Various

“ Not for the world would I have introduced the Haddons of Haddon here!
'And I am sure I am a great deal more than satisfied, and so will Lilian be; though you must not think she is like me; no, indeed: my darling is quite a lady, like her mother before her. My brother's wife was a beautiful young creature, and as good as she was beautiful. It was said that she had married him for his money; but no one who knew her would believe that. It was a love-match on both sides; and poor Jacob was never the same after her death. ”

“ Trembling with dread, none the less overwhelming from its being in a measure vague, I once more concentrated all my powers upon the act of listening, and was soon informed by my terror-quickened senses that the stairs were again creaking—this time beneath a lighter tread. Then—yes! I was sure of it—a stealthy step was coming down the passage, slowly approaching my room! It paused before the door, and in another instant a wary hand was at work upon the fastener. ”

“ The only impression which had been conveyed to me about Mr Farrar had been that he was rich and liberal. Mr Wentworth had given me no clue to the characters of either father or daughter beyond saying that the former was liberal and the latter sensitive. Liberality seemed to speak for itself; but sensitiveness might or might not be a charm, according to circumstances. A refined, self-depreciative nature is not sensitive from the same cause as is a self-loving one ”

“ Dr B. W. Richardson, a physician and physiologist of eminence, has taken hold of Mr Chadwick's idea, and sketched the plan of a city that shall shew the lowest rate of mortality. No such city—we need hardly say—exists, and he has neither the time nor the means to build one; but his purpose is to shew that it can be done, whenever public opinion is ripe for it.
Dr Richardson, in an Address to the Social Science Association, afterwards published in a separate form, speaks of his Hygeia or City of Health in the present tense, as if it already existed. ”

“ A lady accustomed to the best society, and capable of inducting a young girl into the mysteries (they were mysteries to me) of fashionable life. The only society I had been accustomed to was that to be found in my dear mother's sick-room, and such faded gentility as people who live about in second-class lodgings are likely to meet with. ”

“ The details of the city exist; they have been worked out by the pioneers of sanitary science; I am but as a draughtsman who has drawn out a plan, which you in your wisdom can modify, improve, perfect.' Whether by speculative landowners, architects, and builders, or by social reformers who have no interested or professional motives, a scheme has been brought forward for a City of Health to be called Hygeopolis, somewhere on the Sussex coast ”

“ Underground living-rooms and kitchens there are none; instead of these, every house is built upon arches of brickwork, which form channels of ingress for fresh air, and of egress for all that is required to be got rid of. Running along beneath each main street is a railway for the transport of heavy commodities. All the streets are wide enough to admit plenty of cheerful sunlight and fresh air, and rows of trees are planted between the foot-ways and carriage-ways ”

“ MR MARGARY'S JOURNEY FROM SHANGHAE TO BHAMO.
For a period of nineteen years the western provinces of China, embracing a rich and fertile region of great extent, were the scene of a disastrous civil war. This was terminated in 1874 by the complete subjection of the Mussulman insurgents, and the establishment of the Emperor of China's dominion throughout the Burmese territory. The return of the country to a state of tranquillity afforded the Indian government what seemed to them a good opportunity of reopening a trade-route between India and China through Burmah. ”

“ The information contained in Mr Margary's journal is, as we have said, valuable. The geography of the country, its physical aspect, climate, and scenery; the products and natural resources of the different provinces; the character and habits of the people; the amount of consideration which imperial letters and passports are likely to insure for European travellers in distant parts of China: on all these important points, Mr Margary's journal supplies us with new and exact knowledge. ”

“ The artisan goes away from his home to work, like the lawyer, the merchant, or the banker. There might appear to be some waste of time in this arrangement; but it is more than compensated, in the opinion of the citizens of Hygeia, by comparative immunity from disease: 'It has,' says Dr Richardson, 'been found in our towns generally, that men and women who are engaged in industrial callings, such as tailoring, shoe-making, dressmaking, lace-making, and the like, work at their own homes among their children. That this is a common cause of disease is well understood. ”

