Cleanliness and Disease.—Under "English Notes," by James Payne, in the Independent of August 9, is an incidental reference to the plague which has been ravaging Hongkong, China, and the dangers of infection. When the plague was raging in London two centuries ago, it is said that at Ramsey, in Huntingdonshire, no less than 400 persons died of the plague, introduced by means of a piece of cloth ordered from London for the making of a gentleman's coat. The disease was brought over in the winter of 1664 in some Levant goods, but was arrested until spring by the severe cold. As the spring opened, the virulence of the disease increased. Houses were shut up in increased numbers, with the fatal red cross over their door, and the piteous inscription, "Lord, have mercy upon us." People who were obliged to go to market took the meat off the hooks with their own hands on their own account and dropped the money into a pan of vinegar on account of the butcher. What is stated as a curious fact is that, although 100,000 persons perished of the plague in London, the parish of St. John the Evangelist, in Watling Street, remained wholly exempt from the infection. It evidently was cleanly. One of the great means for such results is absolute cleanliness.