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under the loathsome influence ; city / physicians and surgeons find the numbers of thear patients increased ; something only a few degrees removed from cholera makes its appearance , and the Board af Works deliberates upon the necessity of " doing something . " What they in their wisdom devise , is tip carry to the centre of the stream the double line of : tributaries whick accumulate , under the noses and mouths of three millions of people , the sewage and suppuration of the London basin . That is to say , instead of being voided upon the river beach , so as to crawl across a broad and oozy
surface in the light of the sun at low water , it is Sroposed to extend the arched outfalls so that their ischaige may at times be concealed . If we are professionally told that the evil will thus be diminished ; it is with gratitude we accept the suggestion 5 but , at the best , this will only be a partial mid tampering process . The Thames will still be our main drain—our huge receptacle of dead animals , decayed vegetables , ordure , putrescence , and all else that should be carried far from the habitations of men . It will still be a body of murky , cloudy , dense , and stinking liquid , with the
consistence of Warren ' s blacking , the smell of assafaetida , and tUe colour of the cuttlefish's s&cretions . With a hundred fountains , fed by the latrinaries , urinals , and other deleterious sources playing into its bed , it will remain the greatHague of London—a perpetual nuisance and pollution . Legislators in the hbrary of the Commons express themselves with profane emphasis when the gross vapour rises to their nostrils . Ticket collectors ^ ontlie piers threaten to throw iip their situations . Even old watermen make oatli and say that the Thames has become unbearable . No crocodile or hippopotamus , we are sure , would liye for an hour in these foul and hideous waters . Birds , we believe , seldom , fly across this Avernus except froia sheer necessity .
The swans keep far above the bridges . And the Lord Mayor has abolished the procession of state-barges on the 9 th of November . Moreover , vre can assure the steam-boat companies that the river traffic is seriously depressed by the noodous exhalations that sicken every passenger , and render omnibus tumult preferable to a passage through the Italian Jlell of Steadies . The summer , which blesses the laud , curses the water—at least in the London valley . The slimy putrefaction of the Thames simmers in the heatj and from every bubble breaks a discharge of insufferable miasma . Well , then , as we have said , the Board of Works intends to move ; but the City Commissioners of Sewers must be consulted , and these gentlemen haggle over expenditure . They sire asked to sanction two schemes—one for carrying to a distance below low- water mark the Loudon
Bridge sewer , and another for constructing similar works at Dowgate Dock . "Who is to bear the cost ? becomes the question , and a paltry argument is stated to this effect : Is the City to pay for the improvements , although other than citizens may benefit by them ? Is the City to pay the Lord Mayor ' s allowance , though country cousins may enjoy a sight of his scarlet , and think him a mighty man ? Is the City to poison itself , because other wise persons , net citizens , may be bettered in health P Tye can onlj say that , with our Boards of Health , our Sanitary Commissioners , our
Sewage Commissioners , and our . Board of Works , it is infamous that the Thames should continue to be an unwholesome ditch , overflowing with the original and patent elements of typhus . We will none of us have open , sewers under our houses , but we have : one of immense proportions intersecting * our capital city , and the revolting scum is deposited ia front of a double line of wliarfs and / buildings several miles in length , with scores of steamers / struggling ; against the heavy flux and reflux of filth , and with every tide leaving at its recession hillocks of that which Dr . Letheby calls " putrid squash "—the oozings of grave-- ~ w *«*«]^ lh «^ I ^^^ VavA ^ W # ^ 4- < fe « «**! % rf ^«* 1 * Evm W * A « v ^ n «« ^» tf ^ « % A > m « ^ A A . . A 1- _
_*^ \ iiiua , i > uu icliud ui uuucaii / iijf iiiauiuuuLUiea , wile lees and sediment of humanity—all that is nameless and polluting . The public is not extravagant in its demands . It does not ask that the river-sido , instead of being the ugliest and dirtiest in the world , shall be adorned With quays , and lighted with regular rows of lamips . It does not insist ujpou the granite walls that contain the clear flow of the Neva ; it does not care for an architectural perspective , traversed by bridges , like that of the Seine . But it understands , in spite of economical Boards and the squabbles of engineers , that the sewage of London migjht safely , easily , and profitably be carried away , purifying the river , and relieving the capital from the presence of an
interminable cesspool and an incessant pest . Until then , the Board of Works should be compelled to . deliberate , as emperors have done , upon a floating platform , and that platform moored between Blackwall and Putney .
