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be decent to describe ; the drainage overflowing into the parlours , the close courtyards overlaid with filth of every description and the walls reeking ; with damp . If we travel eastward to Hackney , we find low streets built "back to back so as to shut out the possibility of ventilation . Here scarlet fever , typhus , and small-pox reign supreme , and in 1839 and 1849 found numbers of ready victims . In the far-fumed Lamb '
s-fieldsthe St . Giles of Bethnal-green—men , women , and children , are crowded together in rooms where they pass their days at the looms , and sleep , for the most part , without chimneys or other means of ventilation by which ' to carry off the breath-poison and the aerial impurities of undrained or badly-drained soil . As a striking proof of the unmistakable manner in which life is shortened and disease multiplied toy'these causes , it is only necessary to turn to the district of Paddiiigton , and especially
to that part of it bordering on the canal . This canal is a real Avernus , a stagnant and fetid pool containing a large quantity of animal and other organic impurities , and from its surface every breeze carries noxious emanations . Taking an area of two hundred yards on either side of this black river , and comparing the average of deaths taking place there with the average for the rest of the parish ,. we observe that in every hundred houses situated within this distance of the
canal there occurred ,, during the six summer months of last year , at least four times as many deaths among children ander five years old as in the same number of houses in the rest of the parish . It is advisable to take the death-rate of young children as a gauge , since it gives n fair index ofthe healthiness of a locality , the body at the early periods oi life being incapable of resisting those morbific influences which are comparatively harmless when acting on the adult .
The largest amount of deaths in any metropolitan district have taken place , strange to say , in the Strand district From very extensive observations , it has been ascertained that the number of persons who die annually in a healthy locality is 170 in 10 , 000 ; and taking London at large , the proportion is 218 in every 10 , 000 ; but in the Strand district the proportion is 23-4 , or 16 more than in any other metropolitan district , and 72 more than in a
Of course such a surplus of disease and death becomes a costly article in the expenditure of a parish which has to provide medicines for the sick and burials for the dead . If we turn to other districts we shall find that in one year alone the presence of a fever epU demic created an increase of outlay on the part of the parishes of Bethnal-gr-een and Whitechapel of 2467 Z . 16 s . ; whilst the cost of the cholera in the Belgrave snb-dlstrict of Sfc . George ' s , Hanover-square , amounted to
1500 Z . in six months , being at the rate of 3000 Z . per annum . In a financial point of view , then , to root out these festering spots and prevent the generation of spreading disease is better than waiting to cure th-eni . If , however , we regard the question from another point of view , and consider what the death of each man costs the community at large , we shall be forcibl y struck with the prudence of preserving life as far as it is possible by
sanitary regulations . In working out this calculation we are materially aided by the IReports . The deaths in the parish of St . James ' s , Westminster , were 108 less last year than the average for the ten years previous . Sinking a higher view of the question , it must be acknowledged that life , as the Report observes , has a money value , every man contributing to the community more than he consumes . Basiner our calculation on the annual income
of the couutrj" -, it will appear that the 108 lives thus saved bear the nominal value of 10 , 0002 . On the contrary , had this number died , there would not only have been so much creative power lost to the nation , there would have been the additional charge for the attendance of medical men , nurses , and others , upon the sick ; besides which , in many instances , Elie dfe ' ceased leaves -behind a widow and orphans to be supported from the parochial treasury . Where one perso > n dies it
is estimated that ten are taken ill and survive ; but if the cause of the death of one individual l ) e removed , the probability is that the sickness of nine will be prevented . Following up the calculation already begun , we may allude to the ravages of the cholera in 1854 , which decimated a limited district in Westminster . In that year the bills of mortality for this district were increased from
the average of 750 to 1200 ., thus laying upon the parish a considerable part of the cost of 4 * 50 persons . If , therefore , we take into the estimate the value of these four hundred and fifty lives , the cost of funerals , and attendance on the dying as well as on the sick who recover , and also the loss arising from the flight of those lodging in the cholera district , we should have a sum little below 100 , 0002 . We reserve a statement which will show what progress , in London sanitary reform , has been effected .
healthy locality . What , then , is the cause of this high mortality ? In respect oi drainage , ib is asserted that this district is second to none in Londou ; it is remarkably dry , has a mean elevation of fifty feet above Trinity high water mark , and lies on a gravelly soil . Analyzing the subject a little farther , we arrive at the true cause , and a fearful picture it presents . There are three sub-districts—St . An ne ' a , Solio , St . Mary-le-Strand , and St . Clement ' s Banes .
