Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1871-09-12
Daily Nenltrbrt gonrnaL
ABOUT THE CHOLERA.

1t is much better every way to face dis
agreeable facts, than to ignore them or
feign indifference to them. The hopes of
those sanguine physicians and lay officials
who looked to see the westward progress
of the cholera arrested at Konigsburg, have
proved illusory. The disease has broken
out in Hamburg. Hamburg is less than
fortnight's distance from New York.
Great numbers of steam and sailing YES
sells ply between the two ports. The COM
munication is close and constant Ham
burg sends us very large proportion of
the emigrants who land almost daily on
our shores, and these emigrants are, for
the most part, of class whose habits of
living predispose them to succumb to dis
ease. The plain truth is-and nothing is
to be gained by concealing or softening it
that the cholera in Hamburg is nearer us
than it would be in London, and that New
York city is in danger.
We wish we could say that it was pre-
pared to meet this danger; that, thanks to
the enlightened zeal of the authorities and
the hearty cooperation of the citizens, the
city had been put in such safe trim as to
be able to read the news from Europe with
perfect equanimity. But the concurrent
testimony of the New York papers, and
the confessions of the authorities them,
selves-the very perturbation and spas
modic show of energy which the news has
caused-forbids us to deceive ourselves.
So far from being prepared, New York, il
the cholera knocked at its door tomorrow
would be taken by surprise, and at ter
rible disadvantage. At the meeting of the
board of health. last week, the Inspector
of STRENGTHENING reported that in five
wards which he had lately visited he found
the garbage law the deadest of dead let
tiers. s'In Pell, Doyer, Bayard, Baxter,
Park, Rose, and other tenement house
streets, potato Feelings, melon rinds, de-
cayed fruits and vegetables, with kitchen
offal, were unceremoniously dumped INTO
the street, wherever there was a depres-
sion occasioned by the displacement of
the cobble stones into which water had
already accumulated from the recent rain -
In the principal markets the atmosphere
is so fetid that meats and vegetables when
exposed to it begin Immediately to decay.
"Such foods" say the sanitary committee,
''are unfit for use, and are fruitful, but I'M
suspected, causes of diarrhea and other
fatal diseases" The board OF health, at
this eleventh hour, has taken steps to rem
edy these evils, and the tenement houses
and slums are to be looked after and dis
infected with all possible dispatch 1t is
devoutly to be hoped that these precau-
tons do not come too late; that, in con-
junction with rigorous quarantine, they
may avert the danger which impends. But
they should have been taken good while
ago.
1t is, of course, possible that the chole-
raw.ll notmake its appearance in this coun
try this year. We hope it will not. But it will
10
the danger is great enough to give zeal
to our own city government in its search
after a new and better supply of wafer,
and to encourage it in its labors for the
perfection of our sewerage system and in
abating all public nuisances As for in
dividual citizens they must see the propri-
ETY. of taking unusual precautions in dress,
diet, and the matter of keeping their home
premises sweet and clean 1t is well
known that, as long as our water supply
is as poor as at present, and the water
offered us to drink and to use is SO full OF
impurities, it may be made wholesome by
first boiling and then filtering And if
any one is afraid of taking precautions
needlessly, that is, without there being
any real danger of the cholera, let MIN
lay to heart these words from recent
memorandum issued by the medical de-
partment of the English Privy council
office. 'The local conditions which would
enable cholera. if imported, to spread its
infection in this country are conditions
which, day by day, in the absence of chol-
era, create and spread other diseases-dis-
eases which, as being never absent from
the country, are in the long run, far more
destructive than cholera; and the sanitary
improvements which would justify sense
OF security against any apprehended i'm
portation of cholera would, to their ex-
tent, though cholera should never reap |
pear IN England, giev ample remunera-
tive results in the prevention of those 9TH
er diseases,-lS Springfield Republican.