On this page

• Text (3)

  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.

  • 

    Untitled Article

  • 

    DR. LETHEBY AND THE CITY LETHE

  • 

    Untitled Article

• Transcript

  • 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.

    Untitled Article

    such subjects ; though -what ' it . can be intended to define we can scarcely understand , for we can scarcely bring distinctly to the mind what can be au ^ believing Christian . If there are such things , we might imagine that to them CJ-ood Friday would only be an occasion , for closing shops , "wearing one ' s best clothes , and going " somewhere ; " to any resort wlere the Public-house Act would permit . Outward conformity to all which is absolutely required , and inward disregard of such commemoration , would be exactly the kind of conduct that we might expect from an unbelieving Christian .

    seems to be ample room for the missionary ; the difficulty is to find a missionary of sufficient influence to obtain the means for his mission from the Believing Christians , and the means of success with the Unbelieving Christians .

    It is strange that the manners and customs of the English , as exemplified on that particular day , should so exactly agree with what we imagined as the manners and customs of that unaccountable creature which we have called the Unbelieving Christian , and whose existence is involved in the expression " Believing Christian . " How this comes about we do not know , though of course there are reasons for it . It is not for us to conjecture why it is that there can be " Christians" in this country whose feelings run in the track of excursion trains on the most mournful

    anniversary of their Church . Possibly some in the crowd at Sydenham . on Friday last may . have "been to divine service before attending profane service in the Crystal Palace ; they may have gone through the proper suit and service so as to qviit themselves of their duty for the day ; but we are not now speaking of forms and ceremonies , which are quite consistent with the idea of an unbelieving Christian ; we are speaking of conviction , and still more of feeling . Perhaps some of our clergymen could

    throw light on this subject . Many of them have confessed the difficulties with vvliich they have to contend , in the apathy of the people generally . Our churches are only designed to hold about one-fifth of the people of the country , the Crystal Palacea that are built are intended for much larger multitudes . It is true that the Crystal Palaces hitherto constructed could not hold all tlie people of this country at any one given hour ; they are not made for thos " owho cannot pay to support Crystal Palaces as a

    ^ weekly institution ; nor is it necessary that they should be . But if we understand the doctrine of our clergy , it is necessary that all the adult population , of this country should be present in some of our churches or chapel 8 nearly about the same time every ( Sunday . If some are too poor to pay for their admission , that , we conceive , does not affect the question . Those who possess the means should give to the Lord a tifcho ol

    their possessions , which would at once settle the question of free admission for the whole of the poorer classes ; and if the wealthy really were " believing Christians , " we can hardly imagine that that mechanical difficulty would nob be settled . The railway companies iiud no difficulty in providing excursion trains , the directors of the Crystal Palace can provide concerts ; so that the English people evidently believe in junketing and concerts .

    If it were possible , it would be very useful for purposes of moral politics to obtain the statistics of the state of belief in this country ; distinguishing the . Believing Christians from the Unbelieving Christiana . A further question would arise—How it happens that the Unbelieving Christians consent to keep up the appearances which are involved in that self-contradicting designation ? Are they too degraded , either by want of education or by the mercenary habits of this country , for the genuine faith and sublime morals which were inculcated by the Founder of Christianity ? At all events there

    Untitled Article

    POLITICAL . POINTS—THE BALLOT . The necessity of tho Ballot ia the practica moral of tho General Election . That neces

    Dr. Letheby And The City Lethe

    ¦ these particular depots that the evil consequences are to be found ; they are not traced only in th e amount of mortality . AVe venture to say that entire districts around the City—a wide space , for example , at Clerkenwell , a very large district round St . Luke's , Somers-town , or Pimlico—present a population mingled with such as inhabit these lowest neighbourhoods ; but the infection extends , debases the physical health of the whole neighbourhood , impairs the energies of all classes , and results , not only in the

    increased number of deaths , in frequent prevalence of fevers , but in a permanently lowstate of health , diminished energies for the work of life , and diminished energy even for local improvement ; . And all our towns have this stigma upon them . What are the remedies ? Dr . Letheby can think of nothing but the enforcement of the Common Lodging Houses Act ; with its inspection , and its penalties to compel repairs , drainage , washing , and so forth . It is a very good instrument in its way , but there

    DR . LETHEBY AND THE CITY LETHE . A sudden alarm was created last week by a Report from Dr . Hhitby Letheby , the Medical Officer of Health to the City of London , on the state of the City district generally , but more especially of the Eastern Union . His Report exposes a very horrible state of things . The total mortality of the City is at the annual rate 26-2 per thousand of the inhabitants , the usual yearly average being 25 * 9 ; but the mortality has been very unequally distributed . In the City proper it has been 2 lias been