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THE PRESS PROSECUTIONS . It is something almost incredible that the Government should persist in its prosecution of the two booksellers accused of publishing libels against the French Emperor . These indictments are what Mr . Bright called " the verminous rags" left by Lord Palmerston in Dovming-street . Why not be generous and politic , aud abandon them ? They taint the hands of the Minister . There is neither common sense nor common honesty in the whole proceeding . The prosecutions are dishonest , because they are occasional and partial ; and they are absurdi because they bring 1 the law into contempt , and
result in the establishment of no principle whatever . The doctrine of tyrannicide 3 and the theoretical assassins , who talk of daggers but use none , " may safely be left to the healthy action of public opinion . If not , the Courts at all events are not competent to abate the evil . They may punish Mr . Truelove and the noor Polish bookseller—if they can get an Engh ' sh jury to convict- —but after this show of deference to Louis Napoleon , the matter will stand where it did . Libellers will only become more ingenious , and persons who believe in the virtue of sudden pistol-shots will learn to keep the law at arm ' s
length without their meaning being less clear or less deadly . Let a publisher be imprisoned to-day for advocating the assassination of Louis Napoleon , andit would be perfectly safe for any one else to do the same to morrow . The only difference would be , that the argument must be necessarily more sedate and seductive . Therefore , the approaching trials will be mere burlesques of justice . But they are more . They revolt the feelings of every Englishman . Sir Wiliiam Peel said of the Conspiracy- ^ ill ; that , reason or no reason , it ought never to have been introduced . Prom that point of ^ iew , also , these press
prosecutions are disgraceful . We know what to understand by them . They are apologies to Trance . They are measures of " policy , " not of judgment . They are concessions to the French colonels and to M : Walewski . If a verdict could be obtained it would be telegraphed to Paris , and Lord Malmesbnry would rely , with additional confidence , upon the pacific tendencies and the moderation of his august and gracious friend . But , in this instance , the pretext is the most empty hypocrisy . We have all of us admired assassins , if not advocated the use of the dagger , at some period of our lives . Scaevola and Brutus have been our heroes . With Mr . Disraeli
we have blessed the hand " that dares to wij ! . d tne regicidal steel . " We have forgiven Pent ; i 2 and wished there had been Roman Ravaillaes to smite the Caesars of the Lower Empire . This is one among the inevitable fine frenzies of youth . If , however , a man is pleased to abide by the doctrine of the dagger , confute him , hold him up to ridicule , execrate his ideas , prove them monstrous and unnatural , but do not go to the Queen ' s Bench and ask the judge and jury to fine and imprison him . When he come 3 out—if he be the real
offenderhe will substitute Napoleon I . for Napoleon III ., and who shall then prevent him from invoking all the Pianoris and Orsinis , past , present , and to come ? The infamous prosecutions now pending assail , however , not the writers themselves , but their publishers , and while Mr . Truelove takes his trial , Mr . Adams , or any one else , is at perfect liberty to S * jh ( in print , price one penny ) for the swords of armodius and Aristogiton . We hope no jurymen will lend themselves to this miserable attempt upon the liberty of --unlicensed
printing . If they acquit Mr . Truelove and the implicated Pole , they will be " mute Miltons " indeed , but not inglorious , for they will assort the same princi p le as that in defence of which was composed one of the fiuest arguments in the language . They are not called upon to vindicate the classical propriety of the doctrine of assassination , but to deny the right of the Crown officers to establish a precedent of persecution against the press . Lot them remember that , in a well-ordered society , any publication , however objectionable , will die of its own discredit far easier Hum under
the strokes of a State persecution . When the public have no ears for ribaldry , ribaldry will have no tongue .
