The Sun. — 1849-08-29 (London, England)

PASKEWITCH. Those are the facts as far as they have yet transpired, and upon them history will ultimately pronounce her irrevocable judgment. We pray GOD that no testimonies of treason so black and horrible as those which are surmised may be brought home to the youthful hero, the originator of this capitulation. For we remember that while GEORGEY has laid down his arms at the footstool of the AUTOCRAT, BEM has remained faithful to the cause for which he has a hundred times jeopardized his existence. And BEM is a Pole, and GEORGEY is a Hungarian ! Our whole soul revolts so utterly from the mere supposition of such stupendous treason, that while we bow to the conviction that such a heart as that of NELSON would have broken rather than yield when at the head of 40,000 fighting men, we shall shut our eyes to suspicion, and honour GEORGET the Brave, until proofs of his guilt arise such as are altogether incontrovertible. Until indisputable facts shall demonstrate to the contrary, we shall regard Hungary as the victim of misforune rather than the holocaust of treachery.  A number of individual deaths by violent means is just now, very naturally, occupying general attention and exciting general horror ; and at the same time the Peace Society is endeavouring to preserve life by putting an end to the system of war. Simultaneously with the existence of these various feelings, having for their object the preservation of human life, an enemy more destructive than murder and more implacable than war is daily sweeping away tens and hundreds of our countrymen. Much has been said about the cholera ; we are aware it has excited in some instances unnecessary apprehension, and is many exaggerated alarm ; still, whatever may have been said, not sufficient has been done to impede the progress of the pestilence and to prevent its future recurrence. A murder is committed, and immediately every circumstance connected with it is investigated end the, primo agent subjected to a tellible punishment, chiefly as a preventive against similar calamities. Many of the deaths which appearin the bills of mortality as cholera are, in fact, legalised murders, which in all human probability might have been prevented by ordinary precautions. Not only, however, were such precautions omitted in past cases, but there seems little hope of improvement for the future. A striking instance of this criminal neglect is furnished by the recent deaths in the Wandsworth-road. At the inquest held on the Rev. Mr. HARRISON, one of the late inhabitants of that locality, whose house had been fearfully visited by the pestilence, the jury returned as their verdict— " That the deceased died of Asiatic cholera, and that the disease broke out only in one place where the drain. age,was very defective; also that a large quantity of filth was allowed to accumulate at one or more of the houses; also that the tanks and the water in them were impure from their close proximity to the cesspools; and the jury c uld not separate without expressing a hope that the owners of the property would take immediate and effective means, by improved drainage and a different supply of water, ao prevent for the future, as far as human means can go, the recurrence of so terrible a calamity."  Samples of the water found in the tanks of these houses were produced at the inquest. It was said that in some of the tanks there was a sediment seven or eight inches deep, and the assistant-surveyor of the Commissioners of Sewers said he considered that, from some overflowing of the sewer or from bad drainage, the soil had got into the well from which the houses were supplied. Thus, the unfortunate victims of the so-called pestilence have been literally drinking poison! In this case culpable neglect is very obvious, and without doubt in innumerable other instances similarly faulty, although, perhaps, not similarly apparent negligence, has been productive of equally murderous consequences. Public prayers are put up in the churches for the abatement of the pestilence, but it is mockery to raise the hands in supplication while instead of doing our best to rid ourselves of the evil we encourage it and cherish it by our apathy and our negligence. Another fertile source of poison, another legalised system of murder, to which we have again ' and again alluded in terms of the strongest reprehension—namely, the system of intramural burial, whereby death and the seeds of death, in their foulest and most infectious form, are treasured up in the midst;of the living—has been again brought before public notice by a letter from the eminent publisher, Mr. CnARLEs