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Untitled Article
Every one knows that now summer often ends and autumn approaches , and yet Cholera does not conie ) at all ; and every one knows that when it does come , instead of almost always ** killing in twenty-four hours , " it rarely kills in a single instance . What is the reason of this change ? Why does this dreadful visitant come now so seldom , and when it does Come , come stripped of its terrors ? For a reason that may be expressed in five words—improved condition of the people ! . When it
used to come , it found here a nidus , a home , food , every thing that could contribute to its rapid growth and its mature strength . Diet , habitations with straw for carpets , on which straw , spittle , the dregs of the tankard , the washings of dishes , and filth of all names and natures , and without number , were thrown ; streets so narrow that no air could circulate through thetn ; provisions salted , often half putrid , with scarcely any admixture of vegetable matter , except coarse or bad bread ; hardly any linen ; clothing in
general bad , fuel dear , and houses so contrived as to allow an abundant mgrefcs and egress of such air as would come—in a word , what the bad parts of the continent now are , England then was , only perhaps considerably worse than any part of the continent now is . Cholera must have revelled in such a home , and of a place with such conditions it will take care to make a home , and it will not lie there and be idle . Where it can find such a home now it takes up its abode . Hear the report of the Board of Health just published officially in the Gazette :
; " The Board particularly invites attention to a fact , confirmed by all communications received from abroad , viz . that the poor , ill-fed , and unhealthy part of the population , and especially those who have been addicted to drinking spirituous liquors , and indulgence in irregular habits , have
been the greatest sufferers from this disease , and that the infection has been most virulent , and has spread rapidly and extensively , in the district of towns where the streets are narrow and the population crowded , and where little or no attention has been paid to cleanliness and ventilation *" The nature of Cholera remains the same as it was in 1675 ; but England in 1675 is not the same as England in 1831 * To suppose , therefo re * that the Cholera will affect Englishmen in 1831 as it did Englishmen in 1675 , is to betray an ignorance of the nature of disease worthy only of a
Hottentot . The value of life in England at this present moment is superior to the value of life in any other country in the world , because in Englan d , bad as the condition of a large mass of the population is , the condition oi the aggregate mass is better than it is in . any other part of the world , and , beyond all question , better than it ever was in any other part of the world ,
in any other age of the world . The value of life in London at this present moment is just double the value of life m some of the large towns on the continent , and for the same reason , because execrable as many parts of London still are , and deplorable as is the condition of the population of those parts , still London ' , taken altogether , id cleaner , the streets are broader ,
Untitled Article
780 The Cholera :
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1831, page 780, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2603/page/56/
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