Year: 1876

If there is one thing more sickening
than another in the dismal catalogue of
the diseases of civilization, it is the fact
that in the greatest and most opulent
communities in Christendom it is pos
siblo for human beings absolutely to die
of starvation. In London, for example,
"death by starvation" is one of the per
manent recognized items of the regular
bills of mortality. Only the other day
return was presented to tho House OF
Commons of "the number of all deaths
in the metropolitan district in the year
1875 upon which q coronor's jury re-
turned verdict of death from starva-
tion or death accelerated by privation. 1"
The number of such deaths in the cen
trail division of Middlesex was seven in
the eastern division, thirty-two in the
western division, one; in the city of Lon
don and borough of Southwark, five,
and in the city and liberty of West
minister, one total, forty-six.


The population of the British metrop-
oils may be stated in round numbers at
three million and half of souls. 1t is
true that this huge human hive is de-
pendent upon external supplies for its
daily bread, getting its eggs and its
meat from France, its fish from the
North sea and the channel and it is
equally true that the larger q city be-
comes, the less likely are thosewho live
in it to tronble themselves about the
ways and the wants of their immediate
neighbors. Nevertheless it is and must
remain monstrous thing that in the
course of single year nearly fifty hu-
man beings can fall by the wayside and
perish in the midst of millions of their
fellow creatures precisely as they might
have perished of shipwreck upon a des-
olate island in the barren sea.


1t is not less monstrous thing that
within six weeks no fewer than seven
similar cases should have been reported
by the police of our own American me-
| tropolis as happening at our own doors.
Not month ago the wife and child of
an unhappy man were found dying of
famine in an old and shattered canal
boat, hauled up and deserted near Jer-
sey City, in which, as it appeared, they
had all been living huddled together du-
ring the winter, having taken refuge
there when they were turned out of
house and home by disappointed land
lord. And only the other day police
man who had casually been made ac-
quainted with the fact that there was
! something rather mysterious going on
in an upper chamber of q tenement
house in n crowded part of the city,
broke in the door of the chamber, and
found in it four children, all delirious
with hunger, and rapidly drifting into
the state of mania which precedes the
awful close of dramas like that of Ugo-
limo in the "Tower of Famine" In both
Of these cases, very likely, careful in
quest might have shown great faults and
shortcomings on the part of those who
were responsible for the well-being of
the sufferers. But, however this may
be, the naked fact remains and stares us
in the face, that it is possible for an in
nocent human being to wander unfed
and dying with famine through our
streets for day after day, or to creep into
some dismal hole or corner and there
miserably perish for lack of the most
ordinary comforts and necessities of life.
And this fact, we.repeat, is q sickening
and staggering fact which needs to be
looked manfully in the face, and to be
dealt with courageously. We leave to
others the cynical task of accounting foi
it. 1t is enough, and more than enough,
for us to establish it as a fact.-NeaC
York World.