The above table, with the exception of the figures in block type, is a fac-simile of that produced by Dr. Carpenter on Feb. 3, 1882, to illustrate his lecture to the London Society for the Abolition of Compulsory Vaccination. His table down to the year 1835 is an abstract of Dr. Farr's, cited by Mr. Simon in his "Papers," 1857. The top line 1629-35 was suppressed by Dr. Carpenter, and shows that smallpox was less fatal then than in the decennial period 1801-10. Dr. Carpenter complained that "anti-vaccinators took selected years," and commented on my giving the mortality of each epidemic. MR. P. A. TAYLOR'S BILL. MR. TAYLOR moved in the House of Commons, Feb. 9: "That leave be given to bring in a Bill to repeal the Compulsory Clauses of the Vaccination Acts." On the motion being put, the House divided, the Ayes being 107, and the Noes 58. The tellers for the Ayes were Mr. P. A. Taylor and Mr. Hopwood, and in the majority we note the names of Mr. Childers, Mr. Courtney, Sir C. W. Dilke, Mr. Fawcett, Mr. W. E. Forster, Mr. Gladstone, Mr. H. J. Gladstone, Mr. Goschen, Sir W. Harcourt, the Marquis of Hartington, Sir F. Herschell, Mr. Hibbert, Sir Henry James, Lord Kensington, Sir Wilfrid Lawson, Messrs. Samuel and Arnold Morley, Earl Percy, Mr. W. Rathbone, and Professor Thorold Rogers. The constitution of the minority of 60, inclusive of the tellers, Mr. R. N. Fowler and Mr. Warton, is curious and instructive, and is thus classified :— ENGLISH CONSERVATIVES-30. Sir W. B. Barttelot, West Sussex. The most extraordinary feature in his table is the omission of the decade 1871-80; more especially as the three previous decades he selected from the Registrar-General's Annual Summary of 1880, p. 20, which includes the decade 1871-80. Dr. Carpenter says that the mortality in 1801 to 1810 was halved by Dr. Jenner's vaccination. Moreover, he states that the now normal deathrate from small-pox is 276 per million, suppressing or witholding the death-rate in 1871-80, which was 450, while in 1871 it was 2,430 per million. C. T. PEARCE. Lord Randolph Churchill, Woodstock. LONDON. Table showing the Computed Death-rate of Small-pox prior to 1838, and the actual certified Death-rate since 1838. * These are not in Dr. Carpenter's Table. † Furnished by the Registrar-General to the House of Commons Committee, 1871. NOTE. The figures above the black line-i.e., sively diminished since 1771. The high general prior to the year 1838, were computed by Dr. death-rates of the seventeenth and eighteenth Farr and Dr. Greenhow from the Bills of Mor- centuries were owing to the prevalence of diseases tality for London, and are not reliable. The which are now extinct-black death, sweating figures below the black line are from records faith-sickness, leprosy, scurvy, and plague. When fully given in the reports of the Registrar-General. I have Dr. Farr's authority for saying that the statistics of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are not trustworthy. Mr. Simon does not give the mortality for the half-century between 1679 and 1728-possibly for the reason that there was very little small-pox. Dr. Farr also says that all fevers have progres small-pox is absent, credit is given to vaccination. Dr. Farr very truly says in his report, 1871, "The Compulsory Vaccination Act of 1867 was followed for three years by a period of quiescence of the variolous infection, but it was the quiescence of slumber, and not of extinction." It was not "stamped out." C. T. PEARCE. G. De la Poer Beresford, [D. R. Plunket, Dublin We put it to any impartial observer whether these sixty names can be taken as representative of intelligence and good sense, as against the majority, or whether any cause with which they are identified is likely to prevail. The votes of several of the Home-Rulers merely stand for their policy of obstruction. "We vote," as one of them is reported to have said, "for what is likely to make most mischief." FROM G. F. KOLB, MUNICH, Member Extraordinary of the Royal Statistical Commission of Bavaria. FROM childhood I have been trained to look upon the cow-pox as an absolute and unqualified protective. I have, from my earliest remembrance, believed in it more strongly than in any clerical tenet or ecclesiastical dogma. Open and acknowledged failures did not shake my faith. I attributed them either to the carelessness of the operator or the badness of the lymph. In course of time, the question of vaccine compulsion came before the Reichstag, when a medical friend supplied me with a mass of pro-vaccination statistics, in his opinion conclusive and unanswerable. This awoke the statistician within me. On inspection, I found the figures were delusive; and a closer examination left no shadow of doubt in my mind that the so-called statistical array of proof was a complete failure. My investigations were continued, but with a similar result. For instance, in the Kingdom of Bavaria, into which the cow-pox was introduced in 1807, and where for a long time no one, except the newly-born, escaped vaccination, there were, in the epidemic of 1871, no less than 