with the coasts of the Caspian Sea. It was not until
1829 that it reached the Russian province of Orenburg, by way of the
river Volga, visiting St. Petersburg and Archangel in June, 1830. Thence
it travelled slowly but steadily westward through Northern Europe, as
well as southward into the valleys of the Danube and its tributaries,
until it made its appearance at Berlin and Hamburg in the summer of
1831. Long before this, and while the reform crisis was in its acutest
stage, the probability of its advent was fully realised in England, and
orders in council were issued in June, 1831, placing in quarantine all
ships coming from the Baltic. Notwithstanding the outcry against
meddling with trade, men of war were appointed to enforce these orders,
and when the news came that Marshal Diebitsch had died of the disease in
Poland, the alarm increased and all regulations against plague were made
applicable to cholera. Whether or not these precautions were
ineffective, it swooped upon Sunderland on October 26, and prevailed
there for two months, though its true character was very unwillingly
recognised.[108]

The conflict between the newly created board of health and the merchants
importing goods caused the government no little perplexity. The protests
of the latter were strengthened by the somewhat remarkable fact that,
once established at Sunderland, the cholera seemed to be arrested in its
course and for a while spread no further. There seemed to be some ground
for the belief that it was partly due to extreme overcrowding and
neglect of all sanitary rules in that town, but this belief was soon
dissipated by its appearance at Newcastle and progress over the
north-eastern counties even during the winter months. Seven cases of it
occurred on the banks of the Thames just below London early in February,
1832, and though its virulence in England was alleged to be less than on
the continent, further experience hardly justified that opinion. The
appalling violence of its first onslaught on some vulnerable districts
may be illustrated by the example of Manchester, where a whole family
just arrived from an infected locality was swept away within twenty-four
hours. The government did its duty by disseminating instructions for its
prevention and treatment among the local authorities, but the prejudices
of the lower orders were against all interference for their benefit, and
scenes of brutality were sometimes enacted such as may still be
w