The Sun.
London, England, 1858-07-09 00:00:00

9, 1858.

of the time is employed in boring holes, and the
remainder in charging smi blasting ; hwice, aveele-
rating the former operation is an immense advan-
tage. The perforators .11,:ve another advantage ;
in a place where three couples of miners woull
hardly find room, eighteen perforators may be set
to work, so that, by these ingenious contrivances,
as well as by others for clearing away the
rubbish; the- perforation of the tunnel 'may be
effected in six years, instead of 36. The air that
has been employed as a motive power is used to
feed the gallery, but when the latter shall have
reached a considerable dep:h it will require 85,924
cubic metres of, air per 24 hours to replace that
which has been vitiated by respiration, torches, and
gunpowder; and this quantity, in the form of 14,320
cubic Metre:i of air condensed to six atmospheres,
the reservoir can furnish. A new and curious fact
has been observed during these works—viz., that
when the air condensed to the degree above-
mentioned is shot intothegalleryfrom the machine,
any waterhappening to be near the latter suddenly
congeals, although the ambient temperature be
about 18 degrees centigrade (72 -deg. Fahrenheit).
Bence, when a large mass of compressed air is
driven into a gallery situated at 1,600 metres below
the outer surface of the earth, and where conee-
quently the temperature must be about 160 deg.
Fahrenheit, the dilatation of the compressed air
produces a diminution of temperature sufficient to
counterbalance the excess alluded to. The pro-
gress now making per day in boring is three metres
on each side of the mountain, or six metres per day
in all.

SANITARY CONDITION OF THE CITY:

STATE OF THE THAMES:
Oa Tuesday the City Sewers Commissioners assembled
at Guildhall, and Dr. Letheby p-esented his quarterly
report to the commissioners. It was as follow. :

" The mortality tables for the spring quarter aro now
before you, and I have the satisfaction to say that they
do not indicate an unfavourable state of the public health.
It is true that the death-rate is a little larger than it was
during the spring quarter of last year, but it is still below
the average, and, with two exceptions, it is the smallest
number for the corresponding period of the last nine years.
The total mortality for the quarter was 724, the avet age
being 747, and of this number 301 belong to the Fast Lon-
don district. .55 to the Weet, awl 26S to the Central—
nunibere which representa yearly deaths rate of 27-per 1,000
in the first-named district,2l•6 in the second, anti 1 st 9 in the
third; the total mortality'of the city being at the rate 0f231
per 1,900. This in the aggregate isnot an excesiive MOT tality,
for if wo compare it with that of the nine preceding years
it will be found that it is under the average to the extent
of about 01 per 1,000 ; so that the death-rate of the city
will even bear comparison with that of (Aber places. It
may be that the mode of estimating the sanitary condition
of the city is not absolutely correct, and does not indica' e
the actual or even the preventible waste of human life,
but it is sufficiently near to the truth, and is withal so
intelligible, that it enables us to form a very just idea
of the comparative mortality of tho place, and to learn
from it what has been the general state of the
public health during any particular season. I believe,
indeed, that, imperfect as the method is, it is infinitely
more truthful and satisfactory than a- comparison of the
death-rate of a city or town population with that of a
model republic situated on the slope of an English hill,
looking southward over fertile fields or distant seas, bathed
in a pure atmosphere, supplied with a river of water of
life clear as crystal, with no impurity in its houses or
streets for a single day, occupied by a people fed on fruits,
grain, and meat from healthy places, and leading an active.
good, and intellectual life. For such an Agapemone of
health and happiness and idleness has never
realised, beautiful as is the eet,ceptiou ; and even if it
could be it wool I afford no just indication of what the
sanitary condition of a city life ought to be. In point of
fact, it is not altogether fair even to contrast the mortality
of a city population with that of a few villages of Eng-
land, selected because of their unusual salubrity ; for,
apart from the evil consequences of filth and overcrowd-
ing—consequences that are, I admit, capable of ame-
lioration there are in a city life many unwholesome
influences which are inseparable from the exercise of ta a, le
and commerce. They are the penalties of civilisation—
the inevitable pains of industry, and it is Utopi rn to ex-
pect that these can ever be so far reduced as to bring the
state of a city life into the condition of an Arcadia, a
model republic, or even of a quiet country village.
"Of the 721 deaths in the quarter, 291 °centred among
children of less than five years of age; 50 between the ages
of five and 20 ; 92 between 20 and 40 ; 128 between 40
and 60; and 163 were among old persons of 60 and up-
wards.

