The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1840-01-31 00:00:00

LIVERPOOL POLYTECHNIC SOCIETY.

. (Concluded from the Standard,qf Tuesday.
The subject of the burial of the dead in the interior of large
towns was next brought under notice, and some extracts were
read from a work treating on the subject, " Walker's Gather-
ings from Grave Yards," from which it would appear, that
the mephitic gas generated by the decomposition of animal
matter is one of the most frightful sources of disease. Some
of the remedial measures were then suggested.
" The first (says Mr. Cunningham) and most important
improvement that could suggest would be to establish a
complete scavenging system, whereby the collective filth of
the town, the ashes, the vegetable and offal animal matter,
and other •impurities produced. tte .'preceding day, 'might be
removed every morning•or evening, by a sufficient number of
dust outs, to a distance of one' or two miles froM the town,
so as not to corrupt the salubrity of the atmosphere. This
would form an excellent compost for agricultural purposes, as
at London, Edinburgh, &c. where the annual revenue arisin;
from the sale of it is very considerable.
Secondly—The sewers should be immediately used for
carrying off the soil from the water closets, and carried through
• every street in the town. The eyes to the sewers, as I have
already mentioned, should be trapped.
" Thirdly—A sufficient supply of water, when little rain
falls, should he made to flow, at least twice a week, copiously
through the gutters of every street, and thence through the
common sewers.

The result of this irregular and unsystematic arrange-
ment, (if it can be so termed,) independently of the narrow-
ness of the streets, must be a complete preventive to any
thing like a free circulation of air.
" The courts from those narrow streets are rendered still
worse, in regard to that essential provision of nature, by their
small entrances and high surrounding walls. By these means,
also, the light of day is nearly excluded, a full supply of
which is almost as important as the air, for the health of
human beings. •
" This want of a free circulation of air and a full supply
of light must, therefore, be highly prejudicial to the health of
the inhabitants, who are compelled, by their circumstances,
to reside in those places ; btit these are aggravated tenfold in
their fatal effects by the putrid exhalations which arise from
the decomposition of the immense quantities of filth, mixed
with the offal of animal and vegetable matter, that are trea-
sured up in their privies and ash pits for months together.
" It is an ascertained fact, that the decomposition of animal
and vegetable matter produces gaseous poisons of a most
virulent character to the human system. The unhealthy
condition of marshy districts in this and other countries is
attributed entirely to this cause.-
" When such places, therefore, having at all times a full
supply of free air and light, are so obnoxious to human ex-
istence, how much more must those confined abodes be where
the poison is inhaled in a comparatively concentrated form.
" This putrifying and poisoning process, however, is not
confined entirely to the narrow streets and crowded courts,
but is spread over the whole town, though in a greatly modi-
fied state, in the more respectable portions of it, where the
streets are wide and the population less dense ; still its de-
structive influence is at work, more slow in its operation
probably, but certainly not the less sure in its consequences.
" The effects of this poisonous matter on the animal sys-
tem have been proved by Dr. Majendie, some of whose
experiments I beg to read to you."
The extracts referred to were then read, wherein was
shown that the putrid matter, arising from animal decompo-
sition, was collected and condensed by this celebrated phy-
siologist. He could produce with this matter so collected
typhus fever in all its gradations, in proportion to the con-
centrated state in which it was injected into the veins of the
different animals experimented on, whereas, the putrid
matter arising from vegetable decomposition, injected in a
similar manner, produced all the stages of tertian fever.
Mr. Cunningham then proceeds,—
" I have endeavoured to arrive at an approximate extent
of surface giving off those poisonous exhalations in this
town, by taking the number of inhabitants at 250,000, (which
I-believe, is considerably under the actual number.) and
allowing eight individuals as an average number for each
family, and for each family a privy and ash-pit, together 6
feet by 3, we have an active pestilential generating surface of
62;500 superficial yards, or nearly 13 imperial acres.
" This surface of masses of corrupting matter is, in hot
weather, sufficient of itself to evolve malaria enough 'to de-
stroy the whole inhabitants ; and when we reflect that tens
of thousands are immured in it, without the smallest chance
of escaping its deadly influences, deprived also of an adequate
supply of air and light, we cannot be surprised at the great
mortality that must be produced by such a combination of
evils.

SECOND EDITION.

Standard Office, Three o'clock

We have received copies of the St. John's (N. B.)
Weekly Chronicle to the 3d instant inclusive. The last
'advices from England, received at St. John's, were to
the 10th of December, by the fast-sailing ship Robert
Bruce, which made the passage out from. thiS port in
the extraordinarily short space of seventeen days. There
is no news of importance in the papers before us.

A cabinet council was summoned last night, by di-
rection of Lord Normanby, to meet at the Foreign-
office to-day, at 12 o'clock. Before that hour this
morning all the ministers had assembled, and remained
in deliberation when we went to press.—Standard of
yesterday.