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SANITARY CONDITION OF THE ARMY . ¦ ¦ ¦ ' ¦ ¦ . _ ¦ . " . ¦ ¦ ; . yi . . . .: . v ' - ¦ ¦ Setting aside the humanity view of our soldier and his right to be included in the general progress of the community ; forgetting for a moment , as is unfortunately too much the actual case , all our eternal obligations on the score of Waterloo , Inkermann , Lucknow , and a host of victories only less celebrated , because the destiny that hung upon the issue was not so momentous ; and looking at the soldier simply as a fighting locomotive , he is a most valuable and costly machine . Every man is
calculated to cost a lmndrcd pounds , without a word about tlie outlay of bringing him into the field , and working him , which , as every one knows , is always a question of millions . So that to neglect him , to let him get out of order by bad housing or feeding or clothing , or to work him badly , and make a vain sacrifice of him by placing him in positions where injury and destruction are just as perfectly certain to fall upon him as they would he averted by ordinary foresight , is not only a lamentable folly , but a great failing in administrative skill . It is suffering the penny wise and pound foolish policy to bo applied in a most mischievous way , and in a manner unjust hoth to the public and the soldier .
It is not a grateful task to rake up old grievances , but the questions are practical , and not without future benefit , perhaps , of—How much of the 60 , 000 , 000 ^ . spent upon the late war is attributable to useless expenditure , not to say useless blunders r How many lives would have been saved if the sanitary measures at last adopted had been set to work at the outset of the campaign P . Mr . Sidney Herbert asks Colonel Tulloch , " Suppose the rate ot mortality could be reduced by proper sanitary precautions to the same amount as in civil life , would not that have a very considerable effect both on the expenses of recruiting- and on pensioning P There is no doubt of it . In every way that you reduce the mortality on foreign stations , you diminish tlio exnenses for rccruitinsr . and for overv man you s » ;
you gain 20 / . or 30 / . at least . " Dr . John Suthertono also says , " It has been demonstrated in civil lw that the expense of all sanitary ¦ strictural improvements is repaid over and over again even wit "" the short life of a man . Beyond all question it is the worst economy in tlie world to save money
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532 THE LEAPEB , ; [ m 430 , Jtjne 19 , 1858 .
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THE SZETTLEMIENT TVTTH NAPLES . The settlement with Naples is one which we must regard with moderate satisfaction . In the first place , the award . of fifteen hundred pounds sterling to each of the English engineers is a mitigated atonement to them for the outrages and iniuries they had endured . Imprisoned during the greater part of a 5 ear , subjected to loathsome maltreat ment , reduced to a bed of sickness , and half bereft of reason , will fifteen hundred pounds sterling compensate the more unfortunate of the two sufferers * and is it worthy of a State , admittedly in the wrong , to redeem itself by a concession of this character ? If China had been the offending power and if Mr . Watt and Mr . Parkes had been confined for ten . months in the dungeons of Canton a
waggon-load of Sycee silver would have been ' demanded . But Lord Malmes"bury has an aptitude for making small money bargains in vhidication of Oivis Ronucnus . We will not assert , however that he was bound to refuse the Neapolitan ' offer . There were circumstances which rendered it expedient , perhaps , to patch up the quarrel , so as to give no possible advantage to the abettors of certain schemes now in rapid action , the results of which will be known when they are kno-wn . However , the Government can claim no ¦ particular -triumph in-tlie case of the engineers . Still less in the case of the Cagliari . Sardinia recovers her steamer and crew , but what is to be her compensation or that of tlie officers and men ? What of the
maritime principles involved ? The difficulty has beea smothered , away by private arrangement between the Cabinets of London and Naples , with an ex pod facto-r-vaA it is now said partial—sanction from Turin ; and it may again be said that nothing was more desirable than that , considering the political liabilities of Italy , everything should he prevented that might strengthen the liands of the Muratist conspirators . What Lord Malmesbury has accomplished amounts , therefore , to this : he has successfully compromised the litigation between Great Britain and Sardinia' and Naples , and lias obtained the -consent of the parties concerned . But he has written a despatch which will certainly improve Ms reputation ..
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), June 19, 1858, page 592, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2247/page/16/
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