" The chief causes of death were diseases of the respira-
tory organs—diseases which were unusually fatal during
the first month of the quarter. Of these 94 were caused by.
phthisis, 43 by pneumonia, 50 by bronchitis, 19 by whood-
in,g-cough, 12 by croup and diphtheria, and 3 by asthma.
There were also 3J deaths from violence, 33 from tubercu-
lar diseases of infancy, and 87 from convulsions, hydroce-
phalus, and teething. Diseases of the zymotia class have
not been unusually fatal ; for there were but two cases of
erysipelas, 8 of scarlet fever, 7 of infantile diarrhoea, and
4 of diarrhcea, and dysentery among adults, of which three
occurred in the workhouses and two out of the city. The
mortality, therefore, from these affections has not been ex-
cessive, and this is somewhat remarkable when we consider
what has been the state of the river and the temperature
-of the se :son. On some occasions during the last month
the thermometer has ranged on the same day from
.60 to 90 degrees in the shade, and throughout the
month the daily range has been from 18 to 31 degrees.
On Wednesday, the IGtb of June, the thermometer rose
to 117.7 degrees in the sun, and the mean temperature of
the day was 76.9. This, according to Mr. Glaisher, is 15 de-
grees above the average of the day for the last 43 years,
and it is greater than has been experienced in Jnue since
the yte ear 1818. Some of chess farts are,preuoufr.a in 46.
4thtante or the appendix, whiCh giVes an account of the
•meteorology of the quarter from observations made at
Guildhall under the superintendence of Mr. Heywood.
" The high temperature of the last month, together with
the continued absence of rain, has caused the Thames to
assume an appearance and to undergo a change which has
never before been witne sod. I have been engaged for
the last fortnight in making daily examinations of
Thames water at different points between Teddington-
lock and Greenwich, and the results of those exa oina-
tions are, that the river is unusually charged with sea
salt and organic matter. The oceanic tide in the river
has risen as high as Wandswort i, and has thus contami-
nated the water with saline and other impurities of the
sea. As a rule, the soluble inorganic constituents of the
river do not exceed 45 grains in the gallon at high tido at
London-bridge, and the organic impul it is not more than
4 grains to the gallon ; but during the last fortnight the
saline elements have amounted to 1 i grains in the gallon,
and the organic to 12. Even at Westminster-bridge they
have reached to 69 grains per gallon, and the organic mat-
ter to 5-6. The proportions at other places at high and
low tides are given in the fifth table of the Appendix, and
they show that the sea v ater has risen to a great height in
the bad of the liver. Now, all experience proves that when-
ever Ruch a mixture as this occurs at high temperature,
putrefaction of a most, offensive character is sot up. The
sewage and the organic matters and sulphates of the sea-
water have acted on each other, and have produced the
state of things with which for the last fortnight we have
been so familiar. The inky appearance of the rivet has
been caused by the fixaticn of the sulphuretted hydrogen
by the iran of the clay. This has been the salvation of our
lives, for, offensive as has been the vapour evolved from
the river, it is as nothing in comparison with what it
would have been if ,the much-aoused clay front the lower
shores of the river had not fixed the miasue in a solid in-
volatile form.