30,742 cases of small-pox, of whom 29,429 had been vaccinated, as is shown in the documents of the State Department. When, with these stern proofs before us of the inability of vaccination to protect, we reflect upon the undeniable and fearful mischief which the operator so often inflicts upon his victims, the conclusion forces itself upon us, that the State is not entitled either in justice or in reason to put in force an enactment so directly subversive of the great principle of personal right. In this matter State compulsion is, in my opinion, utterly unjustifiable. From Letter to Mr. William Tebb, Jan. 22, 1882. MR. HASKER'S CASE. MR. WALTER HASKER appeared at the Lambeth Police-court on Feb. 9, on an adjourned summons, charging him with neglecting to have his child vaccinated within three months from the date of birth. Mr. Corrie Grant, barrister, appeared for the defence, and Mr. Stevens, Clerk to the Camberwell Guardians, prosecuted. On Mr. Stevens rising to resume the case, Mr. Grant objected, as Mr. Stevens was neither a solicitor nor a barrister. In addition, he had already given evidence in the case; but the objection was overruled. Mr. Stevens then read the correspondence that had taken place with the Local Government Board, from which it appeared that the Board maintains that a prosecution for one child cannot be held to exempt a vaccination-nonconformist from prosecution on the score of subsequent children, but that he must show his sincerity by exhibiting opposition in the case of each separately. Mr. Grant objected that there was no evidence to prove the offence charged, which objection was also overruled. Mr. Grant said he proposed, with the magistrate's permission, to show that the defendant had, in the words of the 29th section, reasonable cause for the neglect to vaccinate. Mr. Ellison asked what the nature of the evi dence was. Mr. Grant replied that one fact he should be able to prove was, that variolous matter was still used as lymph, notwithstanding the prohibition contained in the 32nd section. Another was that dangerous diseases were communicated by vaccine lymph. It had, for instance, been strenuously denied by the Government Vaccinators in past years that any form of syphilis had been or could be communicated by vaccination, but they had now abandoned that contention, as they were unable to fight against such overwhelming testimony as that of the Rivolta cases. No one on the other hand seemed to agree as to the character of the lymph to be used. Mr. Badcock, at Brighton, used lymph got from a calf to which small-pox had been given, Dr. Carpenter had another system, while Dr. Cameron contended that nothing was good except vaccine direct from the calf. Each of these great authorities strenuously contended that the other systems were wrong, and the defendant only differed from them in that while each objected to the other two, he objected to all three as equally dangerous and healthdestructive. Only last week Dr. Andrew Clark, presiding at a meeting on the subject, remarked that there were two sides to the question, and that it must be re-discussed. Figures showed that since vaccination, epidemics of small-pox had greatly extended, and there were more deaths than before, which was a reason why his client should not be convicted pending some decision of Parliament. To punish a man for refusing-in the face of what he believed to be a danger of disease-to have his child vaccinated was contrary to high moral law and a fair construction of constitutional law. He believed this prosecution was taken with a particular desire to press the defendant because he had made himself a leader in this agitation. Mr. Stevens said that was not so. Mr. Ellison intimated that he would hear the evidence, and Mr. Grant then called Dr. Edward Haughton, of Upper Norwood, who testified that he had given special attention to the question of vaccination for the past fifteen years, and had known evil results follow vaccination. Mr. Ellison remarked that after the answer of the Local Government Board, all he had to consider was whether the defendant had proved that he had a reasonable excuse, under the 29th section of the Act, for neglecting to have his child vaccinated. A conscientious objection was not an answer under the 29th section. A man might be put in the witness-box who would say that Christianity was a sham, but it did not follow that it was so. He could not say that the defendant had proved a reasonable excuse, and he must therefore convict him; but having been actuated by conscientious motives, the highest penalty would not be inflicted. The defendant would be fined 7s. 6d., and £1. 1s. costs. It is understood that a case will be taken to one of the higher courts. MR. WHITE will deliver a lecture entitled, "How will you have it? or, with what shall you be vaccinated?" before the Zetetical Society, in their hall, 9, Conduit-street, Regent-steeet, on Wednesday evening, March 8, at 8 o'clock. The lecture will be followed by discussion. Cards of admission may be had from Mr. Wm. Young, 114, Victoria-street, S. W. |