The Evening World

"A WORD OF ADVICE"

Although there has been good reason to fear that cases of cholera would be brought to this port by some one of the numerous vessels coming from infected points, the news which we print to-day of the condition of the Moravia will undoubtedly surprise as well as alarm the entire community.

But, while the news is both sudden and unpleasant, there is really no cause for alarm. The infected vessel will not be permitted to endanger the health of New York, and the promptness and completeness with which the Health Department does its work with the Moravia is the very best assurance we could have that it will be able to meet every demand made on it.

There is of course a possibility of danger, but there is nothing to justify needless fear or to lead to anything like panic. There is no cholera in New York, and the prospect is that the cholera will not be permitted to reach the city.

We advise our readers not to give way to unnecessary alarm, but to keep cool and to take good care of their health. The rules laid down by the Board of Health will be found worth heeding, and, above all, exaggerated fears should be avoided.

CLEANLINESS AT HOME.

"Are you doing much to stop the possible introduction of cholera into this country?"

"Everything that we can do and have power to do. We have taken special pains so far as New York is concerned, and I must say of Dr. Jenkins that he is doing noble and intelligent work at quarantine station."

This opinion was expressed by Secretary Rusk in an interview yesterday. It only does justice to Health Officer Jenkins, whose work at Quarantine since the cholera danger was recognized has been marked by intelligence and energy. Indeed, so far as Quarantine is concerned, there does not seem to be much risk of the disease making its entrance into New York through the port.

But we are open to invasion by the back door, and cleanliness, thorough cleanliness at home, is absolutely necessary to prevent the disease from obtaining a sure foothold in the city if it should, unfortunately, make its appearance here.

The streets of the city are unquestionably much better cleaned than formerly, but constant vigilance and unceasing work are needed to keep them so.

The Board of Health should look more sharply than ever into the sanitary condition of the tenement-houses and should exercise the most thorough watchfulness to prevent the violation or neglect of the sanitary laws and regulations. A house to house visit by sanitary experts should be undertaken at once and repeated at intervals during the next three months, in order to make certain that hotbeds for the growth of disease are not suffered to exist anywhere in the city.

It will not do to encourage ourselves by the argument that the hot weather is about over, and that before long the Winter will be here. Only a sharp frost can kill the germs of cholera, and there are three full months at least before us during which we shall be subject to the danger of the disease.

It would be very advisable for the Health Board now to lay aside politics and to reverse the action which drove from the Sanitary Advisory Commission Dr. Jacobi and his associates, the ablest doctors in the city.

Their services at this time would be of inestimable advantage to the public.