his disease, the people of our plains may one day wage an
unjust war against the sturdy Highlanders or Welsh mountaineers.[10]
Little do the discussers of politics dream of the high interest of
this part of the cholera question, and little can they conceive the
unnecessary afflictions which the doctrine of the contagionists are
calculated to bring on the nation. Let no part of the public suppose for
a moment that this is a question concerning medical men more than it
does them; _all_ are _very_ deeply concerned, the heads of families more
especially so.

[Footnote 9: This is by far the best work yet published in England on
the cholera, but it is to be regretted that the author has not alluded
to the works of gentlemen who have a priority of claim to some of the
opinions he has published: I think that, in particular, Mr. Orton's
book, printed in India, should have been noticed.]

[Footnote 10: Something of this kind would have infallibly taken place,
had certain insane proposals lately made respecting the _shutting in_
of the people of Sunderland, been carried into effect.]

We see that the identity of the European and Indian epidemic cholera is
admitted on all sides; we have abundant proof that whatever can be said
as to the progress of the disease, its anomalies, &c., in the former
country, have been also noted respecting it in the latter; and Dr.
Hawkins, when he put forth his book, had most assuredly abundant
materials upon which to form a rational opinion. It is by no small
effort, therefore, that I can prevent all the respect due to him from
evaporating, when he declares, at page 165, that "the disease in India
was _probably_ communicable from person to person, and that in Europe it
has _undeniably_ proved so." But Dr. Hawkins is a Fellow of the College
of Physicians, and we must not press this point further than to wish
others to recollect that he has told us that he drew up his book in
haste; and, moreover, that he wished to gratify the _curiosity_ of the
public. The Riga story about the hemp and the fifteen labourers I shall
leave in good hands, the British Consul's at that city, who was required
to draw up, for his government, a statement of the progress, &c. of
the cholera there, of which the following is an extract:--

"The fact of non-contagion seems determined, as far as a question can
be so, which must rest solely upon negative evidence. The strongest
possible proof is, the circumstance, that not one of