“ The current system of large hospitals is abandoned, as being equivalent to 'warehousing diseases on the largest possible scale;' while special hospitals are deemed unnecessary—'as if the different organs could walk out of the body and present themselves for separate treatment.' Each hospital has an ambulance ready to be sent out to bring any injured persons to the institution; the ambulance drives straight into the hospital, where a bed of the same height on silent wheels receives the patient, and conveys him or her to a ward. ”

“ For the same reason huge buildings as workhouses for the destitute would be neither desirable nor necessary; small well-managed establishments, with useful work for all who are not really incapacitated, will be better both for the unfortunates themselves and for the ratepayers of the city. Ablution-baths, swimming-baths, play-grounds, gymnasia, public libraries, public schools, fine-art schools, and lecture-halls, are good and plentiful in Hygeia.
At a distance from the city are the water and gas works, and the sewage-pumping works. ”

“ It is not too much to say that most of the pioneer work of the world has been done by our fellow-countrymen. Whenever a call has seemed to come from some hitherto little known region of the earth, either simply to explore its trackless wilds, or it may be to bring succour to the oppressed, it has very frequently been England that has answered it; and prominent on the noble roll may surely be placed the name of Augustus Raymond Margary.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] A Journey from Shanghae to Bhamo. By Augustus Raymond Margary. London: Macmillan. ”

“ Between China and Burmah there stretches a wild tract of hilly country known as the Kakhyen Hills. These are inhabited by a bold and lawless tribe of people, in travelling among whom Mr Margary had to be very watchful and cautious. He was at this stage of his journey accompanied by a guard of forty Burmese, whose whole assistance he now required. ”

“ Mr Edwin Chadwick, perhaps the chief worker in this laudable direction, is so confident in the eventual success of such endeavours, that he announces the possibility of building a city that shall have any assignable death-rate or annual mortality, from a maximum of fifty or more in a thousand to a minimum of five or less in a thousand. ”

“ To avoid these evils, public laundries are established in the outskirts of Hygeia, each with an extensive drying-ground, and all under sanitary inspection.
There is no one gigantic hospital, nor any hospital for special diseases—with perhaps one or two exceptions. Numerous small hospitals are distributed equidistant throughout the city; each constructed according to the most approved and efficient plan, and surrounded by its own open grounds. ”

“ Scavengers traverse the streets in early morning, and remove all refuse from roads, pavements, yards, and stables in covered vans to the sewage-farm. The public slaughter-houses, at some distance from the city, are under the control of inspectors, who examine all animals before being killed for food; and painless slaughtering, which is now known to be practicable, is adopted. The city cemetery is artificially made of fine carboniferous earth, on which vegetation springs up quickly. ”

“ When placed in some difficult situation, in dealing with the people about him, his tact and good temper never desert him, and his experiences all tend to prove how much further a kindly and sympathetic attitude towards races of different civilisation from our own go than 'treaties, gun-boats, and grape-shot.' Day after day he encountered vexations and crosses of all kinds, both grave and trivial. ”

“ As there is a constant service of water, available to the highest story of every house, the kitchen boiler may be kept constantly filled; hot water from the boiler can be distributed by conducting pipes to the lower rooms, as well as cold water from the tank or cistern—an inestimable advantage, especially in bed-rooms. Every floor or story has a sink for waste water, whereby the carrying of the uncomfortable slop-pail up and down stairs is rendered unnecessary. The scullery, adjoining the kitchen, has an opening to the dust-shaft ”

“ But Europe, in the face of the line Italy is taking, has the right to say, if not that Italy does not wish to eradicate crime, at least that she is very far from being duly impressed with the necessity of doing so, and does not wish it at such cost as is absolutely necessary to pay for it. ”

“ In the model system we have in our mind's eye, these dangers are met by the simple provision of workmen's offices or workrooms.'
Public laundries are a feature in Hygeia. If the washing of a small family is done at home, the housewife knows with what she has to deal; but when 'the washing is put out,' the linen of the family may, for aught she knows, have been mixed before, during, or after the process of washing with the linen from the bed or the body of some sufferer from a contagious malady. Some of the most fatal outbreaks of disease are known to have been communicated in this manner. ”

