Note 27 — Chapter VII

Thus, while writing out these memorandums in August, 1839, I learn that the plague has re-appeared at Jerusalem, Jaffa, and at other places, where, in 1838, a few cases announced its presence. We shall see whether a quarantine establishment will save Syria: I think it will not. The Turkish authorities, when left to themselves, invariably resist the introduction of all quarantine regulations; or, at least, they did so in the beginning of this century: it is only when the preponderance of European influence, backed by orders from their own government, compels submission, that they unwillingly adopt them. But Mahomet Ali and Ibrahim Pasha, when spoken of, are not to be considered as Mahometans. Imbued with Machiavelian principles, gathered from their intercourse with Europeans, they were not slow to see that, in fit hands, a quarantine establishment has little more to do with health than it has with the growth of the sugar-cane, or any extraneous employment. A Lazaretto, as conducted in Piedmont or France, is no more nor less than a fiscal measure and a legalized panoptikon. It is, first of all, subsidiary to the Customs, and next, a most efficient mode for staying travellers, crews of ships, and all manner of moving things entering on a territory, then and there to be enabled in cool despotism to examine letters, pry into men’s business, learn their opinions, destination, &c., and, finally, to tax them in their money and substance, in the most undisguised and complete manner yet invented by designing rulers. Quarantine ought never to exist in a free country, neither ought passports. A town properly built, ventilated, and cleansed, will not foster contagion, and passports do not facilitate the detection of offenders. The plague still visits the Levant, and Pichegru remained undiscovered in France for two years, in spite of all the passports and all the police of Buonaparte, his mortal enemy.