1866. | and us National Danger. 315 
but compelled, “for they will never to it properly of their own 
accord,’ to see that a proper and copious water-supply is laid on 
to every house, and that typhus patients should be removed to 
fever-houses specially adapted for such cases. 
Legislation and science, then, are unanimous in believing — 
1. That it is impossible to prevent the inroads of cholera into 
this country from abroad. 
2. That it is in sea-port towns where it first makes its appearance. 
3. That cleanliness, and an ample supply of fresh air and clean 
water, are the conditions which render it innocuous when it touches 
our shores; and 
4. That it is the duty of the Guardians of Health in the large 
towns to see that these conditions are observed, without the 
necessity for State interference. 
Having laid down these propositions, which are unquestionable 
as far as they go, it now becomes our painful duty to point out, as 
we did on a previous occasion,* that the very conditions which are 
so favourable for the admission from abroad and forcing of epidemics 
at home, are to be met with in our large sea-ports, and, in fact, 
that some of those towns are in a state of chronic pestilence. 
And although the illustration which we mean to lay before our 
readers may by some be considered an exaggerated one (and we 
sincerely hope that it is so), we fear that it too faithfully represents 
the state of things in the Metropolis and in the large provincial 
towns. 
We must admit, however, that the case of Liverpool is some- 
what exceptional, for that important sea-port, whose traders are 
denominated “merchant princes,” has merited the reputation of 
being the most sickly, and, harsh though the criticism may appear, 
the most squalid and sin-stricken of all our important boroughs. 
Of course these remarks do not refer to those parts of the town 
where the wealth of the inhabitants is earned. Those, it is true, 
are surrounded by a feeble cordon separating them from typhus and 
other diseases (resulting from over-crowding, drunkenness, and every 
other kind of vice) which may be snapped at any moment, per- 
mitting the passage of the plague; but those parts are at present 
tolerably exempt from disease. Nor do we refer to the suburbs 
where the “merchant princes” enjoy their repose after the toils of 
the day are over. Every one of course knows that the portions of 
Liverpool which are inhabited by the wealthier classes rise above the 
level of the lower parts of the borough, where the thousands of poor 
Irish and the hundreds of emigrants lie huddled together like sheep 
in a fold; and that the suburban houses are built upon sandstone- 
rock, and swept by the breezes of the Irish Sea. Of these again it 
* “On the Predisposing Causes of Pestilence.’— ‘Quarterly Journal of 
Science, No. 7, July, 1865. 
