The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1847-08-03 00:00:00

Aug. 3, 1847.

this morning have &vet had ocular clelnonstration that
such a craft floated on the great waters. This nondescript
of vessels is now anchored at quarantine, Staten Island,
where she arrived last night, and cast her wooden anchor.
All the seventy-fours and frigates in the British or Ameri-
can navy, if moored below, would not attract half the
notice. Every person on the land and on the water is
astonished at her unique appearance. She is unlike a
ship, brio-, schooner, sloop, steamer, canal boat, or any
other craft. Her stern appears like two or three poop
decks, piled one above another, nearly fifty feet above the
water, and her rudder, which is latticed, weighs eight tons,
and is in shape something like, only much larger, than a
canal boats. It takes forty men to steer her in a gale of
wind. Her prow is nearly square, and open in front, with
a large wooden anchor projecting out like a figure-head.
She has galleries or walks outsiderextending from the stern
to midships. Her stern is nearly square, and she is gaudily
painted with figures. We learn from her commander
that it is 212 days since she left China, She has floated,
drifted, and sailed along, stopping at the nape of Good:
Hope and St. Helena. She was bound to England, her
captain being an Englishman and the speculation English,
but in consequence of the long passage her course was
altered, and she put into this port, where she will be
exhibited for several weeks, and then proceed to her port
of destination in Britain. Her bottom is very foul, which
has prevented somewhat her sailing. She will have to be
placed on the Sectional Dock to be cleaned. She has a
crew of about fifteen English and fifty Chinese. It is a
singular sight to see many of the crew at work nearly
naked, and others in the Chinese garb. She is an ex-
cellent sea-boat, lies too and drifts with great ease and
safety, is about 700 tons burthen, and has a large supply
• ' ' _

Vl VI uvials.ma auu vv clacr VII uOara. lie commander states
that he has experienced very severe weather, particularly
off this coast. The passage has been nearly 100 days less
than he anticipated. Her accommodations within are
handsome and commodious, and she is filled with cu-
riosities descriptive of the country she came froni. We
do not know her name, and if we did, probably could not
give it to our readers. The ferry-boats from Whitehall
to the island pass so near her that persons can have a fine
view of her.' She will come to the city in a few days."

QUARTERLY RI

TURN OF HEALTH AND

MORTALITY

This official and authentic document confirms the appre-
hensions that were entertained respecting the high amount
of mortality during the spring quarter.

to is important to state, in the first instance, that the
quarterly returns are obtained from 117 districts, subdivided
into 582 sub-districts. 36 districts are in the
metropolis,
and the remaining 81 comprise, with some agricultural
districts, the principal towns and cities of England. The
population was 6,612,800 in 1841. The deaths registered
in the June quarters of the five years were as follows :-
1843, 40,343; 1844, 38,977; 1845, 40,847; 1846, 43:734;
1847, 51,585. Thus the mortality, during the last spring
quarter, ending June 30, greatly exceeds the average mor-
tality of the preceding corresponding periods. Had the
mortality been uniform, and the population increased from
1839 at the rate of 1.75 per cent. annually, the deaths dur-
ing the last quarter would only have amounted to. 44,840
instead of 51,585, the actual number, which is an excess
of 6,745 above the corrected average. The deaths regis-
tered during the four quarters of the five years ending
June 30, 1847, were:-1843, 163,162; 1844, 164,673;
1845, 173,810 ; 1846, 163,058 ;1847, 212,210. The average
of 7 years is 165,831. Add 7.19 per cent. for increase of
population, and the average applicable to 1847 is 177,700.
The excess on the year ending June 30, 1847, was thus no
less than 34,000 deaths. The districts under review are,
however, stated by the registrar-general to include nearly
all the towns of England, and are always unhealthy in
their natural state. The mortality is not more than 18 in
1,000 in many districts, and entire counties, where the
population is far from being in a favourable condition ;
and after every allowance has been made, if the ages of the
inhabitants had been taken into account, the mortality
should certainly not exceed 2 per cent. ; at which rate, as
the population was about 7,274,900, the deaths in the year-
ending June, 1846-7, would have been 145,498, or less by
31,200 than the average 177,700. The excess of mortality
tried by this standard during the year ending June, 1847,
was 66,712, and that in only one-fourth part of the popu-
lation of the United Kingdom.
These facts prepare us for the information that sickness
prevailed to a fearful extent throughout the country dur-
ing the last spring quarter. Common cholera, says the
registrar-general, was fatal ; scurvy prevailed more or less
all over the country, from the want of vegetable food, the
potato having failed ; all food became scarce and dear ;_
typhus broke out, is still epidemic, and shows no sign of
decline. To add to the calamities of the country, the
poor of Ireland dying from starvation, and consumed by
fever, even cast on the coast of England, are now lodged
in the crowded, filthiest parts of the most unsalubrious
cities, or in workhouses and hospitals provided by English
parishes. In London, we are told, small-pox has been
latterly prevalent ; the deaths, which were from to 3 to 7
weekly in the beginning of the year, amounted at the close
of June, to 26 in the week. Typhus, which always pre-
vails more or less, killed 58 persons in the last week of
June ; and was on the increase. Diarrhoea, too, was be-
coming more fatal as the temperature advanced. Pur-
pura and lnematemesis have both been unusually, com-
mon. They are probably of the nature of scurvy., '1 he
following remarks on diet are particularly deserving of at-
tention, emanating as they do from the high medical au-
thorities in communication with the registrar-general !
The metropolitan returns dpot present a _much more
aspect than those of the large towns. In all
the districts the mortality during the last spring quarter
exceeded the average of previous quarters. The deaths
during the last five spring quarters were—in 1843, 11,748;
1844, 11,597 ; 1845, 11,424 ; 1846, 11,423 ; 1847, 12,361.
A very large proportion of this mortality was occasioned
by epidemic diseases consequent on the want of ventila-
tion, water, and the absence of sanitary measures. On
this subject the registrar-general says,—" That insalubrity
exists is incontestable ; the causes of it are known ; and
that they admit of removal to a considerable extent is al-
lowed by all who have paid attention to, the subject. But
it is a long time before the plainest principles can be car-
ried out. When the works are commenced, it will be
some years before they can be completed ; and as yet no-
thing has been begun. After Captain Cook had demon-
strated that the health of the navy could be immeasurably
improved, thousands of the best seamen had to perish,
expeditions to be defeated, millions of pounds expended,
thirty years to elapse, before anything whatever effectual
was dane to place the health of the British navy on a sa-
tisfactory footing. So it is to be feared that, through the
natural obstacles in the way, and the pertinacious opposi-
tion of parish vestries, of corporations and companies, and
the enemies of public health, many times the number who
have perished this year will fall a sacrifice ere the towns
of England enjoy, by the intervention of science, a mode,
rate share of the health which nature confers on the coun-.
try around them."

