The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-03-17 00:00:00

VIE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.

SUPPLY OF WATER.—No one can doubt that a very
large additional supply of water is requisite for Liverpool ;
but it is not so easy to calculate the precise quantity
needed. The amount taken for domestic uses must, of
course, vary according to the habits of the consumers.
Those who are cleanly in their persons and ;houses will
use more than others who are not so ; but in any case, we
do not consider that our working classes are sufficiently
informed as to the great importance of water as a sanitary
agent, to 'mike use of the quantity which we yet hope to
see consumed. The present supply, for domestic pur-
poses, is probably much less than it ought to be in every
town in the kingdom, for it is found to vary considerably
in different places. Dr. Playfair states, that, " according
to the evidence of well-informed witnesses, the cottage
consumption of Liverpool, even in the case of a family of
more than ordinary cleanliness, rarely amounts to 20 gal-
lons daily." Taking the average population of our cot-
tages at 7 persons, as given by Dr. Duncan, this would al-
low less than 3 gallons a day to each. Mr. Gravatt calcu-
lates the consumption for domestic purposes, in London,
at 4 Gallons a-head per diem. The experience of Not-
tingham and Preston is, that a labouring man's family re-
quires between 40 and 45 gallons a day, which would give
about 8 gallons for each ; and at Greenock and Paisley,
the amount actually taken for domestic use is about 12
gallons a day per head. How truly insignificant at the
most, do these supplies appear, when compared with what
we lately mentioned of modern Rome, with its 250 gallons
a day d spensed to every inhabitant who chooses to use it.
or the still greater quantity of 312 gallons,' in the days of
the empire ! Only a small portion of this could ever be
used for household purposes ; but there is a great princi-
ple involved in it, which we wish to see fully recognized
and adopted in practice, namely,—an abundant and con-
stant supply for all who choose to take it. Nothing short
of this will ever extend the use of water as it ought to be.
We must have a water pipe to every cottage, and the
water must always be on at pressure; and if there be
those who are so poor as not to be able to pay the moder-
ate rate required, they must be provided for by public
fountains.—Liverpool Health of Towns' Advocate.
THE LATE DEARLY-PURCHASED VICTORY IN INDIA.
The following abstract of an affectionate letter written by
an intelligent and gallant soldier, named O'Connell, to
his sister in this town, forms an interesting epitome of
the three days' fighting between our troops and the
Sikhs ; and as it contains, moreover, some few facts that
may not have transpired from other quarters, we make no
apology fur its insertion. The writer, who dates Feroze-
pore, Feb. sth, after stating that he had over three months
been attacked by fever and ague, for which he had been in
hospital, says:—
" Dear sister,—l have in fact been in the field of bat-
tle, and such a one as has not been seen in India for years
back, This station is the highest belonging to the Eng-
lish, and is only divided from the large territory of the
Punjaub by the river Sutledge. The inhabitants are
called Sikhs (pronounced Seeks), a strong warlike nation,
being disciplined and commanded by French officers.
Some dispute arising between our government and theirs,
they crossed the river some time in November, and took
up a strong position about six miles from this place. We,
in the camp, were immediately ordered about a mile from
barracks, with the other troops of the station, and were
served with 60 rounds of ball cartridge per man. On the
Isth, 16th, and 18th December, reports coming in that the
enemy was marching for our camp, we were turned out,
and marched about two miles, when we took up our posi-
tion ; but, thank God ! nothing occurred, for if they had
had heart to come they would have cut every one of us up,
as all we could muster was about 8000, and they were
70,000. However, there was ahthis time a large brigade
marching here under the command of Sir Hugh Gough,
commander-in-chief, and Sir Henry Hardinge, Governor-
General. It consisted of the 9th, 29th, 31st, 50th, and
80th, the Ist Regt. of Bengal Europeans, and the 3d
Light Dragoons, besides a large brigade of native horse
and foot. The Sikhs attacked them on the 18th, and
were beaten. Twenty-one guns were taken from them.
We marched out on the 21st, and after moving on about
12 miles, met the other brigade, when we marched in a
body on the enemy, who opentol a fire on us with cannon,
about four o'clock in the afternoon, at a distance of about
half a mile. Our regiment being in advance, suffered se-
verely. In the first charge we were forced to retire, and
in the second charge I was shot in the thigh by a grape-
shot. It passed through without fracturing the bone, and
I crawled to the rear, and was obliged to lie on the cold
ground all night, my wound undressed, and not a drink
of water, until I was found next morning. On the third
charge which our brave chaps gave them, they ran in great
confusion, leaving behind their camp, and 80 guns, mak-
ing in the whole captured 101 fine brass ones. They con-
tinued firing all night, and attacked us again on Monday
morning, the 22d, but were again completely routed, since
which time we have beard nothing of them. I have since
been told they are about forming about 70 miles from
this, and preparing for another attack. The European
army here is all to be presented with a medal each man,
for their good conduct in the field. Most of the native
troops ran away. Our regiment lost 93 in killed, and 193
were wounded, besides 7 officers. My leg pains me much.
In a few years more I will be home, wearing my medal."

