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September 24, 1853.] THE LEADER, 925
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ORGANIZATI ONS AGAINST THE CHOLERA. TffE...
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RATIONALE OP INN CHEAPNESS. " You Englis...
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
September 24, 1853.] The Leader, 925
September 24 , 1853 . ] THE LEADER , 925
Organizati Ons Against The Cholera. Tffe...
ORGANIZATI ONS AGAINST THE CHOLERA . TffE cholera lias found us unprepared . Were this the first time that the cholera came to England , there would be an excuse for the absence of all obstacles to its operations . But this is not the first time . It has visited us again and again . Tlie memory of its doings , on the last , occasion , js fresh and sore in the minds of many persons , and it seems but a year ago since Ed \ nn Ghadwiekj and Southwood Smith were pointing out to us what should be done , that we might avoid
jts dangers and avert its fatality . But , m m any places , nothing has been done to ward off its deadly blows . The new visit has necessitated new exhortations , the sameness of which would wearv us , but that we know that they are really essential . In the narrow streets of London filth is still the prevailing presence ; noxious heaps of dirt are still to be found , by smell and sight , in places where men spend often twelve , and sometimes sixteen , out of the twenty-four hours .
Want of air is still the stifling fact , in thousands of lodging-houses , where poor people pass a great deal of their time . Factories , which send out poisons for home consumption , still rear their chimnies in the midst of seething crowds . And the commonest conveniences of healthy habitation are absent from houses , occupied even by people who are above the lower classes , in station and comparative independence . This description applies to London and to many towns of England , especially the great trading and commercial cities of the North . Newcastle is first in filth , and has
won the disgrace of being the first in which the cholera has appeared . Liverpool has holes and corners where disease is industriously encouraged . South Shields has suffered for its own sins and for its nearness to Newcastle . The low lanes of Manchester will soon tell their own deadly tale ; already one death , very sudden , has occurred . Still the great power of doing nothing is strong in local bodies . This very week the vestry of St . Mary ' s , Newington , in this metropolis , bad a long and loud debate as to the virtues of public baths , and finally adjourned , without a
decision . The local boards m Deptford have to be roundly reminded of their duties , by the dockyard officials , who point to many a etreet where cholera may properly lodge . In Sheerness there is the same story . In other places we hear of great activity , and we do not doubt that personal fear has hurried many into proper precautions . But , upon all the acts of local officialism we see the stamp of precipitation and confusion . Their machinery is the mushroom growth of fear .
The actual danger staring them in the face has alone roused their attention . And the great fact still remains , we are unprepared for the cholera . We knew that it might come : we knew tlvat the dwellers in dirty places were almost sure to be attacked : we knew that even good diet and ventilated houses could not keep it out , when once aided by the treacherous ally within our walls : we knew that daily in our streets persons spreading the seeds of cholera would come near and almost come in contact with the wealthiest and
most cautious ; yet , as a people , we are still unprepared . It is a national disgrace , more shamoi ' ul to us , as a civilized community , than if a foreign army landed on our coasts , and killed thousands before our troops moved . The popular knowledge of tho character of cholera , and tho means to meet it , fully justify this rclmlce . The real facts of the case maJce the necessity of prevention and oarly action still more imperative . Tho surgeon may try to find out the diet of the family ; tho minutioo almost bafllo his
inquiry ; but in tho public markets the character , wholesome or unwholesome , of the food of a district could be ascertained by an investigation more easil y than the after inspection of the dinners of a "ingle family . Inspectors find houses rank with foul air ; two yours before when these , houses were boing built , without yard or water-closet , any person could have prophesied that they would be homoly hospitals for the needy families confined ia thorn . An offonsivo drain is detected by doctor
! ; any engineer could liavo said from tho h ' rst that the drain would not work well , and would end in doing harm . A whole district is made unhealthy by the fnmos of a factory , but that its fames would bo noxious every chemist in town could have told tho people and the authorities before a stone of the building was laid . Some special facts communicated to us by a friend Hioro strikingly show tho early stage tit which ovil ia ( jonoratod . In a fashionable outlet of
Xondon new houses , stately in pillars and gay in white exteriors , have been reared very rapidly of late . Our friend knows the neighbourhood very well . Before the new houses were planned he knew one field adjoining the public road ; it was a repository , for rubbish , decaying animal matter , nightsoil , and refuse of all kinds . It was a place that no person could pass without being sensible of the abomination . On that ground , the offensive mass surface hardened into passable solidity , the foundations of family mansions and comfortable dwelling houses were carefully laid ,
and built up with due regard to proper solidity , airiness , and convenience . Our friend is a medical man ; a family of his acquaintance took one of the houses ; he has not been out of it for three weeks together during the last six months , the term of their occupancy . One after another , three of the family have been taken ill . The cause is clear ; the matter beneath the house might , if hermetically sealed up , be innoxious , it might "keep ; " but when rain and air creep into it , little by little , through chinks and crannies , when a simmering ferment is thus occasionally aroused , —through every crevice of the floor an invisible
evil steals up , and slowly poisons the people of the house . But they cannot understand it ; they say that there is no bad smell , that the house is kept quite clean , and the housemaid , closely questioned , admits nothing , but that every morning when she comes down stairs , she feels forced to open all the windows , so heavy is the atmosphere in the lower rooms . Another house in this locality was built on a bank of earth specially raised for the foundation : in levelling the earth some of the labourers found human bones—the earth had come from a city graveyard . The story of the inmates of this house is unknown to us—it
may be guessed . These things are not alone ; there is scarcely a part of London but has haunted houses—dwellings where death is a permanent lodger . In Berners-street , Oxford-street , there is a row of houses which for years has been successively fatal to a large proportion of the inmates . They are built over one of the old plague graveyards . In all these cases we see causes at work , primal causes which precede architecture , and which defy the most minute inspection of inspectors coming when the fatality occurs . These agents of the cholera are accessories before the fact .