There are two striking and most important facts, so
aptly illustrative of the advantages arising from sanitary
measures based on science, that we add them to the fore-
going remarks. In 1750, the condition of Newgate and
other prisons was such that a fever, called the " gaol
fever," broke out, and in the above year killed the Lord
Mayor, two of the judges, and an alderman on the bench,
who were trying prisoners at the
was Old requested
ste Sdesbsyiotuhse.
The assistance of the Royal Society
city authorities, to ventilate the prisons ; and accordingly,
Sir John Pringle and other distinguished fellows of the
society, took such steps as effectually banished the fever.
This is the first record of systematic sanatory measures
being adopted in our prisons. Now, these are carried to
such a state of perfection that it was only a few weeks ago
that we had the pleasure of recording, under the head of
" Provincial Intelligence,"_that, in Glasgow, when fever
was raging around, the prisons, containing about six hun-
dred inmates, had not one fever patient. Surely these
facts render all comment unnecessary. The meteorological
tables which accompany the return enable us to deduce
the following results. The mean temperature of the quar-
ter at Greenwich was 53 deg. 2, which is 2 deg. below that
of the corresponding quarter of 1846, and 0.2 above that
of the quarter for 25 years. The temperature of the slew
point was 44 deg., being lower than in the spring of 1844,
5, or 6, by 3 deg. 1 ; 2 4 ; and 4 deg. 2 respectively.
The mean height of the barometer was 29.793 ; the quan-
tity of rain 4.59 inches. The horizontal movement of the
air 849 miles weekly, being about the average amount.
We observe that some valuable instructions for making
and registering meteorological observations are appended
to the report.
" The groundless prejudice against fruit, and the abso.

lute necessity in diet of vegetables containing an acid, as
the potato does, were dwelt on before scurvy and its kin-
dred diseases made their appearance. It is true, that
fruit, when taken to excess, produces symptoms which
may be mistaken, by persons unacquainted with medicine,
for common cholera. But beef or mutton in excess will
do the same; and the experience of this year has shown
more clearly than had ever been shown before, that bread
and meat alone are not sufficient to sustain the system in
health. Fruit and acid vegetables are an essential part of
the food of man ; but it appears that the body when duly
supplied with the principles it derives from these sources,
husbands them up, and can do without the acid diet for
some time. The appetite for fruit and pickles is not then
without its use, although the chemists have not hitherto
explained how vegetable acid subserves nutrition. With-
out these aliments the blood loses some of its essential
properties, and escapes from the vessels in purple spots
under the skin, or with more fatal effect into the struc-
ture of internal organs."

Our readers are probably aware, that a great number of
medical men have fallen victims to their indefatigable
attention to the sick in the poor districts of Liverpool
and Manchester. ThE
to thesE

1e feelir

general very properly expresses a hope, that the heroic
conduct of those now alive and of those who have perished

ten by t

eir country.
died. The r

Liverpool

and one clergyman of the Church of Eng
(curate of St. Martin's) nearly fell a sacri

A. An

r relieving the sick has been the theme of praise w:
it From ten to fifteen persons connected with the re
° department in the parish offices have also died of
taken by them in discharge of their duties."
ie We observe that instructions were given to the