    6 * 7- —a low rate , in part to be 20 * 7—a low rate , in part to be accounted for by the rather high average of the inhabitants in the scale of society , and by the residence of a very considerable proportion out of the bounds . But the rate in the "West London Union was 29 , and in the East London Union 31-4 s . The chief causes of death arose from the disease of the respiratory system . But there were 58 deaths from violence and starvation — more than , one a week in a section of the British capital ! The ulterior causes of this mortality are soon ascertained . In the 1989 inhabited rooms

    circumstantially inspected during the quarter there were 5791 inmates , belonging to 1576 families . But the crowding of rooms was not confined to the same family ; strangers were lodged together , even bedded together—men and women , adults and children ; the incidents of life , from birth to death , going on in the same room , in am atmosphere loaded with moral and physical filth ; the beggar , the prostitute , the woman in labour , the infant , the corpse , all literally " pigging together . "

    Such abodes perpetuate fever and its allied disorders ; but they perpetuate something worse . " There stalks side by side with this pestilence a yet deadlier presence , blighting the moral existence of a rising population , rendering their hearts hopeless , their acts ruffianly and incestuous , and scattering , while society averts her eye , the retributive seeds for increase of crime , turbulence , and pauperism . "

    This disclosure lias astonished tho world as if it came out for the first time . Dr . Lethe by , however , remarks , . ' " This was the language of Mr . Smo : tf years ago ; " it has been tho language of Dr . SirniKurjAND , Dr . SournwooD ft-urni , Dr . Lvarcu , and many others ; it waa used lour or five years ago by iVLr- Simo ^ , ten years ago by SuTitGitiiA ^ ri ) , twenty years ago by JSoutuwood Smith . Lord Carlisle can vouch for the strict

    accuracy of those expressions . The existence of these depots of fever , moral and material , has been officially stated to tho public any time , within these last twenty years ; , the depots thomselvcs having existed for a coutury or more , in fact ever since our towns became so closely packed . The depots are found not only in London , they are i / i all great towns . in Dublin , the ruins of the old manufacturing district will exhibit

    something of tho same kind . In Edinburgh , the " closes" of the old town , although perhaps not inhabited by so very low a population , arc without drainage , without inspection that penetrates tho street-door , and are a patented apparatus for cooking condensed essence of fever . Tho wynda of Glasgow are aa famous as its commercial port ; and wo can only say that an' English beggar is a cleanly , distinguished , and ventilated animal in comparison to a Scotch beggar . Tho Scotch animal can onl y bo compared to tho rag-picker of Paris . But it ia not only

    are many things which it cannot do . It cannot feed the hungry—those tens of thousands ia this great city who are deprived of employment by the changes and caprices of commerce . It cannot educate the ignorant , who submit to contagions that they might conquer had they but the elements of knowledge . It cannot redistribute the population , forced into these special quarters by " improvements " that raise rents elsewhere , and drive about the working class aa if it were no better than vermin—than rats who

    are not consulted , but rather the reverse , when houses are rebuilt and neighbourhoods remodelled . The selfishness of modern times has been pampered by prosperity . The well-to-do classes , when they speak of politics or of social improvement , think of themselves j they improve for themselves ; they regulate for themselves ; and they leave those classes who are most helpless not only to themselves , but to themselves in places cribbed , cabined , and confined , by the encroachments . The working classes are not only abandoned without aid , but they are injured by the improvements of their fellow-creatures . There are

    grand exceptions . Here and there an earnest priest or layman comes forth to hold out tho hand of help for his fellow-men however debased , charity will extend its pittance , aud an association will pick uj ) some few to elevato them by teaching . But while tho whole of society is putting down tribes , charity is but rescuing individuals ,, and an association hero and there is only redeeming tho wholesale work of injury inflicted by the system .

    But again we say , what we have so often said before , that social reform , which it ia at present the fashion to talk of , has never yet appeared save as the handmaid of political reform . In a despotical country tho aristocratic classes , the knights of ltomo , tho purple emperors rising to couches of luxury , render the attendant classes first the slaves and then tho "victims of the system of favouritism thus established . Tho increase of luxury for particular classes has been tho sign of that crowning prosperity which precedes the downfal of nations . It is when

    other classes have obtained political power that they assert their right to tho sharo oi the good things of this life , and the prosperity ia better distributed . Wo may havo a talk about practical reforms , but the million will not got its duo share until by using ite own political power it can make itft voic < heard and felt in tho making of laws and ii the administration .

    Untitled Article

    April 18 , 1857 . ] THE LEADER . 873

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), April 18, 1857, page 373, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2189/page/13/