Out of every 10 , 000 of the population there die annually—in the first district 207 ; in the second , 221 ; and in the third , the enormous proportion of 270 , that is , 58 moro than in the same number of persons in the whole metropolis . It is to young children that this district is so destructive , 488 of the deaths out of the 1050 which occurred there in 1856 , or 46 percent ., being tliose of children . Yet this excessive mortality is not attributable
to the undue . proportion of children ; instead of there being more there are actuall y fewer in this than in other districts , tho number being 125 less in every 10 , 000 inhabitants . Dor every 81 i deaths , then , occurring at this period of life—that is , np to iivo years—in -London , 0 (> occur in the iSfcramd district , and no lower than 113 in tho St . Clement ' s Danos sub-district , being an excess of 20 per 10 , 000 over tho whole metropolis .
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the puffin g ; plague . There to ill be pullers , and no one can help it . Wo do not expect that a crusade by all the respectable critics in England will pub an end to the practice of advertising luigc masses of manufactured praise to promote the saloot worthless books . But one thing may be done . The public may bo warned against the fallacy of believing in laudatory paragraphs to which tho namca of no critical Journals uru appended . They nro invariably unmeaning , and of no more authority than a tailor's rhyme or a bladciug-makoVs illumination . What is it to any sensible person tliufc a speculator in books advertises a novelist aa ' bo great a
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hustling mass around those royal persons , and made themselves supremely ridiculous . Ib has been hinted that our countrymen reached , on this occasion , the climax of absurdity . In justice , however , to the Evangelicals at Potsdam we cannot say that . "We saw at Boulogne , upon the occasion of the Queen ' s visit , a kuofc of Englishmen humiliate themselves by dropping on their knees and joining a sort of degraded Coryphean group on the deck of a steamer as they
passed the spot where Louis Napoleon sat on horseback . That must remain for ever , to us , the morning-star of memory with respect to the flunlcej'ism of the English abroad . At Potsdam , however , the affair was laughable enough , and inclines us to hope that a few Prussian gentlemen will come to London next season and learn that the foolery enacted at Potsdam was not representative of English
good-breeding m general . At all events , Chevalier Bujstsen" knows better , and may enlighten the wondering majesty of Prussia . The German delegates were solemn , and preserved their dignity . The Americans were quiet , and saluted the king with perfect propriety . The French seem to have experimented in courtly arts . Only the English made a mob and a nuisance of themselves .
Among them , of course , there were exceptions . We cannot suppose that iSir Culling- Eajrd-IjEX was anything but a most calm , proper , modest Evangelical . Sir Cui / Lura and the King standing on the same carpet might , in fact , have been mistaken for brothers . Not that they are of the same height , size , outline , or complexioujbut that Fbjederick William , had he been an English squire , would have been Sir Culling Eab . 3 > l"ey , and that Sir Culling , had he been a German monarch , would have been FitEDEitrcK William . The proposed object of the Cojigz'ess" was to stimulate Protestantism . Its real result
was a report upon the condition , of Protestantism . From France the report was bad . From Turkey , good . Jrom Sardinia , encouraging . From Lombardo-Venetia-the worst of all . From Spain , scarcely better than from Lombardo-Venetia . From America and England , triumphant , but perhaps oue-sided . We cannot say that much of special importance was elicited . The speeches , in general , were wordy and unsubstantial . Perhaps , however , there "was a sound reason for this . The Congress -was but half sincere
—the King of Puussia . not half . He is a Protestant himself , but lie is an ally of the enemies of all liberty , religious and civil . He is a part of the system which oppresses the human mind . With , his bayonets , lria artillery , jjud his fortifications , he is a partner with ltussia , Austria , and France , in the work of holding Europe in bondage , so that we augur little good for the ' truth that makes us free , ' when nine hundred gentlemen assemble at Potsdam , after an Evangelical Conference , to preaont their- compliments to the > King of Prussia .
EVANGELICAL CONGRESS AT BERLIN . The Austrian journals appear to regard the Evangelical Congress at Berlin , at which the ICing and Queen of Prussia ' assisted , ' as an act of Protestant aggression . It is certainly a proof that there is such a principle as Protestantism at work on the Continent : but we should like to know tho private opinion of the O . hevalier Bunskn as to the probable results of the Evangelical assemblage . It
seems to have been converted into an opportunity for a good deal of personal glorification , as well aa for a display of scarlet plusU personified . That is to say , the English delegates made the usual English exhibition of folly , and were , ut Potsdam , as a . matter ol course , tho worst-behaved of the party . Instead of keeping in their places , aa the Germans and Americans did , they broke tho order of tho reception , rushed towards tho King , frightened tho Queen , buzzed in a
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No . 391 , September 19 , 1857 . ] THE LEADER . 905
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 19, 1857, page 905, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2210/page/17/
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