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and definite periods into the country. Why, then, should ourmews at the West-end, and analogous places in poor neigh-bourhoods, be allowed during the summer to violate both healthand decency ? Whilst our sanitary officers have over and overagain drawn attention to the subject, which not anyone of theleast sense of what is needful can but feel is demanding inter-ference, it is with surprise that we receive the information that adeputation had waited upon the Chief Commissioners of

Works, consisting of Alderman SALOMONS and others, for thepurpose of opposing the wholesome proposition, that for thefuture some plan should be arranged for the regular removal ofthe refuse in question, and for the prevention of those accumula-tions which spread such an unhealthy influence over the placesaround. We do not happen to know the grounds upon whichso sensible and necessary a sanitary reform was opposed by ourcivic wiseacres, but whatever they were, we may venture to

say they must have been as immoderately ignorant as they wereselfish.

Medical Annotations.

HEALTH AND WEALTH.

.. Ne quid nimis:’

THE paper of Mr. Purdy at the British Association, on therecent diminution of mortality coincident with increase of

pauperism at Rochdale, created unnecessary but not inexpli-cable surprise. One speaker protested that it was a paradox;and another, that such facts ought to be suppressed at the pre-sent time, for they were calculated to check the flow of charity.The fact is that these results must be explained by a referenceto the very various nature of disease and the multiplicity ofthe avenues by which death enters.

" Of indolence, of toilWe die; of want, of superfluity.The all-surrounding heaven, the vital air,Is big with death :’

Amid all the signs of increasing distress, while the pauper-lists of Lancashire have swelled to a portentous size, the healthof the total population has not shown any corresponding dete-rioration. The barometers of health and wealth show no

parallelism, but a wide divergence. We will not here recapi-tulate the figures, but they show that in no place has theincrease in mortality kept pace with the growing poverty;while in some, health has actually improved. These observa-tions are open to the objection of being somewhat partial andtemporary; and it is likely that continued trials would givevery different results. But the lesson for a temporary and com-pensating improvement in the death-rate is pretty obvious. Themothers who work in the mills sell, as Mr. Simon has said, notonly their honest labour, but their infants’ lives. The children

very commonly are left under the influence of opiates, drugged,starved, and neglected, while the mothers are at work. Anycalamity which removes the mothers from their work to theirchildren is to the infant a blessing. Then large numbers ofgrown children employed in factories are by the stroke sentinto the open air; and provided they have plain but not insuf-ficient food, such as charity now provides for them, they willimprove in health. The same conditions operate favourablyfor the adults in a less degree. This striking improvement inhealth of a population pauperized, may serve to remind thepeople of Lancashire that a want of money is not necessarily awant of health; and that in the daily sacrifices to the work-godthey offer up the blood of many victims. It is so in Coventry,jn Nottingham, and in all great industrial centres. Thousandsof victims may be saved by taking the lesson to heart: by in-

stituting an intelligent supervision of children lefc at home,and restricting the traffic in narcotics, which is the bane ofchildhood. ____

SHADOWY DEGREES.

MR. SoUTHEY expresses great admiration for the sentimentof an anonymous author :

" The shows of things are better than themselves :’

That sentence well expresses the permanence of many of the

presentations of mortality, idols of the painter’s, poet’s, andsculptor’s art-a permanency which so strongly contrasts withthe mutability of the fleeting generations of men that we mayoften be tempted in their presence to entertain the feeling thatthey are the realities and we the shadows." The phrase, sotempting in its pseudo-mysticism to minds of Germanic ten-dency, is susceptible, however, of some dangerous applications;and amongst those against which we most energetically protestis its adaptation to medical degrees of German universities. A

contemporary announces an addition to the shadowy list ofdegrees " granted in absentia" by German universities. It isthat of the University of Rostock, in Mecklenburgh-Schwerin.An individual, professing to be the correspondent of the Uni-versity of Rostock, boasting 250 members, now circulates, instrict confidence of course, a printed tariff amongst those whoreply to his advertisements, in which the university is de-scribed as dating from the fifteenth century; the fee for M.D.is X30 3s., entrance ae3 3s., and diploma .627. Half the fel-lows who make pretence of selling German degrees are mereswindlers. We know nothing of the University of Rostock;but the sooner its authorities, if there be any, repudiate thepresent vending of titles in their name the better.

EARLY MARRIAGES.

FROM the interesting figures which Mr. Hermann Merivalehas collected concerning the population of France, we maydraw some good illustrations of the importance of early mar-riages to the well-being of the individual and for the progres-sive strength of the nation. The rate of mortality in Francehas not increased since the beginning of this century ; thenumber of marriages has not diminished, it has remained sta-tionary. Nevertheless the population of France has remainedstationary, while our own has enormously increased. The" prudential check" on births has operated through later mar-riages, owing to the want of outlet for population by emigra-tion. The result of this tendency to late marriages in Franceis, that the average fecundity of such unions is far below thatin this country, and is steadily but slowly diminishing. Herethe annual rate of fertility may be represented by 4’5. InFrance it has been, in 1822-31, 3-64; 1832-41, 3-4; 1842-51,3-19 ; in 1855 it had fallen to 2 96 ; in 1856 it rose to 3-11.

Nothing can bring out more clearly the unnatural and deterio-rating influence of late marriages. Every physiologist andevery physician knows that in proportion as advanced age ope-rates to limit the number, so also does it affect the develop-ment and force of the children. The scanty offspring of latemarriages will always, man for man, present a marked infe-riority in physical qualities to the more numerous race spring-ing from young and healthy parents. There are accessoryconditions engendered by this state of society, this " prudentialcheck" upon marriages, which increase the evil. The irregu-larities of unmarried youth too often taint the blood and sap theforce of the procrastinating husband; the irregular unions whichabound in France are as notoriously infertile as they are dan-gerous. In this country, modern habits of luxury threaten tohave an operation only less dangerous because more limitedthan the " prudential check" arising in France from an absenceof outlet by emigration. The figures which we quote affordstriking illustrations of its dangers, and should give a freshimpulse to statesmen and moralists in combating the tendencyto late marriages.