And yet none of our organizations , municipal or Governmental , provide for-the prevention of such gigantic causes of disease . We read the reports of the Registrar-General , and we find accurate and clear accounts of the sanitary condition of the houses where death has occurred ; but no notice of the many houses in their district where death is likely to occur through bad conditions of habitation , and dangerous nearness of nuisance . This is not the fault of the local registrarsgenerally most painstaking persons , —for they are appointed to register deaths , not to prevent
them . But we see no other adequate organization for the removal of nuisances . The duties are divided among many persons ; and in some of the most important places what is divided among many is performed by none . In llosemary-lano , and many other localities of the city wards , the public dust-bins have been left uncleared up to this very week of actual cholera in tho town . This is but one instance out of many . Every one can toll a nuisance whon ho sees or smells it . But who can tell us , in a , few short words , what is to be done
towards a remedy ? There is no short or simple action of forcible ejectment , and no prompt means of punishing the offenders against public health . There in no law or police to stop tho building of bad houses . There is no local agency to detect peoplo in laying the foundations of accidents . A man may tako measures for undermining a house , and unless ho sends for a surveyor to witness his oflenco ho may tro oh unhindered until tho house falls . ( Guy
. b ' nwkes would delight in thrso days : it would suit him exactly had tho officers waited until ho gave them notice , or until a summons could bo issued againrtt him . ) An engineer may sink ii noisome drain undur the very nose of tho public ; but until tho drain has done somo deadly work , no one stops him . Tho ono character attaches to the conduct of all our authorities ; they arc inactive at first , and very energetic when " as n general rule , it ifl too late . It is also very painful to note , that aomo of our highest official authorities do not know how to guido tho peoplo .
The directions and regulations issued by the General Board of Health may be understood by lawyers , and acted on by clerks ; but for the general public , they require to be translated into that popular English which the people understand . _ It is a relief to except from this catalogue of sins and shortcomings , the closing of the London graveyards , and the constant labouring within his vocation of the Registrar-General , whose weekly warning we cannot but remember now with this expression of good will .
But what officialism has left undone , and what it has done , remind us the more forcibly of the great task it has yet to accomplish . It must first know its own strength and its own situation . The civil service of England is a most extensive institution . It has in it men of acute intelligence , great business energy , fine capabilities of conception , and ready ability to act . Its career has been in bureaux , and the people know little of the actual administrators of our State affairs .
Men whose minds supply politicians with knowledge and reasoning are as unknown to the people as if they were mandarins in China . These men have to fight a continuous fight with political intrigue . In the Stafford story we saw how shamelessly Parliamentary men thwart officials " regarding only what was good for the service . " To enable them to succeed against this strong and subtle power of political party the bureaucrats must appeal to the people . Already they feel more with the people than with the political chiefs , for in a free state tho civil service is the people ' s right hand , and not the servant of the sovereign . Sir Charles Trevelyan , for instance , spoke like a popular orator before the Lords
when he gave evidence in favour of a free press , native employment , and beneficial rule in India . The civil service has to place itself en rapjoort with the people , and inspirit and inform them into organized action . Above all things it must teach them what to do ; instead of shutting up its large knowledge in big blue books , ana wrapping up information in the mummy cloths of official words , it must speak plainly to the people . If vestries are obstructive , guardians inert , and the general public good for nothing in concert , the fault is with officialism , which , hitherto has not known how to win their confidence , or show them how to act . With this pre ~ sent danger to clear the way , the civil service nas now the noblest task ever set for a class of men
—to teach a free people the necessity of organized action and the way to work together for good .
Rationale Op Inn Cheapness. " You Englis...
RATIONALE OP INN CHEAPNESS . " You English people , " said an eminent French writer to us once , " think a great deal of ' comfort , ' and yet I don't know a country in the world where it is more impossible , in somo respects , to be made comfortable . " Many of us are doomed , at some periods of our life , to find our warmest welcome at an inn , and yet we so arrange matters as to preclude ourselves from obtaining comfort in that traveller ' s home , excepting upon such terms as totally destroy tho
comfort we would purchase . If the wine does not make the traveller ' s stomach ache , the bill does ; if tho hardness of the bed does not keep him awake , tho price of tho " wax-lights" prevonts his sleeping . This torment is the greater because ho cannot know what ho shall have to pay . Even in inns that have a tariff , there must , in many instances , bo great firmness , if ho escapes on the stipulated charges . lie cannot get what ho wants unless it bo accompanied by what he wants not , and ho is charged most for those things which he prizes least . Say that he is
either disinclined for wine or very picksoino m his taste , yet he must " drink for the good of tho house , " or undergo Home slight wliich ruffles his dignity . Ho desires a clean and private room , and is quite willing to pay for that ; but he is to pay for " wax lights , " which he does not require , and , indeed , which he docs not have , for who over found > vnx -lights at an inn whore they
appeared in . the bill P There are , however , reasons for all things , and there are many and obvious reasons why tho Englishman is so thwarted in hin inn bills . Just at present the Times w deluded with every species of complaint , from peop lo who coiiHoni to bo fleeced , in every quarter of the country , and vet wo liavo no improvement . The reason is , that tho . Englishman'does not deal honestly with this inn question . Tho landlord charges ju \ m bill
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 24, 1853, page 13, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_24091853/page/13/
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