FIRE INQUEST.

223 members who understand something of the conditions of perfectly well founded for all that. We do not know. But health in a city of prodigious and unprecedented propor- if it should prove that the work of the fire inquest is heavy, tions. Other thanks are due to Parliament, which has we think that its execution should be provided for by tho facilitated this purchase by passing an Act of Parliament appointment of special officers, and not by the imposition to enable outside parishes to contribute; and last, not of additional and onerous duties upon those whose hands are least, to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, who have given already full. this park for this purpose for f:l0,00O or £12,000 less than they could have realised by selling it for other purposes. HEALTH OF ENGLISH WATERING PLACES AND HOLIDAY RESORTS. The vestry of Hackney, by a large majority, too, have voted JE5000 for this purchase, which, to use the words of THE table published annually in the Registrar-General’s one of its members, Mr. Dabbs, preserves an ancient quarterly return for the three months ending June, giving property, to create which would cost a million of money recent mortality statistics for forty-six of the principal In regard to this momentous and a century of time. watering places and summer resorts, is probably widely of it is gratifying to note that the consulted open spaces question by those who are weighing their choice of a working-classes begin to perceive its significance for them. locality for the usual summer holiday. The table this year, It is they chiefly who are to be benefited by open spaces. however, is published without any estimates of population No wonder, then, that the Islington Vestry was memo- or calculated rates of mortality. " For it is recognised,’ rialised in favour of the purchase by the Working Men’s says the Registrar-General, " that, after several years havee Association and by the London Trades Council. elapsed since the taking of a census, estimates of population in small communities are so uncertain that they cannot be regarded with that amount of confidence which would VISIT TO BERLIN OF A FRENCH SEWAGEjustify their official recognition." The table, however, still DISPOSAL COMMISSION. shows the number of deaths referred during the three REFERRING to the recent visit of the French Senatorial months ending June last to each of the principal zymotic Commission to Berlin, to inquire into and report upon the diseases in the several holiday resorts. This information, sewering of Berlin, and the works of sewage disposal in the value of which is quite apart and independent of all operation there, Herr Stadtrath Marggraff, the chairman speculation as to the present population of the different of the Kanalisations-Deputation of the Municipality, says, communities, should be in the hands of all who are called in a letter addressed to Mr. Charles Hancock, F.S.S., under upon to choose a safe and suitable holiday resort for children. date July 24th last, " The gentlemen composing the com- For information relating to the individual places we must mission referred to, with Dr. Cornil at their head, expressed refer those interested to the Registrar-General’s table. It themselves on the whole very satisfied with all the results may, however, be noted that the zymotic mortality in the they saw achieved by our irrigation system, eulogised in aggregate of the forty-six places was almost identical particular the general cleanliness everywhere visible; while with that recorded in the corresponding quarter of last year, they were most favourably impressed, not merely with the and that it is higher than it should be in localities depending good appearance of the crops grown, but above all with the for their prosperity upon reputation for a clean bill of health. excessively clear and undisturbed character of the effluent Sanitary authorities are too apt to regard the epidemic prevaobtained." lence-of measles and whooping-cough as inevitable visitations ; but in the case of holiday resorts frequented by children it FIRE INQUEST. might be expected that the injurious results of such visitaTHE first fire inquest hasjust been held by the City tions upon the prosperity of a season would lead the local Coroner, under the powers conferred upon him by the Act authorities to view them in a more serious light. Only a of Parliament recently passed at the instance of the Cor- small proportion of our watering places have yet provided poration in that behalf. In opening the proceedings he is themselves with efficient hospital provision for isolation ; reported to have said that he was anxious to make this fewer still make full use of such provision ; and scarcely a inquiry as successful as possible, since it was contemplated single place turns this provision to account with a view to to extend the system to other parts of the kingdom. The stem the natural course of an epidemic of measles or of result, however, can hardly have realised his hopes, for the whooping-cough. Only two deaths from small-pox occurred jury returned a verdict to the effect that the cause of the in these watering places during last quarter, and the deaths fire was unknown. This, though a somewhat " lame and from enteric fever were fewer than in recent corresponding impotent"conclusion, was no doubt inevitable, and the quarters, while those from diphtheria were more numerous. frequent rendering of such verdicts is likely to bring the system itself into unmerited disfavour, unless a wise DIPHTHERIA AND COW DISEASE. discretion is exercised in the selection of the cases to be subjected to inquiry. The holding of an inquest inTHE epidemic of diphtheria in Moulsham, Essex, is disdiscriminately in every instance of a large fire would, appearing as rapidly as it commenced, and both Dr. Downes, for example, not only entail a vast amount of wholly the medical otlicer of health, and Dr. Bodkin are agreed unnecessary work upon a coroner, but would tend at that the outbreak had no concern with any sanitary defects, the same time to destroy the value of his labours. In the but was related to a temporary ailment in certain cows, the great majority of cases the cause is either perfectly well milk of which had been used by those attacked; the diphknown or clearly undiscoverable, and no suspicious circum- theria commencing and subsiding with the onset and disstances exist to point to crime. Where these conditions appearance of the malady in the cows. The conclusions obtain an inquest is plainly undesirable. The report of the arrived at as the result of a careful investigation are :proceedings at the inquest in question does not indeed dis- (1) That certain cows have been suffering from a disease close much reason for the investigation, and it certainly which caused small eruptions on the udder; (2) that persons was not justified by its results; but it may have been using this milk have been affected with diphtheria in a modified form; (3) that other members of the same family 1 This commission was composed of the following:—Dr. Cornil (chairman) Messieurs Combes (sec.), Léon Say (ex-minister), Maze, De Sal, using other milk have not been affected; and (4) that when Naquet, Krantz, Georges Martin, and De Verninac. They stayed in the cows in question recovered, their milk ceased to be Berlin several days, and were their visit by Dr. Lannelonguo precededtoin the and Mons. Beckmann, Chief Engineer Paris Municipality. injurious. It is stated that some of the eruptive matter -

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