CORRIISPONDENCE.

ON THE SANITARY STATE OF SOME PARTS
OF LIVERPOOL.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.

DEAR MR. EDITOR,—What think you of that " mttn-
dug alter et idem" (that other world, and yet the same),
where a "good old old town—previously supposed to be
the pink of salubrity and pattern of a seaport by its doat-
ing inhabitants—was, in an evil hour, as many thought,
demonstrated, by the revelation of facts and logic of
figures, to be the most unhappy specimen of a dense po-
pulati.m ; whilst her crest-fallen inhabitants, instead of
congratulating themselves upon possessing a healthy home-
stead, had to walk humbly in that day of proof that their
town was not only low in the scale of provincial towns,
but absolutely the "lowest of the low"—that the rate of
her mortality, the density of closely-packed population,
and her street ventilation and drainage, for badness ex-
ceeding that of the teeming hive of the metropolis itself—
a Modern Tyre, in the several points of crowding, filth,
disease, and death, far outstripping a modern Babylon ?
What think you, Mr. Editor, would these modern Tyri-
ans do ? Would they slumber upon the humiliating de-
monstration, and, like the ostrich when hunted, hide their
head under their wing, and because no longer seeing the
pursuer, fancy such pursuing facts to be reduced to a
similar non-plus of extremity ? Would such a course be
wise, or would it not rather be the infatuation of the for-
mer conviction presenting itself a second time under the
paralysed attitude of a dilemma ?
What if that town suddenly found itself precipitated
from the supposed regions of health, into the depraved
condition of some serious and dangerous malady? would
she act wisely in neglecting to arm herself with all the
means and appliances for restoring her lost sanitary state?
Were she to make a Turkish fatalism the grave ci her
Elope, c ,uld such a course be commended ?
Or, suppose she may have languidly raised her arm first
in the theatrical attitude of appalled dismay at so close a
danger, then dropßing it slowly, taken up the pen between
her but half-energized fingers, and at the dictate of a re-
turning semi-consciousness, applying for an act of parlia-
ment, which might be intended to remedy some at least of
those evils staring her in the face daily and nightly ; then
let the arm of prowess subside into harmony of inaction
with its listless fellow reposing beside the trunk entangled
gracefully in the folds of the wrapper of despondency.
And suppose further, that "an act is obtained, and that
it was innocently designed by its legal framers and House
of Commons manufacturers to remove some sources of
disease, some abuses of the body social, and to evacuate
some dens of their in-humanized inhabitants. Yet, if the
benevolent purposes of such act were frustrated in a thou-
sand ways through its imperfect provisions, so that a coach
and six might be driven between its clauses, or if it be so
deformed respecting its purposes as to resemble a Pro-
crustean bed—" a bed shorter than a man can stretch
himself on it"—or, if like Gulliver's coat, it be constructed
upon the mathematical principles of engineers and survey-
ors alone, without:practically taking the dimensions of the
party to be fitted,—if the measure have not been taken by
the tailor himself, nor obtained from the only party who
ever did or could take the measure rightly,—how should
a fit be obtained? • _

