DROWNING: PREVENTION BETTER THAN CURE. Jr is remarkable, as ELIA
observed many years ago in his disser- tation on the discovery of the art of roasting pigs, how slow is the progress of great inventions towards perfection. The history of the Humane Society affords a pat illustration of this truth. No race of men seem to have such an aptitude for drowning as the Londoners. We allude not to those who, having a taste for drown- ing, commit the act with "malice prepense," but to those who, without any particular liking for watery applications either internal or external, somehow or other contrive to get drowned every now and then without any apparent sufficient reason. It is a remark fre- quently made by foreigners and the inhabitants of the provinces, while summing up the annual accidents on the Serpentine and other ornamental sheets of water in the Metropolis, that a Lon- doner contrives to get drowned under circumstances which would render it a sheer impossibility for any other human being. Not- withstanding this has been the state of the matter from time im- memorial, it was not till after the middle of last century that a be- nevolent individual conceived the idea of an institution for the pur- pose of fishing up such persons as might by accident or otherwise fall into the water, and securing the speedy application of means for restoring suspended animation. Some time elapsed before the Humane Society was instituted; and to this day its funds have continued more or less precarious and inadequate to the services it proposes to render. Considering the nature and extent of the support it has experienced, it is wonder- ful bow much this benevolent body has effected. It is with a due sense of its merits that we humbly beg leave to submit to the judgment of its members, that in drowning, as in many other things, prevention, where possible, is better than cure. As long as there are skaters and bathers, it will be impossible altogether to prevent accidental drownings ; but their frequency in London at least may be diminished—independently of ice-boats, drags, medallists, and Newfoundland dogs, with their portraits painted by LANDSEER as an encouragement to their species—by the very simple process of filling up the more dangerous parts of the Serpentine and the ornamental water in the Regent's and St. James's Parks. A medium depth of four feet water, we are assured, is not only suffi- cient to keep these canals in a condition to serve all the purposes of ornament, but would greatly facilitate the extirpation of those aqueous weeds which so much mar their beauty during summer. By giving these sheets of water a uniform depth of four feet, earlier and stronger sheets of ice would be insured in winter. In this way the Woods and Forests could, by a very slender outlay, increase the amenity of the Parks for the general inhabitants of London, and at the same time contribute materially towards diminishing the amount of fatal accidents in skating or bathing. A motion to this effect was made in the House of Commons by Mr. RENNIE, on Tuesday ; but rejected, because the Chancellor of the Exchequer remembered "that in the early period of his life great efforts had been made to deepen the Serpentine,"—i. e. because a blunder having once been made, consistency requires that it should be perpetuated.
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