The Sun.
London, England, 1850-09-28 00:00:00

" Appellate Jurisdiction of the House ofLords, Privy
Council, and Court of Chancery." By Charles Purton
Cooper, Esq., QC. London; Stevens and Norton.

who, in his original and appellate jurisdiction, deals
with a larger amount of property, and more interest-
ing and sacred rights, than perhops all the other
judges taken together. In addition, then, to the great
Impediments and obstacles opposed to the progress cf
every description of legal reform, from the multifa-
rious avocations of the Minister by whom proposed
alterations must be maturely considered before they
can be adopted by the Government, and the great
public inconvenience of a judge going out of office at
the very time when he is most competent to perform
its duties, we find a judge sitting in one court to
hear an appeal from his own judgment pronounced in
another place, and subject to removal at any moment
through a party vote in Parliament. It must, there-
fore, be conceded that Lord JOHN RUSSELL was
fully justified in thinking it to be " the common
sense of the subject that there should be, as in the
Queen's Bench and Common Plea=, a permanentjudge
at the head of our great equity tribunal."

It is seldom that a more important document has
been presented to Parliament than the "Report of
the General Board of Health on the Epidemic
Cholera of 1848 and 1849." It should be not only
perused, but studied by every member of the com-
munity, for it relates to matters which affect the
interests and the lives of every man, woman, and
child in these realms. This report sets at rest the
question as to the contagious or non-contagious na-
ture of cholera ; it is abundantly clear, from the evi-
dence adduced by the Commissioners, that the disease
is not contagious, and that schemes ef isola-
tion or quarantine are worse than useless.
It is a disease impossible, or all but impossible, of
cure, and yet most easy of prevention ; and the cause
of the great mortality which prevailed from chole-ra,
during 1848 and 1849, in this country, was the stupid
obstinacy of the local authorities, who refused to adopt
the measures of prevention pointed out to them, and
sacrificed many thousand lives to absurd preju-
dices against " centralization." Upwards of 60,000
persons perished of cholera during the year 1848-49
and of these 60,000, at least 40,000 were sacrificed
to a vile system of private jobbing, which
usurps the name of local self-government. In Ply-
mouth, according to Dr. MILROY, although strong
representations on the subject had been made by the
leading medical men of the place many months before
the occurrence of the disease, no precautionary mea-
sures were adopted by the authorities, who when the
cholera did break out spoke of it as :quite sudden and
unexpected.

"In numerous instances," say the Commissioners,
" medical officers who have attended to the conditions
which influence its localization, have pointed out, before
its return, the particular courts and houses which it
would attack. Before cholera appeared in the district,'
says the medical officer of the Whitechapel Union,
speaking of a small court in the hamlet, I predictei
that this would be one of its strongholds.' Eighteen
cases occurred in it. Before cholera appeared in the
district, the medical officer of Uxbridge stated
that, if it should visit that town it would be certain
to break out in a particular house, to the danger-
ous condition of which he called the attention of the
local authorities. The first cases that occurred broke
out in that identical house. In a place called Swain's
lane, in the healthy village of Highgate, near London,
there is a spot where the medical officer felt so confident
that the di-ease would make its appearance, that ha re-
peatedly represented to the authorities the danger of
allowing the place to remain in its existing condition,
but in vain. In two houses on this spot, six attacks and
four deaths took place, yet there was no other appearance
of the disease during the whole epidemic in any other
part of the village, containing 3,000 inhabitants.
" Before the appearance of the disease in this country
we warned the local authorities that the seats of the
approaching pestilence in their respective districts
would be the usual haunts of other epidemics."

It might surely have been expected that the local au-
thorities would everywhere have adopted immediate
measures to disinfect the localities pointed outbeforehand
as the seats of the approaching pestilence ; it appears,
on the contrary, that they threw every obstacle in the
way of the adoption of such measures. The pecuniary
interests of the local jobbers, and the fussy self-im-
portance of the local magnates were leagued in oppo-
sition to science, humanity, and common sense, and the
recommendations of the Board of Health were treated
either with contemptuous silence or with contumely
and insult. Their warnings were despised, their facts
disputed, and themselves denounced, and in one
memorable instance a local parochial mag-
nate of the metropolis, with a crass ignorance
more than aldermanic, actually denied the existence
of Jacob's Island, because it had been mentioned by
Mr. CHARLES DICKENS. But the Board of Health
did not flinch from the execution of the duties im-
posed on them, and if they did not succeed in accom-
plishing all that they had hoped, the fault was not in
themselves, but in the law. They thus describe their
endeavours to carry out measures of prevention, and
the cause to which the ill-success of those endeavours
must be attributed. At page 142 of the Report they
say—

" Adopting a large remedial interpretation of the au-
thority given under the Act for taking measures of
promptitude, according to the exigency of the case, by
such directions and regulations as the said board shall
think fit for the prevention, as far as possible, or mitiga-
tion of such epidemic disease,' we were prepared to issue
directions to special local bodies for the execution of the
measures of prevention; but we were debarred from that
course by the opinion of the law officers, that the general
words of the statute could not be so construed as to
warrant such a combination of the local authorities as
we proposed for the purpose.
A review of the goneral experience now adduced as
to the peculiar nature of preventive measureF, and as to
the constitution of local bodies, will suggeA, one conclu-
sion, that the only chance of executing such measures
promptly ar.d efficiently will be by new and special local
and general administrative arrangements, the particulars
of which we may have a fair opportunity of submittirg
for consideration, as part of the amendments which may
be required for the execution of the Public Health Act.'

