Year: 1866

ment that a vessel has arrived off Halifax
with large number of cases of cholera
on board, is an admonition of duty to
prepare for the inevitable presence of that
scourge In the great cities of the country.
For many months, it has been steadily APP
preaching, on a route fixed and certain as If
| defined by engineers surveys. Scientific
| men-familiar with the history of previous
vlsitations-have watched its progress, and
have been able to tell, with great precision,
when and where it would next appear. 1t
has been long known that our own country
lay directly in the path of its circuit of the
globe.


By what gate the epidemic will find admis-
sion, it is not easy to tell. Heretofore, its
entry has been through the Northern ports,
by the way of Canada and the river St. Law
renee. The appearance of the Atlanta in New
York harbor last Fall, with many cases on
board, induced the impression that the metre
polls was likely to be first attacked in this
visitation. But the disease did not spread
beyond the fatal hull of that ship. Its pre-
sence in the bay was accidental and fortui-
tous. Scientists still assert that it will be-
gin to ravage the British provinces first.


1t is well to look our danger in the face
The calm and philosophical appreciation of
grave hazard, is the surest guarantee of free
dom from panic when it shall come fully
upon US. Our authorities, and the people at





the ghastly and unwelcome visitant. Science
and research exhibit to US the methods by
which its devastations may be measurably
averted. Cholera thrives in filth, and holds
high carnival among the votaries Of vice and
dissi patton. Its first and almost its only VIC
TINS will be those who blindly and criminally
neglect those plain hygienic precautions
which are always the conditions of good
health. 1t will turn away instinctively where
L.,
been engaged in the work of publication
and deodoriZatiOn. 1t will crawl stealthily
into the close alleys and miasmatic lanes; re-
Yelling in the charnel-houses of slime and
pollution ; writhing through the dark, dank
atmosphere of crowded and ill-ventilated
apartments enfolding in its awful and fatal
embrace the neglected bodies the children
of poverty and inheritors of misery, and null
tirlving with ten-fold horrors, the wretch
edness of pauperism.


Society owes duty to itself and to those
who are its least respected members, in such
an emergency now seems to impend before
us. Dirt and degradation are antagonistlc to
divine lazy, and to moral good. The in juno
tion to cleanliness comes with awful force
and solemnity when it is enunciated from the
mouth ofan open grave. The sanitary ordi-
nances of every city should be vigorously and
unsparingly enforced. If long habitude in
misbehavior has made some indifferent to the
possible consequences, they must be forced to
act by the prompt interference of those who
are entrusted with the power of municipal adj
ministration. Let the cutters be cleansed,
the sewers opened, the heaps of garbage re-
moved from the streets, first. Then let every
house be subjected to rigid inspection,
and the inmates compelled to purify in every
case where the conditions of pestilence are
found to exist


+lo of t1,o
most favorable to the spread of those diseases
which have their origin in local impurities.
All the accumulated garbage Of the winter
slying upon the streets. As the frost breaks
out of the ground, and the hot beams OF the
April sun come streaming down, heaps OF
offal that have been frozen for months, are
converted into masses of putrefaction, giving
forth malarious vapors to talnt the atmos-
phere. Hence the great Importance ofenergy
and fidelity in the discharge of duty on the
part of our Health Commissioners and Street
inspectors, who will find in every direction
abundant need for their services.


We observe that at the meeting of our
Common Council last evening, cOmmunica
ton was presented from number of physl-
clans, asking special action for the ventila-
ton of the wards at the Alms-House in view
of the approaching epidemic. This is a
significant hint in a particular direction
of precautions which should De maze gen
eral


There is no occasion for panic. Expert
ence teaches that dreadful as are the ravages
of cholera, it is almost always preventa5e
when right measures are taken to guard
against its effects 1t would be criminal to
ignore the danger, or to neglect adequate pre-
parations against it. But when proper adj
vantage has been taken of those safeguards
which science has provided, we can calmly
await the attack of the scourge, convinced
that they will fall lightly upon US. Beyond all
things else, unnecessary alarm is to be avoid
ed. In seasons of pestilence, panic always
slavs more victims than destroyed by
positive disease.-MGj. General Jones'.