Again, if the working of this " blessed act" be difficult
—he next to impossible—an issue in absurdity—whereby,
unless matters be closer glappled with, the condition of
those upon whom this act is fired off will be rather da-
maged, if it be possible to compute and express, by adjec-
tives of comparison, evils incomparably great,—the adage
" out of the frying pan into the fire" might be written, as
embodying the bitter experience of modern Tyre, touch-
ing the in-sanatary working of her Act of Parliament,
upon the back thereof, and it might be tied up with red
tape, and duly enrolled amongst the obsolete memorials
of the past.
What think you, Mr. Editor, of " bearding the lion in
his den," unless you are well prepared for the encounter
you provoke? Would you not arm yourself so as to se-
cure all the chances of final victory over the provoked
strong one? Would you pass from the effort of a manly
combat, on to the child-like act of toying with his mane,
until his blood boil, and his fired eye announces the awful
bound of his fury upon you, his rash challenger and un-
guarded victim ?
Or, what think you of that happy marriage of acts of
Parliament with local police regulations, in this mundus
alter et idem, which passes away precious time in doings
thousand unasked-for things—performing officious ser-
vices in one quarter, bestowing partial cures in another, a
sort of french polishing of some streets, and a coating
over of others with black japan varnish! That mundus
alter et idem to which I have thus, Mr. Editor, intro-
duced you, in the pardonable language of allegory, for
the sake of illustration, is the good old town of Liverpool
itself.
You may feel, perhaps, indignant at the portrait. and
accuse it of being a caricature. We often quarrel with
the truthful profile of a friend or acquaintance, just be-
cause it does not correspond with our ideal of that friend ;
and, therefore, we may discard the accurate for the ficti-
tious tracery of features, because our own judgment is
warped by the prepossessing ideal. But I shall be able to
convince you in my next letter, that, with a trifling con-
ventional allowance for figurative expression, the truth
holds good in the main, and that your flattering ideal of
your own town is as much a fiction as the Apollo Belvidere
himself is a fiction of human form—a correctly formed
figure of a man, plus the infusion of the ideal of the
sculptor—an embodied fable of splendid Greece—but ne-
ver a fact, scarcely, perhaps, a truth.
I purpose to show you, unveiled, the insanitary working
of the present act. You may feel rather melancholy when
I have sketched in the features of " Liverpool Proper ;"
but weigh all, and let conviction, when wrought, energise
your pen and voice, and all other pens and voices, and all
other heads, and hearts, and hands, until the wretchedness
and degradation be mitigated a hundredfold, and the cen-
sus of Liverpool can be fairly taken as that of so much
human life.
Sanitary Acts, and Building Acts, and Water Acts, and
Highway Acts, and Anti-Landlord Monopoly Acts, and

all other similar acts, ought to be based upon medical
evidence as well as engineering data, or they must ever be
only so many folio sheets of law descriptions and parodies
upon the first line of Cowper's " Alexander Selkirk !"
In concluding this first part, though in one sense I
write for the public—that is, for their benefit—yet in
another sense I don't write for them, merely to give them
pleasure. They may be pleased or they may be dis-
pleased ; such is only an accident either way, incident to
the path of duty.
For the present I remain, Sir,
Yours, faithfully,
G. C. 'WATSON.
Liverpool, March 12, 1846.

EFFECTS OF THE ABOLITION OF THE CORN

LAWS.

If the quantity of the food is increased in any country,
there is a corresponding increase of the people.
" When goods increase, they increase that eat them.".
Feel. v. 11. The effect of the abolition of the corn laws
will, therefore, increase our population to the extent that
foreigners can supply this country. Suppose two millions
of English people to have been brought thus into exist-
ence, and to be fed upon foreign corn ; this would be a
most precarious subsistence. When the people of any
country become dependant on foreigners for the supply of
the staff of life, they are thereby subjected to the loss of
their own liberties. The condition of the Poles would be
much improved by the exportation of corn, and they
might, on that account, begin to eat the wheat which they
raise themselves, or war may suddenly stop the supply.
Ireland and British North America would be injured by
the abolition of the corn laws, as those countries are much
favoured by the present laws.
All agricultural labourers would be injured, and conse-
quently the poor's rate will increase.
Factory labourers will have their wages lowered to meet
the new price of corn. The home consumption of manu-
factured articles will be lessened, and perhaps to a greater
degree than the expected increase of articles exported.
The abolition of the corn laws would cause corn to fluc-
tuate in value more than it does at present, which would
be a most serious evil. It would also be followed by the
poorer lands being thrown out of cultivation, and turned
into sheep walks. C. ARTHUR.