New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1857-04-15


memorable fever are imminent; that many OF the
ports with which we trade are struggling with
both; that if we would be- safe We must have a
more rigid quarantine, and, if we would be- Sc
cure, an approximation 10 Cleanliness that these
are all essential. whatever may be the theories
of the medical schools about miasms, or
whatever may be the sporadcal or epdeInical
theories Of the doctors-why, having said and done
this, We think that our Eastern friend would have
made out pretty good case against US. The latter
part Of his admontion might not. indeed, be neces-
sary. In Justice il must be- admitted that We are
not at all ignorant of the impending danger. On
the other hand the newspapers and the legislative
pratte and the tea-table talk show that we are
fully alive 10 it, while the faulty of sanatlye
measures demonstrates that we are most calmly
frghtenedsnd most philosophcally alarmed. We
mean " to run for luck'-to put our faith in the
tender merces of Yellow Jack and our trust in
the magnanimity Of the Cholera. This is precisely
the way Of the Moslem. He knows very well that
if smoking shell should explode in the vicinity OF
his person, he would probably become at once no
person at ALL and the contemplation of this event
does not, We may presume fill his soul with salts
faction But if be is to be dsintegrated, why, such
is the will of Allah, and that is the end of the mat
ter and Of HIMSELF and so he waits for the fusee
TO 90 out or for the bomb to go of.
Probably no people were ever more thoroughly
frightened than were the people Of Brooklyn during
the yellow fever panic Of last year There are nu-
merous indications that the emotion and the APP
prehenson have not yet subsidized. In some locali-
ties families are afraid to remain, and are moving
TO New.YOrk which seems to us to be simply
shift from the frying-pan to the fire. Those who
have determined to remain are peering anxiousy
toward Albany, and fondy hoping for the removal
of the Quarantine station. Nobody seems TO re-
member that there may BE- pestilent houses as well
as pestilent ships And yet, if any one will take
the trouble to cross the lower ferry and to walk IN
a sOutherly direction up Columbia street, he VIII
soon come To nursery Of fever and to a manutac-
tory of cholera of the most portentous proportions
to collection of low, squalid, begrmed and
ruinous shanties, which are, in our opinion, just
as dangerous to the public health as ships from
Rio. Para or New Orleans. He will find strag-
Cling. tumble down Irish htown," built upon each
side of q swampy, miry and uneven lane. tie VIII
find hundreds Of human beings quartered IN tene'
ments which no humane farmer would think mt for
his swine He will find before every door dung
hill at every step o stagnant pool at every other
door whisky.sbop, and at short intervals the
agreeable variation of a slaughter-hOuse Should
he enter one of these novels he will find, III the SIN
ole room in which the bipeds are burrowng, the
hogs and the hens the goats and the calves of the
establishment He will find the men stupid, the
women ragged and the children dirty. In short,
no plague, whether febrile, spasmodic or cutane-
Gus, could desire prettier place III which
&C recruit its tagging energies Here cop'
centrated within the space Of few Acres,
soak and stagnate and steam the dOubledlstilled
essences Of twenty fatal diseases Here they await
the kindly aid of an August sun and a September
south wind, by which they will BE- transformed INTO
miasm and transferred to more aristOcratlc local
ities-an Angel of Death which will no more care
for brown-stone fronts and plate glass, than for the
looped and Widowed raggedness of the shed from
which il started. The squatter settlement which
We have described is not by any means the only one
If the same kind in Brooklyn; nor is there any lack
Of those Ike il in New-York. And yet We nowhere
hear any official person proposing, in either city,
Il hearty and muscular endeayor to eradicate these
ulcers. Nobody seems to think it possible to dis
ledge these poor wrrtchcs-the involuntary enemies
of socety-to clean them, to clothe them, to com
fortably house them. Some of Ms shrug shout
ders at the hopcessness of the enterprise, and
some of us are of stomachs too nice for such an
uppleasant business Well: if We shrink from the
performance of duty, must pay the penalty, and
learn at last-when all our household gods are
crushed and broken, when dear ones have departed
and the light of our lives has gone out-that he is
mailman and fool who hopes to divorce himself
from social relations or to diyest himself Of
cia responsibilities.
We believe that the pestence has been very |
much slandered There is nothing treacherOus in
its nature and il always gives fair warning Of its
approach. How many years was cholera in reach |
inc us from the East! How it lowered reluctant |
ly upon the outskirts of European civilization and
called upon men, BY cleanliness and by temperance,
10 guard against it 1t paused in Paris it hesated
in London il gave New-York timely notice of the |
VOYAGE which il was considering. But we waited |
complacently and were perfectly sure that il would
never cross the Atlantic Nathless it came, and az
it staked in our highways and byways, and struck
with equal foot at the cellar and the palace, yc |
gods what cleansing and scraping and white |
washing, and general publication Potter's Field |
and the other cemeteries tell how much too late |
was this spasmodic energy. We took our chastlse-
ment; but did We profit BY it The answer, by no
means an affirmative one, may be seen and smelt |
in almost any part of NewYork. Whether or |
80, go o.n hv any suHarnO h., srouroed into civ