of the enormous shortcomings of the old systems of quarantine, and of the innumerable evils and losses which they entail,* and of the absolute necessity as regards humanity, as regards the interests of society, as regards the interests of commerce, to have them either entirely put aside, or if, on due consideration, any quarantine measures be held to be necessary, only such should be attempted as are practicable and efficient, and which are likely to have the assent of competent judges of all nations. It should always be kept in mind that the mortality from ordinary diseases vastly exceeds that from epidemic diseases, taking the average, as about 100 to 1; that epidemic diseases themselves are commonly little felt where due attention is paid to sanitary conditions; and as to faith in quarantine for the exclusion of disease, how little ought that to be, reflecting that no preventive measures, however severe, have ever kept out the contrabandists, when tempted by high duties. It would, we fear, be too much to expect that a subject which has been so long under discussion, and on which there have been such opposite views, will soon be settled in the most satisfactory manner, on absolute truth or unquestionable data. We suppose we must rest satisfied if a compromise be made, and that, if any quarantine be tolerated, it must be established on that policy, eliminating from it as much of the uncertain as possible, and freeing it as much as possible from that which is vexatious, and costly, and inhuman. As England has set the example of free trade, and is an example to the world of government with rational freedom, should she not likewise be an example in this matter of quarantine? No nation has the same power of teaching by example, her colonies being situated in every climate, as it were expressly for the purpose in question. And standing *The pecuniary losses are incalculable. Dr. (now Sir JoHN) BOWRING, speaking in the House of Commons on the subject, in 1841, stated his belief that the losses from quarantine in the Mediterranean alone were not less than two or three millions sterling a year. We learn from Dr. W. BURRELL'S able and very instructive Report on the Plague of Malta in 1818, which he considered-and we think justly—of indigenous origin, to have entailed, by the rigid and cruel measures enforced to confine it, a cost of £232,531. It is stated that "all the deaths by yellow fever which have occurred in NewYork, in Brooklyn and at the quarantine stations combined, within the past fifty years, amount to only six hundred-the same, in round numbers, as we have been accustomed of late to lose annually by small-pox alone.”—Third Quarantine and Sanitary Convention, New-York, 1859, p. 239. Under the heading of "Lisbon," it is stated in the abstracts, that "the number of deaths on board vessels at sea, from ordinary casual diseases-chiefly phthisis, chronic diarrhoea, hepatitis, apoplexy-exceeded, in the proportion of 21 to 12, that from the diseases against which quarantine is specially directed;" and that "in all these cases a quarantine of several days is imposed.' It is added, "a vessel from Sunderland and Hamburg, both having clean bills, were detained, for four and six days respectively, in consequence of a death from apoplexy during the voyage." Also, that "in none of the twenty-five vessels which were quarantined for the cholera, had any sickness occurred during the voyage." (P. 8.) What valuable information might be obtained from these colonies were their governors required by the Secretary of State to give, in the blue-books annually furnished by them, a short statement of the chief epidemics which may have prevailed during the year, and also of any events bearing on quarantine which may have come under their notice. Information from foreign countries, of the like kind, might be required from her Majesty's consuls. Such information together would almost form a summary of the epidemics of the world. It is sad to think how little has hitherto been contributed by men in authority, whether governors of colonies, consuls or ambassadors, to the advancement of natural knowledge, especially considering the means so high, how careful should she be to avoid making any false step. Never more, we trust, shall we hear of mistakes like those fallen into in the treatment of the ECLAIR, befitting more a Neapolitan than a British board of health." The same writer, in speaking of American works, adds : "The American works, the 'Proceedings and Debates of the Third and Fourth National Quarantine and Sanitary Convention,' held in 1859 and 1860, at New-York and at Boston, are equally worthy of attention. They are highly creditable to the medical profession of the United States, and must be read with interest equally by those who concern themselves about quarantine and the even more important subject of internal sanitary legislation. In the pages of their proceedings, a great amount of valuable information will be found, and numerous suggestions opening new channels for research. Their discussions, their debates carried on with earnestness, and displaying oratorical power of no mean ability, have not been unfruitful of result, especially of the third convention, ending, as they did, in the resolution, supported by the votes of eighty-four delegates against six, that yellow fever is incapable of being propagated from person to person, though, in their opinion, it may be by fomites. The facts adduced in support of the first part of the proposition were numerous, and, to our minds, tolerably convincing; but we cannot say so much of the arguments