1829.) Affairs in General. 69 
and the whole host of miserables, who live by contraband. The smug- 
gler pays handsomely—rent rises, the value of every square inch of the 
rock is worth its weight in doubloons ; the filth and negligence of the 
place accumulate, then comes a week of the Levant wind; the plague 
follows hot upon it ; Moors, Jews, Spaniards, and Maltese, die by hun- 
dreds in their hovels, and the place is cleared for the season. 
The true remedy for this horrid visitant is obvious and undeniable ; 
the expulsion of every individual unconnected with the garrison. We 
may make something less by smuggling, but it becomes a government 
like ours, founded, as its strength is, on open trade, to crush at once the 
whole vile and vice-producing system of foreign contraband. It is just, 
for we have no right to assist in robbing the revenue of other nations ; 
and it is politic, for we could not lay up a more bitter store of irrita- 
tion and disgust in the proud heart of Spain, than this sufferance of the 
perpetual infraction of its laws. ; 
Without blaming individuals for the grievances which make this 
single British settlement so often a terror even to the mother country, 
we look to the administration of the great soldier at the head of the 
State for their speedy extinction. 
The action taken by Mr. Bransby Cooper against the editor of the 
Lancet has involved some very curious considerations. The verdict was 
certainly not within our calculation. But with the bench we have no 
desire to war. The figure made by Sir Astley Cooper, too, was rather 
curious, and we think that his absence would have done him to the full as 
much credit. Mr. B. Cooper, however, gained a verdict, and we are 
satisfied that his experience acquired on the occasion will be of service to 
him in future. 
On the debated question, whether the editor of the Lancet was actu- 
ated by malice, we shall only observe that the testimony adduced by 
him was strong ; and that it seems to have been beaten down much 
more by general character than particular facts. We are not at all 
inclined to doubt Mr. B. Cooper’s general surgical skill, but the question 
was, as to its application in the particular instance. As to the contested 
value of works like the “Lancet” to the profession, the hospitals, and 
humanity, it is absurd to hesitate a moment: They must always be 
beneficial, as long as error is to be corrected, or negligence to be exposed. 
What is the true security for good conduct in the public servants of 
England but the public vigilance? No man who knew, ten years ago, 
the state of the hospitals, of the practice and the practitioners, could 
doubt the necessity for a thorough change. And whatever change has 
since taken place, to what has it been due but these publications? Ope- 
rationsof the most unscientific kind were constantly being performed, with 
no one to complain of them but the unlucky patient, whose complaints 
were generally soon silenced. What could the few attendant governors 
say, but that they were incapable judges of operations? What would 
the assisting surgeons and physicians say? Nothing. It was not their 
policy to involve themselves in feud with their brethren. But now 
comes in an inspector, qualified by his practice to detect the errors of 
practice, and independent of the parties. It is impossible but that good 
must arise from the consciousness in the operators and physicians, that 
their conduct is sure to become a subject of public attention. 
