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 Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow 157.: FRENCH NEWS [56] EXAMINER, 15 APR., 1832, P. 250 - The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXIII - Newspaper Writings August 1831 - October 1834 Part II

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Subject Area: Political Theory
Collection: The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill

157.: FRENCH NEWS [56] EXAMINER, 15 APR., 1832, P. 250 - John Stuart Mill, The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXIII - Newspaper Writings August 1831 - October 1834 Part II [1831]

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The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXIII - Newspaper Writings August 1831 - October 1834 Part II, ed. Ann P. Robson and John M. Robson, Introduction by Ann P. Robson and John M. Robson (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1986).

Part of: Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, in 33 vols.

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157.

FRENCH NEWS [56]

EXAMINER, 15 APR., 1832, P. 250

For the entry in Mill’s bibliography, see No. 116. The item, headed “London, April 15, 1832,” is listed as “Article on France” in the Somerville College set, where brackets surround all but the first paragraph1 (before which a bracket has been erased).

the cholera has thus already carried off more than twice as many persons at Paris as have perished by it in London since its commencement. In one day the number of new cases amounted to 1024. We have abundant reason to rejoice that the disease broke out first in our own country. If it were yet to come, no one can think without horror of the alarm which would have been spread by these accounts of its ravages at Paris.

So little is known of the nature of this disease, that it is impossible to pronounce certainly why it has proved peculiarly fatal at Paris, peculiarly mild in London, and all over Great Britain. But we may suspect that the thin and low diet of the working classes at Paris, aggravated by long slackness of employment, has co-operated with their crowded mode of life, and with the bad draining and cleansing of the streets, to generate a predisposition to disease. No one who has ever passed through (to have lived there is impossible) certain quarters of Paris, seldom visited by foreigners—the Marais for example, eastward from the Rue St. Denis—can be astonished that such places should be foci of pestilential maladies.

The most absurd rumours were set afloat in the first few days after the irruption of the disease. Its symptoms were believed to be the result of poisoned provisions; and there seems to be little doubt that some individuals, whether madmen or worse, pretended to put, or did really put, into articles of food and drink, drugs of some kind, but not poison. However, the usual readiness of the French to suspect the most horrible crimes, on less evidence than would be required to make out the most trivial fact, has displayed itself, with even more than its wonted force. No less than five persons were massacred in the streets on suspicion of being poisoners.

The guilt of the murders rests with their perpetrators; but the reproach of credulity rests not with the populace alone. A proclamation by the Prefect of Police,2 which was placarded in the streets afforded so much countenance to the absurd and odious suspicions, that some of the newspapers would not make themselves parties to its probable consequences by inserting it in their columns.

The progress of the disease, which is not sparing the higher classes, and of which M. Périer himself is said to be even now lying ill, is wonderfully accelerating the proceedings of the Chamber of Deputies. Laws are now hurried through with an indecent precipitation, which prevents any resistance to the will of the ministers, except, indeed, where they meditate some real improvement. They had introduced a bill for reducing the enormous bounties on French fisheries;3 a considerable step towards a system of free and equal law, bribing no one branch of industry at the expense of other branches: but this law has not passed without suffering considerable mutilation, at the instance of the deputies for the maritime towns.

The whole of the estimates have been passed,4 and the Chamber is now debating on the Ways and Means.5 This debate, which will necessarily involve all the great questions of taxation, would, probably, have been long and interesting at any other time, but, under present circumstances, it is likely to be summary and insignificant.

We have now, at length, an authentic account of the events at Grenoble.6 The mayor of the town has made a long report to Government, more deeply inculpatory of the authorities than even the enemies of the Ministry had previously surmised. To this report all the members of the Municipal Council have given in their adhesion, except one,7 who abstains on the ground, that, as chief judge of the Cour Royale, he will have to pronounce judicially on the transaction.—We shall return to this subject hereafter.8

[1 ]The paragraph reads: “The number of cases of cholera which have occurred within the walls of Paris is 5,908; of these 2,235 have died. But the official reports of cases, we are assured, are greatly below the truth. A private correspondent assures us, that one street has actually been depopulated by the malady. The great majority of the physicians in Paris do not believe the malady to be contagious. Many attendants at the hospitals have died from the disease, as it is believed, in consequence of fatigue having produced a predisposition to the epidemic.”

[2 ]Henri Joseph Gisquet (1792-1866), Prefect of Paris, Proclamation to the inhabitants of Paris (2 Apr.), Moniteur, 1832, p. 953; see also ibid., p. 973.

[3 ]Enacted as Bull. 79, Nos. 179 and 180 (22 Apr., 1832).

[4 ]On 4 Apr. (Moniteur, 1832, pp. 975-82).

[5 ]Passed after hurried debate on 11 and 12 Apr. (ibid., pp. 1049-54, 1058-62).

[6 ]For details, see Nos. 152, n1, and 154. Mill may be referring to the account in the Constitutionnel, 3 Apr., pp. 2-3, and 4 Apr., pp. 1-2, containing the report of Vincent Rivier (1771-1838), the mayor of Grenoble.

[7 ]Joseph Désiré Félix Faure (1780-1859), a deputy 1828-30 (one of the 221), when he accepted the Presidency of the Cour Royale at Grenoble.

[8 ]This promise was not fulfilled by Mill, except in a reference to the Prefect Duval, in No. 182.