used in support of the latter part-that regarding fomites: things, not persons.' The arguments used were chiefly derived from experience obtained at New-York, a city decidedly malarious, where the average yearly mortality is one in every twenty-five or twentysix of the population, and where solitary stray cases of yellow fever are allowed to be of no rare occurrence. We apprehend the distinction made between 'persons and things' will hardly be held to be logical; but apart from this consideration, is not a wider inference or induction hostile to the doctrine? If yellow fever could be introduced, as supposed, by fomites, and these acting at a certain distance and contaminating the air, how is it that Liverpool has escaped the disease, where, at all seasons, in the height of summer as well as in the depth of winter, cargoes of cotton are arriving from the Southern ports of the States, (would we could call them United,) one or other of which is so often the seat of fever? How is it that, in so many instances-many of them recorded in the documents before us-it has not spread in countries on both sides of the Atlantic, in which little or no effectual attempts have been made to confine it to the spots where it broke out?" The answers to these interrogatories are, it appears to us, clearly deducible from the remarks of Dr. BELL, in the proceedings of the Third National Quarantine and Sanitary Convention, held at New-York in 1859. "A few years ago," he remarks, "some British ships, coming from the coast of Africa, where they had yellow fever, arrived at the Island of Ascension, where yellow fever had never been known. They had been there only two weeks, when it spread like wildfire, and large numbers died. It was, at the time, strong evidence of contagion; but since then they have demonstrated the fact to consist, not in the con at their disposal and the abilities of the individuals, and what has been done by the same class of men in other countries, having had their attention called to matters of the kind by the home governments. tagiousness of yellow fever, but in the conditions of the soil and climate of Ascension. It was sowing seed in good ground; it was a good, rich garden soil, filling the atmosphere with food for the fever; and in that way the inhabitants were supplied with the poison.* What did England do? She sent her ships to St. Helena, where there was solid rock, and none of the soil to favor an epidemic. They took their ships there with all the filth (fomites) collected for twelve months on the coast of Africa; and though the persons sick with the yellow fever were dispersed throughout the island, the inhabitants did not catch it, because it was not communicable. The same thing occurred in Norfolk. . . Why was it, I would ask, in 1848, when the ships came from the Gulf with cases of severe epidemic on board, they did not communicate it to Norfolk Simply because there was not (there) that degree of moisture and heat necessary to spread it." But, subsequently, in the summer of 1855, there had been unsually heavy rains, followed by high temperature and drought, when the steamer "BEN FRANKLIN" arrived, containing fomites, from St. Thomas, where yellow fever was prevailing when she left. The first case of yellow fever in Gosport is said to have been that of a laborer employed in breaking out her hold, who, after a short illness, died on the 8th of July. So soon as this case was reported, the vessel was ordered back to quarantine; but she had been some time alongside of an old wharf, well calculated to become a new source of fomites. "The same thing occurred here in 1856 (at Fort Hamilton and Bay Ridge, opposite the quarantine anchorage ;) and you find the same concatenation of causes, the same degree of moisture and heat, and the same meteorological conditions. I believe that it would not be too much to state, that in proportion as we approach the conditions essential to the rise and spread of the yellow fever at the Delta of the Mississippi, do we find yellow fever to prevail." The reason that Liverpool has escaped the disease, we apprehend, consists in the circumstance of meteorological conditions, equally unfavorable to new sources of fomites, and favorable to the dispersion of the poison, having the same effect as the "Northers" have in the Gulf of Mexico, from the setting in of which fomites are nullified and yellow fever ceases. The modus operandi of these climatic influences are equally incomprehensible, whether in places where yellow fever frequently prevails, or in those places, like Liverpool, where it prevails not at all. For a full notice of the National Quarantine and Sanitary Conventions, and of the CODE OF MARINE HYGIENE, adopted by the convention held in Boston in 1860, the reader is referred to the MERCHANTS' MAGAZINE, vol. xliv., pp. 147-159. We trust the time is not far distant when the "Code" here referred to will receive the sanction of all nations and communities. It has, we are happy to state, already been adopted by some of our cities, while its spirit, at least, is manifest in several others. *The soil of Ascension consists of a mixture of loam and volcanic ashes, having for a basis a hard and rocky foundation; a condition which, when associated with the beginning of the dry season and high temperature, is in all respects well calculated to become a bed of fomites. + "The Summer of the Pestilence in Norfolk." By GEORGE ARMSTRONG, D. D. ADVANTAGES OF UNIFORM POSTAGE. By PLINY MILES. THE great bulk of the correspondence, and of the written and other documents sent by mail, consists of single