The Sun.
London, England, 1859-09-14 00:00:00

DONCASTER RACES.-(THIS DAY).

[BY ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH.]
STAND PLATE.

•
Miss Julia 1
Neophyte

Thirteen ran.
LATEST BETTING.
ST. LEGER.
7to 4 on:Promised Land (offered)
sto 1 agst Summerside (taken freely)
100 to 8 agst Gladiolus (taken)
15 to 1 agst Gamester (taken)
20 to 1 agst Napoleon (taken)
Marionette scratched.

RACING FIXT

JRES FOR 1859.
IMBER.

Dover l5
Chesterfield
Leicester 2l
Monmouth 22

Manchester Autumn ....23
Newmarket F.O 27
Brecon
Walsall 28

Richmond 4
Royal Caledonian Hunt
and Perth..
Bedford 8

Newmarket S.O 10
Ipswich 19
Kelso 19
Newmarket II 24

Worcester Autumn 2
Liverpool Autumn 9

:MBER.
Shrewsbury Autumn . . . .15

INFANT MORTALITY IN NEW YORK.

(From the Hew York Herald.)
Four hundred and fifty-two children, under the
ages of two years, died in this city of New York
last week; of that number 145 died of cholera in-
fantum and 43 of diarrhoea ; the whole number of
deaths of all ages being 710.• Common decency de-
mands an inquisition of this innocent blood. The
Board of Health, the city inspector, and the other
city authorities, are all very well as far as they go,
and as far as they understand matters intrusted to
their special care. It is their function to remove all
causes of injury to the public health. But our mis-
fortune is that they understand but little ; and that
though the present city inspector has done better
than many of his predecessors, still the work to be
accomplished under his auspices is badly done in
very many locations. In the places where the bulk
of this great infant mortality occurred, amongst the
poor and labouring classes, there is little political
influence to be reaped and few votes to be garilered
in. If the city inspector could be everywhere in
person to inspect every part of the city, perhaps all
would be as it should ; but this is simply a physical
impossibility.
Two important questions thus arise—Do the
health wardens or deputies know what cleanliness
is ? And what class of persons fill these places ?
It must first be kept in mind that nothing can be
more delicate or sensitive than the vital organs of
an infant. It must then be understood that the great
infant mortality occurs amongst those families
which are compelled to live in second, third, and
fourth class tenement-houses, among that class who
are always suffering from exposure and all the try-
ing ills attendant upon dependence and poverty.
These tenement-houses are built or purchased by
the owners, for the purpose of making a large pro-
fit out of a small outlay ; but few of them have any
yard room, and none, it may be safely said, are
adequately provided with drains or outhouses. The
poor people who live in these places are compelled,
therefore, to keep the refuse of their houses in their
badly ventilated apartments, or to let it stand in
the street until it can be removed by the carts. The
children, having no yard, are compelled to go in the
street for recreation, and for what is supposed to
be fresh air ; and there they inhale the effluvia
from filthy kennels and neglected garbage boxes,
acted upon by the sun, and poisoning the whole
atmosphere. Whether these children are in or
out of the house they are always breathing
air impregnated with disease. One of these roots
of evil might be remedied if the contractors'
carts engaged for the collection of this offal did
their work regularly ;and faithfully, and in this hot
season repeated it twice a day ; but, instead of this,
on some days the carts never appear at all; on other
days it is nearly dark before the offal is collected,
and then it is done in such a sluggish manner that
it might as well not be done at all; the collector of
the garbage generally spilling a large part into the
street, and allowing it to remain there.
Another cause for this alarming mortality is to
be found in the bad and unwholesome meats and
provisions sold to these poor people, at nearly all
the butcher and grocery shops which infest the
localities in which they live. In our southern cities
they have officers denominated commissaries of
markets and provision stores, whose duty it is to
seize all unwholesome meats, and provisions.
If the health wardens of this city were to have this
indispensable office included in their duties, they
would have ample room to exercise their functions.
They would find large quantities of meat exposed
for sale at the large markets which are utterly
unfit for human use. Meats are daily offered to
the poor of our city which are simple plates of the
very worst kind, saturated with the seed of a hun-
dred diseases. The strict old law of the Jewish
state controlling the licence of slaughterers might
be revived and reapplied with advantage to the
shambles of New York. While this, with other
departments of our municipal police, is left at the
mercy of irresponsible greed and the uncontrolled
lust of gain, we must expect to see Herod steadily
at his work among the children of the poor.