troops have been, peculiarly subject to
consumption."

We do not stop now to point out the
fallacy which lurks under this bit of statistics,
because we remember that we have begun a
sermon, and have not yet said what is the
text. The text is a proposition made by Mr.
Paxton. That most indefatigable gentleman
having obtained the public ear, and merited
no small share of the public confidence, is not
before the public to no purpose. Like a good
gardener, he has cultivated his own mind, and
has fruit of his wits to offer. His scheme of
the glass palace startled us; the thought was
bold, original, but not the less just, as
experience has proved. He now propounds
another of his bold ideas. He tells us that
we go to Rome or Malta for a change of
climate. Why so? Can we not make you Rome
or Malta here? He proposes the erection of
glass buildings, in connection, with establishments
for invalids, which shall contain,
throughout, whatever climate may be fixed
upon. An invalid residing in such an
establishment, might thus pass months or years
continuously in a foreign climate, without
leaving home; we are to have foreign airs
provided for us in our native places. There
is an original boldness and practicability in
this idea, which is quite Paxtonian.

As applied to the sick, and, above all, to
the sick in hospitals, Mr. Paxton's proposition
is unexceptionably sound and good. To
create establishments, each of which shall
contain air regulated into correspondence
with a certain climate, and from which an
invalid may have selected for him that which
he requires, when change of climate has been
recommended, and when travel is beyond his
power or his purse; this we suppose to be
the main part of Mr. Paxton's project.
Covered walks for the healthy are of course
gains to the population, in an island indulged
with frequent rain; but foreign climates, for
a morning walk or after dinner stroll, can do
nothing to sound men except make them sick.
Nothing is more unwarrantable than the
quarrel which we English people carry on
against our climate. We who are born to it,
of English ancestors, are born acclimatized;
and as the Negro or Malay live to fourscore
and ten, in air that slays an European, so
the Englishman would live and thrive in his
own country, though it be pestilential to
the foreigner. But pestilential it is not. It
is protected from the extremes of heat and
cold which characterise the summers and
winters of a continent; it is an equable and
wholesome air. Thanks to our frequent
change from sun to shower, our fields and
copses have a freshness in their green that
does not frequently console the eye upon the
continent of Europe. Uncertainty of climate
begets frequent exercise of ingenuity and
prudence. Who shall say how much of the
energy and self-dependence shown among us
springs directly from, the blessing of a climate
which we are so ready to abuse? There is a
vast deal of want and wretchedness. Our
social system exhibits more extremes than
can be found in the more civilised among our
neighbours. We have causes of disease and
death, distinct from climate, which ought to
raise the mortality in England much above
that in Germany or Belgium. For example:—
Take away our undrained hovels, raise the
fallen classes of our population, educate them,
place them on a level with the lowest of the
Germans, and we might soon have reason to
discover that our climate is peculiarly favourable
to the health of men who eat and live
in due accordance with it. London is
grumbled at, with justice. But will anyone
be good enough to take away from the account
of London air all shortening of life produced
by the late hours at balls and theatres, during
which people excite their. nervous systems in
a foul-air bath? Will anyone subtract the
wear and tear produced by irregular and
unreasonable hours of entrance to and exit from
the bedchamber; irregular and unwholesome
meals, ices, messes, pastry, daily pouring into
London stomachs; subtract mortality and
wasting strength among the tailors, and the
workmen, and workwomen, packed in rooms,
and strained beyond the proper measure
of their elasticity of health; subtract the
destruction dealt by sewerless and miserable
tenements, among the people crammed
in miserable alleys; subtract the
corpses left behind the Juggernaut of Metropolitan Improvements, which sweep away
"low haunts," and build no refuge for
the ghosts of men by whom they have been
haunted;—will any one subtract these and a
long string of other causes of mortality in
London, then look at the returns, and say
how much death would be left to put down
to the score of London air? If Londoners
lived regular and simple lives, we do not think
their air would poison them. The climate of
London is peculiar; paving and drainage,
radiation of heat from stone and brick, make
it much drier than the open country. It is,
on the average, a degree and a half warmer
than the surrounding country; not so hot
during the day, because a veil of smoke impedes
the sun's rays, but during the night warmer:
the winter nights in London are nearly four
degrees warmer than the same nights in the
country. If London were well drained and
Londoners could drink good water, it is probable
that in the matter of climate the advantage
to the population of a more equable,
warmer, and drier air, would counterbalance
the evil of its smoke.

We are not disposed, therefore, to abet any
Englishman who grumbles at the English
climate; our healthy countrymen need no
receptacles of foreign air in which to seek for
wholesome exercise. It is for invalids alone
that artificial climates can be useful; and it is
on behalf of invalids that Mr. Paxton is engaged
to provide, in accordance with his plan,