. The dirt of the houses
struck foreigners. The sowers were imperfect ; and
the soil gave off marsh malaria in some parts, and
in others was saturated with the filth of successive
generations.
The high rates of mortality which then prevailed
still attend cholera and current epidemics in certain
localities. The nature of disease and the climate
are still the same as they were in London before the
Revolution ; and it is evident that if plague has dis-
appeared, other zymotic diseases, but notably dysen-
tery, scurvy, and fever, have declined. Cholera
was on an average then as fatal as it has been re-
cently, and probably much more fatal than it will
be again if London be supplied with pure water.
The nation exults justly in the progress of its
manufacture. But thc' progress of its manufactures
is surpassed by the progress of the health of its
capital.
The improvement in the health of London has
proceeded step by step with the amendment of the
dietary, the drainage of the soil on which the
houses stand, the purification of the water which
the people drink; with the sweetening of the air;
and with the progress of medical science, which is
the source of sound doctrines.

So long as these improvements are maintained,
the diseases of the 17th century will not recur, and
all further progress is in the hands of the people.
They can work out their ova salvation with God's
blessing. The causes of disease are numerous ; but
every one that has hitherto been discovered can be
to a certain extent controlled. If by persevering
in the exact observat ion and analysis of the dis-
eases of the population science succeedsin bringing
to light the evils of unnatural diseases still existing,
we way hope confidently that those evils will be
averted; and that, rising from the Thames, the
site of London, which was pronounced in the 17th
century a field of blood and terror, will be a field
of health, concourse, and security to the population
of the metropolis of the empire.

BRITISH EXPORTS TO FRANCE.—A return to
the House of Commons exhibits the declared value of the
produce
and manufactures of the United Kingdom ex-
ported from the United Kingdom to France for the last six
years. It appears from this return that we exported to
France in 1851goodS worth X 3,175,290 • in 1855,4012,658 ;
in 1856, £6,43_,650; 1657, £6,213,358 ;in 1858,
£1,F63,131 ; and in 1859, £4,754,354. Her Majesty's colo-
nies during the same years exported goods the cosunuted
value of which was in 1851X3,216,175; in.1855,X1,409,223 ;
in 1856, £4,038,427 ; in 1837, X5,113,1C5 ; in 1858,4379,070;
and in 1859, £4,590,504. From this summary it appears
that the home and colonial exports increased in one year—
viz., 1855 to £4,030,416, and that this increase steadily pro-
gressed for the next two years, reaching in 1857, the sum
of £11,325,823. In 1858, however,•• they declined to
£9,242,201, a decrease of £2,084,622; and exhibited only a
very slight recovery during the last year of Xl9 657 on a
total of L9,254)858. "') I