“ You will find her everything a lady ought to be.'
I was a little dubious upon that point. The idea of Mr Farrar's daughter 'finished,' was rather depressing; and I became somewhat distraite as Mrs Tipper went gently ambling on about Lilian's beauty, Lilian's accomplishments, elegant manners, and so forth. But it presently occurred to me that a 'finished' young lady might possibly be inclined to be critical about the appearance of her chaperon, so I asked the kind little lady to allow me to go to my room. ”

“ The only proper way by which what we seek can be accomplished is by 'direct negotiation with the Chinese government, without concealment or disguise as to what is required, and the real object in view.'
But with the desirability of opening up a commercial highway through China and Burmah, or whether our last attempt to do so was well timed or judiciously planned, it will be seen that Mr Margary had nothing whatever to do. He was appointed to perform a work, and he performed it. ”

“ The lift already spoken of, for conveying provisions and stores to the upper story of the house, is a simple affair: a shaft runs up in the party-wall between two houses, and in this a basket-lift is raised by a rope; while side-openings connect this lift with the middle story or stories. The living-rooms have the open cheerful fireplace which English folks so much prefer to the closed stoves of many continental countries; but at the back of the fire-grate is an air-box communicating by a passage with the open air, and by another opening with the room ”

“ But this is in no way an excuse for the treachery and barbarity to which Mr Margary fell a victim, and for which it is absolutely necessary that reparation should be made.
Moreover, having once made the attempt to open up a highway for foreigners through Central China, it is not advisable that we should give up the endeavour without renewed effort; for this would be to acknowledge defeat, which, since our position in the East is one of prestige, would be most damaging to the British influence among Asiatics. ”

“ The accumulation of mud and dirt in the streets is washed away every day through side-openings into subways, and is with the sewage conveyed to a destination apart from the city; there are neither gratings nor open drains; and there are no 'gutter children,' because there are no gutters for children to paddle and dabble in, and because we may hope that, eventually, 'young Arabs' will disappear from our towns. ”

“ The manner in which Mr Margary was received generally throughout his journey deserves consideration, as shewing the amount of protection and aid which despatches and passports from the Pekin authorities may be expected to secure for a traveller in remote parts of the Chinese empire. Mr Margary's experience varied considerably, but his treatment at the hands of the provincial magistrates and officials was on the whole as favourable as could be expected. By the terms of his despatches, he was entitled to ask two escorts from any magistrate to whom he should apply for such aid. ”

“ On the morning of the 22d the camp was attacked by a large armed force, and it was with great difficulty that the mission managed to make good its retreat back into Burmah. But for the fidelity of the Burmese guard, who, besides resisting all attempts at bribery, fought bravely in defence of the mission, it is probable that Colonel Browne and his party would all have lost their lives. Just previously to the attack upon the mission, letters reached Colonel Browne from Manwyne announcing that Mr Margary had been treacherously and cruelly murdered ”

“ In these regions, the lover of botany fares better than the geological student. The plant-collector is regarded as in some sort a doctor, and accordingly held in respect; while the geologist and his hammer are looked upon with doubt and suspicion.
From Ch'en-yuan-fu, Mr Margary continued his journey by chair. Among the steep mountain passes there was not a little discomfort in this mode of travelling, and sometimes danger. The accommodation with which the traveller had to be content was often of a sufficiently meagre kind. ”

“ At Kwei-chou he was received with much courtesy by the magistrate, 'a brisk old man full of energy and intelligence,' who, on Mr Margary's taking leave of him, did him the honour of conducting him to his chair, bestirring himself in so doing to a much greater extent than many mandarins of far lower rank would have deigned to do. In fact, during the latter portion of his journey Mr Margary was treated with great consideration and civility by all the local authorities, with one or two exceptions only. ”

“ In the living-rooms an oak margin of floor about two feet wide extends round the room; this is kept bright and clean by the old-fashioned beeswax and turpentine, the centre only of the floor being carpeted or otherwise covered. In the bed-rooms twelve hundred cubic feet of space is allowed for each sleeper; and all unnecessary articles of furniture, bedding, and dress are excluded—the use of a bedroom as a lumber-room being a fertile source of weakened health to the inmates. ”