We trust that another session of Parliament will
not be suffered to elapse without the passing of a
Public Health Act, which shall give health officers
the power of properly carrying out preventive mea-
sures. It should be recollected that every member of
the community is equally interested in the immediate
adoption of these measures ; the cholera is no res-
pec'er of persons, and the class of prosperous trades-
men suffered during its last visitation more severely
from its ravages than did the very poor ; and when we
remember that those localities in which the cholera
raged with the greatest severity are at all times the
habitats of fever, the necessity for the prompt adop.
tion of the measures of prevention suggested by the
officers of health cannot but be abundantly evident.

THE ARCTIC REGIONS.

RETURN OF THE S TORE-SHIP NORTH STAR

FROM THE POLAR SEAS.

ADMIRALTY, SEPT. 28.

The North Star arrived this morning at Ports-
mouth from the Polar Seas. No intelligence of
Sir John Franklin. Captain Austin was in Lan-
caster Sound. Captain Forsyth in the Prince Albert
off Possession Bay on the 30th August, returning to
England. Captain Forsyth had been to Port Bowen
and Port Leopold. He left the Lady Franklin,
Sophia, Assistance, Intrepid, and Felix, in Wellington
Channel ; all well. North Star last from Pond's
Bay sth September. North Star succeeded this year
in landing her provisions at eastern extremity of
Navy Board Inlet, just within the easternmost Wol-
laston Island, having failed in doing so last year.
Mr. Saunders has kad no personal communication
with Captain Austin, not having seen any of the
squadron. Captain Forsyth may be looked for every
day.

yr,orvements are
KlT7rllTie"h are appercolatned. Its
BILLINGSGATE MAR
proceeding rapidly. The old dock is entire?
bed is fitted with twenty shops,
double flight of steps on the east and west side. The 113;
part is to be exclusively devoted to the sale of shell-fish
whilst the upper portion will present rows of shops similar
to those in Hungerford Market, with an architectural river
frontage. On the completion of this portion of the under-
taking, the clump of houses extending to Darkhouse-lane
will be removed, and the space thus obtained added to the
market.
SERIOUS CASE OF POCKET P1CK1NG......-600/,
STOLEN.—lnformation was given at the Mansion-house that
a poor fellow had been on Wednesday morning plundered of
all his property between the Bank and Gracechurch-street.
He had, it seems, accumulated by a life of bard labour be-
tween 500/. and 6001., and had purchased a public-house, in
which be intended to sit down for the remainder of his life
After having left a deposit of CO/. with the person of whom
he had made the purchase, he wont and received the amount
to which he wa3 entitled, and was proceeding to close the
business, when ho found that his coat-pocket; in Ti Ilia he
had placed the mooey, was cut away, and all his hard earn-
ings were gmie. The sister of the unfortunate man applied
to the police and described the condition of her brother as
deplorable in the extreme. The plundered man had no
doubt been followed from the bank by thieve,, who found
him to be a more easy prey, as he had been a sailor and had
lost an arm.
CHINESE LEECHES.—An importation has just taken
place by a vessel arrived in the docks from Canton, of several
packages of leeches, as par'; of her cargo. This appears to be
a remarkable article of importation from China.

THE FRENCH RE PUB L IC.

We have received the Paris jourrals of yesterday.

The Committee of the Ass-embly held -its usual
weekly meeting on Thursday, and it was proposed
immediately to convoke the Assembly. A very ani-
mated discussion ensued, but no decision was come
to, probably in consequence of the absence of Gene-
ral CHANGARNIER, who was attending the PRESI-
DENT at Versailles, where he held a second review.
It appears that on Thursday, as on the previous
occasion, the PRESIDENT had provided refreshments
both for the officers and the soldiers. Among the
latter upwards of sixty hogsheads of claret were dis-
tributed.

The Marquis Du PASTORE; one of the " Com-
mittee" of the Count of CHAMBORD, has arrived in
Paris.

M. DE PEESIGNY left. Paris on Thursday for Lon-
don, on a diplomatic mission, and M. DE PARRIEtT,
the Minister for Public Instruction, returned to Paris
on the same day. The return of M. DE PARRIEU was
unexpected, and is, it is said, connected with some
approaching change in the Ministry.
M. DE VATISMENIL, one of the leaders of the Le-
gitimatistF, has declared against any revision of the
Constitution.

A private of the 17th Regiment has been condemned
to death by a court-martial for having surrendered his
arms to the insurgents on the 13th of June, 1849.
General Baron HALST died at Nancy, in the 76th
year of his age.
Colonel DE AIARQ,ITESAC died at Breves, in the
78th year of his age. Ile was second chief of the
staff to General RAPP during the Democratic
siege of Dantzic, and during the 100 days he was in-
trusted by the Prince of ECHMULIL, Commander- in-
Chief of the army of Paris, with the defence of the
line extending from the Barriere de I'Enfer to La
Villette.

The large spinning manufactory near Thann, 'Taut
Rhin, was destroyed by fire on the 15th. More than
200 workmen are thrown out of employ.
PARIS BOURSE, SEPT. 27.—Latest Prices—Five
per Cents., 93f. 10c. ; Tiaree per Cents., 57f. 65c. ;
Bank Actions, 2,285 f.

BUSINESS DONE IN FOREIGN RAILWAYS AT THE

LONDON STOCK E YCHANbE, SEPT. 27.

Boulogne and Amiens, 7 % —Orleans and Bourdeaux,
2%—Paris and Rouen, 23% —Rouen and Havre, 9%

SPAIN.

Madrid journals of the 223 have been received.

General-CoNcuA reviewed the garrison of Madrid,
and addressed them in a farewell speech, printed
copies of which were distributed among the garrison.
The General immediately afterwards set off for
Cadiz to embark for Cubs.