letters, circulars, newspapers, pamphlets and small packages of printed matter, weighing less than a quarter of a pound. If all of these articles could be charged at the same rate of postage, that rate being Low and UNIFORM, without any "extra" charges, except for unpaid postages, the trouble and labor of the people in sending and receiving mail matter, and the toil and expense in the Post Office, would be reduced to a minimum. Since the introduction of low and uniform postage by ROWLAND HILL, twenty-two years ago, and the overwhelming success attending that measure in Great Britain, the principle of UNIFORMITY has been widely acknowledged as the only correct basis of a good postal system. We in the United States know nothing of uniform postage, being obliged, by our present postal laws, to keep two denominations of postage stamps; and in a large proportion of the minor as well as the larger articles and packages sent by mail, we have to attach two or more stamps to the same missive. Besides the double payment by stamps, ab initio, we have a great number of "extra" charges that bring a very moderate sum in the aggregate to the Post Office, and that have to be paid on the receipt of the articles; payments that are attended with great trouble and loss of time, both to the citizen and to the clerks and letter carriers. In whatever light they may be looked at, these "extra" charges are indefensible, whether considered as a means of revenue, (which is most insignificant,) or as a legitimate payment for a particular service. In framing our postal laws, and adjusting our rates of postage, we are apt to forget that the Post Office, as a piece of government machinery, is owned by the people, and that if the rates are charged with a view to a general average that shall afford the greatest economy and convenience, both in and out of the Post Office, the highest purpose of a good postal system is attained. In the first place, it is absolutely impossible to know the exact expense, or an approximation to the expense attending any particular letter or class of letters that are carried a certain distance and pass through a certain number of hands. In the next place, in a business that is made up of such a multiplicity of details as the reception, transportation and delivery of mail matter, if certain letters or documents do go through a process-like advertising, "forwarding," or delivery by carriers-that adds something to the cost of their distribution, the collection of the insignificant sum that is supposed to represent that extra expense is productive of a larger outlay for labor to the Post Office than the money produced by the tax. If this statement is true, and I shall try and demonstrate it clearly, then the whole process involves a triple loss. The government loses in laying out more for labor in the collection than the tax produces, while the citizen loses the time spent in getting his money, adjusting the change and handing it over, and he also loses the full amount paid, for the only possible object in levying the tax, is a contribution to the Post Office treasury; a contribution, as we have seen, (or that I have stated and mean to prove,) which actually costs the postal department more than it brings. A proposition is now before Congress and the country, in a bill introduced by the Hon. JOHN HUTCHINS, of Ohio, (House Bill, No. 266, 37th Congress, 2d Session,) in which a prominent object "is to equalize the rates of postage," or establish one UNIFORM rate for all single letters and minor articles. The numerous rates of postage we pay here in New-York, on single letters and small packages, comprising forty-nine fiftieths of all the articles sent by mail, and, in contrast with it, the simple, convenient and uniform rate proposed in the new postal bill, may be seen in the following tabular view: 9. Circular in envelope, with business card printed outside, 10. Three circulars, in plain or printed envelope,. 11. Book, under 1,500 miles, three ounces in weight, 12. Book, under 1,500 miles, two ounces in weight,. 13. Book, over 1,500 miles, one ounce in weight,.. 14. Pamphlet, weighing from three to four ounces, 15. Two ordinary newspapers, in one package,.. 16. Newspaper, to Great Britain or France,. 17. Letter, returned to writer as "dead,”. 18. Letter, when "forwarded,". 19. Letter, when advertised,. 20. Mail letter, delivered by carrier,. 21. Mail letter, posted in lamp-post box,.. 1 cent. 1 cent. 1 cent. 1 cent. 1 cent. 2 cents 2 cents. 3 cents. 3 cents. 3 cents. 2 cents. 2 cents. 2 cents. 2 It certainly does not require an elaborate argument, supported by sta tistics, to prove that if the first sixteen items named alone, were all rated at two cents, with a two cent postage stamp to pay it, there would be a vast convenience and saving of labor both to the public and the Post Office. Last year there were 2,484,000 newspapers sent by mail to Europe, nearly every one of which were charged just two cents postage-none of them one or three cents. This rate is regulated by treaty, and cannot be altered by our government. In the mailing of these millions of newspapers there has to be the trouble of putting on two postage stamps, when, if we had a two cent uniform rate, one stamp would suffice. Then there is a catalogue of eight different "extra" charges that have to be paid by the recipient on the receipt of the missive from the Post Office or the letter carrier. Perhaps not twenty-five thousand dollars are realized from all these "extra" charges; and if the amount was half a million, it would be dearly paid for. The utter lack of economy can be |