"As it is, however, the gases evolved from the water
amount to about 15 cubic inches per gallon. They con-
sist chiefly of carbonic acid with ammonia, nitrogen, and
a trace of oxygen. They do not contain sulphuretted
hydrogen, but they contain a stinking vapour, which is in
the highest degree offen•ive, and which inhaled pro-
duces slight headache, giddiness, and nausea. The
water at midstream is charged with the higher forms
of animal and vegetable infusorial life, but that at the
shore is so lethal in its qualities that nothing exists in it
but the lowest forms of fungi and the simplest of living
creatures.

" With all this condition of the Thames, however, the
health of the metropolis has been remarkably good, and
the fact is illustrated not merely by the mortality returns,
but also by the still more insignificant returns of sickness.
In the corresponding period of last year the cases of fever,
diarrheel, and dysentery attended iu the city by the medi-
cal officers of the union amounted to 293 of the former and
181 of the latter ; but during the past quarter they were
only 202 of the former and 91 of the latter. It may be
thought, perhaps, that as the city is only a small section
of the metropolis, it does not represent the condition of
the whole ; but returns have been collected by the medical
officers of health throughout ho capital, and these, like
the last, show a great falling off in the proportion of zymo-
tic disease.

"In the 12 months of last year there wero nearly
80,0U0 cases of sickness returned, and during the present
period returns have been more fully obtained, and they
embrace as many as 114,000 cases of sickness. Of the
former the proportion of fever cases amounted to 22'4 per
1,000, and of diarrhea% and dysentery to 40'5, but of
the latter the proportions are 16'2 and 25'1. lam not in
a condition to account for these remarkable facts. It may
be that the prevailing winds of the season have diluted the
mirsm, and have wafted it quickly away from the mere
densely populated parts of the city ; or it may bo that the
unusual amount of ozone in the air has exerted its benefi•
cial influence by oxydising the organic peison ; or it may
be that the streugtb of the human system after the bracing
influence of winter has been sufficient to resist the morbific
action of the malaria ; or it may ba, a, some have said, that
offensive as is the stink of the vapour, it has no lethal action
on the aeiwal system, for to tree the words of a reviewer in
one of the medical journals,'there is no necessary connec-
tiou between bait odours and poisonous miasma, fcr we
find that some of the most pestilential places in the world,
such as th - mouths of certain African rivers, the Sunder-
bonus of the Ganges, the Pontine Marshes, and our own
fens, give no evidence of a poison by their odour, while,
copversely, we may have an atmosphere charged with the
most horrid stinks without it being chneerous to health,
or at any rate, productive of fever, &c. 'lll9 "n opinion
is, that the effects of the Thames' vapours have been
warded off by the healthy and vigorous condition of the
body at this season of the year, and that if the putrid
miasma comes to operate upon ns during the autumn,
when the vital power.; are exhausted and the animal frame
relaxed by the heat of summer, the effects may be very
serious. We shall do well, therefore to take the matter
into serious consideration, and to provide, as far as pos-
siLle, for the danger that may arise out of it.
" The last point to which I have to refer is that which
relates to the sanitary work of the question. You will
perceive by the sixth table that your inspectors have
visited 2,128 houses, and that 617 orders have been issued
for works of a sanitary character. The Inspector of Com-
mon Lodging-honses has made 670 visite during the quarter,
and has furnished certificates of the overerowdieg of 43
houses. In these there were 65 rooms occupied by 293
persons, —namely, h 4 men, 119 women, and b 0 children.
I have had occasion to remark that some of these houses
were complained of on a former accasion, but that out of
regard to the landlord, and with a promise from him that
they should not be occupied by him in an indecent or un-
wholesome manner, you did not enforce the order for re-
gistration, and this leniency has been productive of much
I may instance hose-alley,mischief.in Bishopsgate-street,
as a case in which your clemency has been abused, and it
indicates very clearly the necessity for enforcing the regis-
tration of such places whenever they are found to be im-
properly and unwholesergely
overcrowded,
d' Guildhall, July 6.",