quantity—through a Quakers' Meeting, and
every broad-brimmed hat and slate-coloured
bonnet there, will disperse to the four winds
at the highest possible existing rate of
locomotion.

A HOME QUESTION.

IN the war that we now wage with Russia,
should it be ended in another year or two, we
shall scarcely have lost upon all the fields of
Alma, and before all the Sebastopols, in all
the campaigns, as many of our fellow-countrymen
as cholera has slain DURING THE
PAST FEW WEEKS in London. Even to our
troops in the East, Pestilence has proved
incomparably more destructive than the
redoubts and batteries of any mortal foe.
By fever and by sickness bred of gross neglect,
this country alone has probably lost more
lives than have been sacrificed in all the
battles ever fought in the whole of Europe
since its history began. And the neglect
continues. Observe! In the immensely
advanced civilisation of which we hear a great
deal, the guilty, unchristian, frightful neglect,
continues.

We urged lately upon working men a desire
elsewhere most worthily expressed, that among
just efforts for the bettering of their condition
they should not forget to give due prominence
to a consideration of their right to healthy
homes. The best of franchises—the freedom
to possess one's natural health—has to be
battled for by thousands of us. In London,
and in many towns, we are denied even the
right use of our skins, by the denial of a fair
supply of water. To inhale the air of Heaven
is our birthright, but we do not get fresh air
into our mouths until disgusting poisons
have been mixed with it. Against all this,
and against the most atrocious of existing
taxes, we incite the people to rise up in
strong constitutional and peaceful rebellion.
What do we call the most atrocious of all
taxes? It is surely that upon uncleanness,
which the most relentless of tax-gatherers,
Death himself, knocks at our doors day and
night to levy. He distrains upon us, not by
seizure of our goods and chattels, but of
possessions infinitely dearer; of our young
children; of our sons whom we have brought
with fond care through a paradise of hope to
the very verge of manhood, and there lose; of
our wives snatched from their infants while
the little arms are stretching hungrily
towards the breast; of fathers in the years
that should be those of greatest vigour, who
have been allowed time to surround
themselves with families, and then, when they
have become essential to the life of others,
are destroyed. We are not such a free people
as we claim to be considered, if we endure
all this.

Once upon a time large bodies of working
men were concerned to secure the five points
of what a leader who gave unsound counsel
called the People's Charter. They marched to
Parliament with a petition we think more than
a mile long, and produced little result; because
they behaved like thirsty men, who preferred
froth to beer. When they shall have asked
for beer and got it, they shall not lack froth
upon the top. Working men asked for, and
helped mainly to secure, something more
subsubstantial—bread itself—when they were
agitating for free trade. Is it not worth
their while to agitate also for the protection
of their households from disease, and in that
only sensible sense turning Protectionist, look
after their air and water as they have already
looked after their bread? Hereby we advertise
that there is Wanted a People's Charter,
of which the five points are to be: Firstly, the
abolition of cesspool and sewer-poison from all
houses, courts, and streets; secondly, the fit
construction of all dwelling-places; thirdly,
the prompt removal of all nuisances dangerous
to health (including burial grounds, gut
boilers' heaps, and a great multitude of other
things down to the cabbage leaf that rots before
the costermonger's window); fourthly, the
constant and therefore unlimited supply at a
just price, of wholesome water to every
tenement; and, fifthly, the suppression of
preventible accidents in factories, mines, ships,
and elsewhere, by making those persons
strictly and criminally responsible who could
have prevented them, and who failed in the
duty so to do. We should like to see the
working men of England fairly mastering
these points, and shaming the inaction of our
legislature by the urgency of their petitions
and the strength of their union.

There are persons in all grades of authority,
who, in as far as these matters are
concerned need greatly to be put to shame.
The labouring man who has no power to get
drainage for his neighbourhood, or any other
water than that which at stated times is
turned into his cistern, who has little or no
choice to exercise as to his place of abode,
and who, being rarely able to ensure absolute
punctuality in the discharge of rent, dares not
complain against his landlord or ask of him
more accommodation than he finds, is not to be
held guilty of unpardonable negligence, when it
is discovered that he bears his miseries in
silence. If he desired to move upon his
own behalf in what direction could he look
for efficacious help?

Local authorities more frequently make it
their business to hide than to discover, facts
discreditable to the district over which they
happen to preside. The guardians of Clerkenwell,
the other day, were pilloried by the New
Board of Health, as an example and warning to
the country. They had refused to exercise their
powers for the removal of a most vile nuisance,
established, we suppose, by an influential rate-payer,
of which it was proved that it had
destroyed more than one life in its vicinity;
they had refused as long as they could, to
recognise the existence of cholera in their