The Sun.
London, England, 1857-02-16 00:00:00

we fear the same will be found to be the case

with every serious measure of political re-
form. We write thus, reluctantly. We have
fought by the side of Lord JOHN' in many a battle,

but, if he will see fit to consult the " dignity" or
amour propre of the aristocracy and their Church,
much as he did that of Russia ; if he will halt in
his march when he might lead on to a conclusive

victory, it is his fault, not ours, that we are not
still fighting with him.
Let Dissenters bethink themselves of their
forces. They have, even without much stir of

late, had majorities, and respectable ones, and

against the Government too, in the House of

Commons. The heir to the house of Derby is on
their side. They have many representatives

in the house, and BOMO of them men of
mark and they have in their favour, as

Lord STANLEY observed, both in the House and

out of it, a growing sense of the necessity of reli-
gious equality. The House of Commons wants
but a few vigorous turns of the popular screw, to
be induced to bury Church Rates in the grave
where lie Test and Corporation Acts, the old
Marriage Laws, and a host of other laws of far
more terrific ecclesiastical character. Then, the
people. Why, more than half the worshippers
were proved by the Census to be Dissenters ; to
these must be added the vast numbers of liberal
Churchmen who detest puiting their hands
into their dissenting neighbours' pockets, to
asWthhey; if these
might be
w so
trisrhr iepd.
nere
mpaigyhtfyoreltehmeeirntsoww
there would be such a commotion, such a flight of
petitions, such a succession of public meetings,
that Lord PALMERSTON is not the man to brave
it all ; nor is his five-year-old Parliament the as-
sembly to forget that the votes of (ihurnh-rate
payers would soon have their value, .
The Dissenters have just bad before them
the very illustration which ought to arouse them.
They have seen how a Cabinet, who most cer-
tainly did mean (we call the Times to witness) to
have their pound of flesh out of the War Income
Tax, and to spend sixteen millions of the nation's
money, have struck their flag to the people.
Struck on a money questior, a question involving
nine millions of Government patronage ! Go-
vernment, let Dissenters be assured, is squeezable
enough, especially when it is in the vice of a fifth
Session, with a sixth at best, but more pro-
bably not another, to follow. Then there is the
similarity in one respect of the taxes. Church
Rates belong to the hateful class of direct taxes ;
of hard cash payments; of payments which by no
economy can you escape ; and which, despite all
theories, people do and will detest. We verily
believe the Churchman himself, "in the good
time coming," will give his larger voluntary con-
tribution with much more pleasure than he now
pays the compulsory Church Rate. Now, therefore,
is the very time for dissenters to ask their Church
neighbours to help then to get rid of this unjust
tax—this direct tax—this irreligious tax—this
PARISH WAR-TAX. We believe Dissenters, if they
girded themselves to the conflict like men, and
determined to relieve us of this House of Commons
nuisance, and this parish vestry nuisance,
would be astonished with the support they
would gain by showing themselves determined to
win. What tires the patience of the country is
the annual skirmish -without result. All would
join if the announcement of Dissenters was—we
will submit no longer.
We leave details till the second read-
ing is announced. What we desire is to
rouse Liberals, dissenting Liberals, especially,
to their duty. On this question the Jupiter of
the Press nods to them his approbation ; we do
not lay too much stress on that, knowing that the
times may change—the wind at least does so—
but because on the question of the war ninepenoe,
we who ventured from the beginning to de-
nounce it, have succeeded proprio marte,
or, rather, we should say, temporibus
repugnantibus. We give, the refore, to Dissenters
the advice which we gave on the War Income
Tax—advice with which public opinion turned
out to be coincident—t he old, but, while we have
a House of Commons, the not antiquated advice
—AGITATE ! AGITATE ! ! AGITATE ! H If Dis-
senters will but do their part, we promise them
the best services we can offer. We are confident
every Liberal journal would do the same ; and
the parish pest of Church Rates would be got rid
of for ever..

The demand of the unemployed operatives con-
nected with the building trades, that public work,
real work, not charitable relief, should be provided
for them i 4 met with a deaf ear, on the assumption
that the work must needs be such as is not already
in demand, and consequently not needed, and the
idea raised is of some public work which is merely
ornamental. Even if it were so, it would be better
than enforced relief, without any return of work
whatsoever.

But we earnestly call the attention of those most
directly concerned in the question of the relief of
the unemployed to the fact, that there is in the
metropolis the need of a large amount of quasi
public work, within the recognised control of the
local authorities, and within their direct duties to
enforce, which may be undertaken, with vast pri-
vate, as well as public benefit, namely, works of
sanitary improvement.
Of between two or three hundred deaths of the
zymotic or fermenting class, such as typhus, diar-
rhoea, which are weekly recorded in the metropolis,
it is often instanced—and of the greater proportion
well known, that they occur in the vicinity of those
poison pits the common cesspools, or those extended
cesspools the old house drains, or the old sewers
of deposit, which give off their noxious emanations
into houses and streets. The justice of the term
" poison pits," anti the effects of their presence, is
proved by the state of things which has in a little
time followed their removal. The model dwellings,
constructed by various voluntary associations, are
chiefly distinguished from other dwellings, by being
freed from these cesspools or house drains of
foul deposit, and in having well constructed
water-closets, and, above all, self-cleansing
tubular drains, properly constructed, so as
to remove all excrete from beneath the site
of the dwellings before decomposition can com-
mence. The houses where these works, with
suitable sinks, have been constructed, are distin-
guished by an almost entire immunity from dis-
eases of the class specified. But these beneficial
results are not confined .to the new model dwel-
lings ; they have been obtained in all houses oc-
cupied by the labouring classes where there has
been no change in the class of occupiers, and no
change in their habits other than those changes
which may have been induced by the particular
improvements. Even common beggars' lodging-
houies, the chosen seats of typhus and small-pox,
have, by the new works, gained immunity frara
them. Our contemporary, the Times, congratu-
lated the metropolis on a reduction of the general
rate of mortality from twenty-five tb twenty-two
in a thousand
per annum. But in some old
dwellings, as well as the model dwellings, the re-
duction is proved by several years' experience in
separate blocks of buildings to be thirteen in a
thousand. The reports which sometimes appear in
the provincial journals from local Boards of
Health, in relation to the operation, are beginning
to be very satisfactory. Thus, it is reported at
Southampton, where little more than one-half the
houses are drained, and those by no means the
worst half, that the new works have been attended
with a marked reduction of sickness, and freedom
from diseases
which continue to ravage adjacent
=drained rural villages and suburban districts.
Mr. Cooper, the officer of health of that port, re-
ports the saving of life there is at the rate of one
hundred and fifty-six a year in a population of
40,000. The cases of sickness prevented are at
least twenty times more numerous than deaths. At
Ottery St. Mary, Devon, a fever of regular occur-
rence, known as the "Ottery fever," has disappeared
upon the removal et' the cgsspocPCl the &ALIAS