New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1861-04-08
at their old place where they can no more be
isolated than if they were on the Battery.

at their old place where they can no more be
isolated than if they were on the Battery. r.
This very plausible bill is entitled bill for
the sale of these Quarantine lands, but it
is careful to preserve portion" so much
90 as shall be necessary"-Of them for the
offices and residences Of the health officers,
"the physician of the Marine Hospital and
their necsssGry assistants, which "pah
"or portions ressrred," with the temporary
floating hospital, /" shall be subject TO all the
" laws and regulations which now govern the
Quarantine and Marine Hospital All this,
in plain English, is nothing more or less than the
establishment of Quarantine in the old place,
with an adjunct of a floating hospital in the
stream. And that the purpose may be perfectly
secured the last act for the removal of Quaran-
tine, passed in March, 1857, is repealed by this
act. Of course. then, the Quarantine is not y
be removed but reestabished.
And it is TO be reestablished, it viii be OBJ
served, by stratagem. If the present Legislature,
in spite of the many acts Of its predecessors, In
spite of the sanitary interests Of the million and
quarter Of people in and about this city, are
determined to put the Quarantine where the only
possible purpose il can serve is to exasperate
anew the immediate neighbOrhood in which it is
placed, then, at least let them have the courage
TO give fair warning of their intentions. Fair
warning that is, if the Legislature is conscious Of
what it is about, and is not itself inveiged into
q measure which it in reality approves as little
as it understands. For the character of the act
is by no means patent upon the face of it. Its
oste0sible Impose Is to sell the property at sta
pletOn on which the hospitals lately stood, but TO
do this it takes from the Commissioners OF Em-
grafton all control over those lands, and transfers It
to the Commissioners Of the Land-Ohice, excepting
only 80 much as these Commissioners shall set
apart, as sufficient in their judgment, " for offices
and residences Of the health officers, the physl'
" clan Of the Marine Hospital and their necessary
" assistants, and for o boarding station" This
seems not dangerous reserve, if the act con-
templated the erection of hospitals elsewhere;
it not only does not do this, but in its eleventh
section it CONSTITUTES and declares as We have
said, the temporary floating hospital" az the
marine hospital. Perhaps some curious legislator
who thinks it worth while to get at the meaning
of the measures he is called upon to make into
laws, may inquire how a temporary" hospital
is to answer the quarantine necessities of this
great port. If he insists upon an answer, and
csn be trusted, it will be pointed out to him
tint provision made presently, whereby 90 the
pats or portions reserved as in section
L" two"--tsat j. y Ia say the officers and assis-
tants attached 90 residences of health officers and
physicans-are subject 10 all Quarantine claws
and regulations, is provision enough for the re-
establishment Of the hospitals on the Island The
amendments to the bill, offered by the member
from Richmond County, would, therefore, simply
make il inconsistent with itself and absurd.
should they XIII il altogether, il would meet with
lss deserts.
To suppose that it is proposed TO put through
n little job OF this sort without some Interior
purpose, is TO do great injustice to that third
house at Albany which originates oil bills for
private enrichment by public plundering. How
many nice little things may be hidden under this
measure we cannot pretend 10 say, but there is
one whose protruding plumpness no ingenuity
could cover. Connected with the Quarantine is
the Office of Physician to the Marine Hospital,
worth the comfortable little sum of $4,000
year, and possible perquisites For two or three
years past il has been a mere sinecure, its sole
duty being tue onerous one of receiving every
month, and receipting therefor, the twelfth part
of $1,000. Accordingly. the Governor recon-
mended in his Message that Il be abolished, and
that was its probable fate, unless saved by some
timely Lobby ibterposition. The present bill does
this in way none the less efficient because it
is quiet and apparently unassuming 1t simply
recognizes the existence of the office, provides
for the incumbent residence, Offices and as
sistants, and having given him thus heritage
may provide for him in perpetuity. In any event
it continues for another year an Office the aboli-
ton of which the Governor has recommended.
Were the objections to the bill less palpable and
positive than they are, it would be enough to ex-
cite wel-founded suspicion of its character, that
it thus enlarges the purposes of q Quarantine and
makes it retreat for the indolent as well as an
asylum for the sick.
LONG LOCKS.