Baltimore daily commercial. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1865-1867, 1866-04-20
SANITARY MEASURES NECESSARY.

As it is evident that the cholera is gradually
getting closer to us, there should be nothing
omitted to put the city in as cleanly con-
dition as possible Highly favored as we are
in Baltimore above most cities, in our rolling
surface, our wide streets, and our surface
drainage, comparatively little IS needed to
make everything as safe as possible; but still,
glance up many Of the alleys and narrow
streets shows much neglect, much need of at
tention. and whilst the cheated term is yet
remote, everything possible should be done to
prevent contagion getting foothold amongst
us.
Let it be noted, that our city has none of
the narrow streets and six or seven soried
buildings of the old world; places where from
one year to another the sunlight scarcely
reaches; the fitting places, in the damp and
mildew, for contagion to Turk Considering
that the cities abroad were built centuries ago,
and that in the rude condition of society then,
its feuds and forays, the very agriculturists
had to seek the shelter of their walls, economy
of space was then the great object, so that one
of our American cities, with twenty thousand
times than some European cities of one hun
dred thousand. Many of those have proved
to be the old lurking places of the ''plague'
almost from time immemorial; and whilst the
houses tower up-as we have said-six or
seven stories high, there will not be room for
a carriage to pass; and what wonder is it,
therefore, when poverty is cooped up in such
cells, that sickness seizes upon these places as
its most favored resorts is it not a marvel,
rather. that they are euer free from destructive
contagon?
Baltimore is greatly fortunate in another
respect 1t has none of those vast barracks
in which to crowd the poor-called tenement
houses" as is the case particularly in New
York. Built as these are in the cheapest and
poorest manner, as mere investments for I'M
scrupulous capitalists, the poor are crowded
into them, to generate disease, to suffer and
to perish. The New York papers have been
trimming over-some of them--of late, with
the revolving details of suffering and disease
witnessed in such places, disability from
which happily Baltimore is free
With us here, in the vast majority of cases,
the tenant has his own little domicil, with its
yard all to himself; and although it may be
small, of couple of stories probably, with a
ten feet front, it is not shut out from the pass
ing breeze and the blue sky, and his chances
are thousand fold better for health than the
resident of the old city of the middle ages
abroad, or the packed hundreds in single
barrack in the great commercial metropolis of
this continent.
Now we say that with these manifest advan-
tages as Il city, to begin with, it is compare
lively an easy thing to put Baltimore in first
rate condition for the possible coming encoun-
ter with disease. With nicely paved streets
which can be swept as clean as can be desired,
and with our people no longer-as in years
past-stinted for water, the WORKS being capa
BILE now of sending it in any quantity needed
to the highest locations, what is to hinder us
fairly warned-from making it one of the best
places anywhere to abide what may come:
and who, if the authorities will but do their
duty, need indulge any undue fears of what
may happen?
In what we have advanced, we do not pro-
pooS w SASelIC Vic ledSI alarm, because after
all, the dreaded inaiction may not reach US :;
or-with its characteristics now we'll under
stood-f 1t does, the remedies easily had.
should disarm it Of the greater portion of ITS
terrors. The thing to do is to be prepared for
1t; and that preparation-with its well under
stood atfinities-is to remove all filth; all
provocations to the disease. And if the ex-
pense of preparing for it should prove to be a
few more thousands than taxpayers like to
reckon, yet the investment will better nav than
aught else, in contributing cheerfully to our
own safety, in the establishing of our char
acter as city for health, and in the proven
ton of any serious interruption to business.
Let pestilence begin to have sway, and no one
needs to be told how effective is the scare it
conveys at once to the rural districts, when
dire stories increase in volume as they travel :;
to the prevention of almost all intercourse.
Let the authorities and all concerned then,
take these matters into grave consideration
because it will perhaps be too late, let but a
little time elapse.