SANDGATE, AS A RESIDENCE FOR INVALIDS. CHAPTER I. PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. WHEN SO many localities have been selected in accordance with tradition, or have been favoured by a species of prescription, along our southern coast, as resorts for the invalid, it requires some confidence to endeavour to add to the list, and to point to one more spot where nature may be relied on as a kind help-mate to the physician in checking the progress of disease, in recruiting a shattered constitution, and in restoring the exhausted energies of mind and body. It is true that the fame of many of these watering places has died away: dependent on the caprices of fashion and the vogue of the hour rather than on intrinsic merit of any kind beyond the possession of some saline or chalybeate spring, they have been left high and dry aground, while the stream of tourists, valetudinarians, dyspeptics and hypochondriacs, flowed on to new channels. B 2 PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. I might, therefore, without incurring the charge of great presumption, attempt to attract some of this shifting crowd to the place of which I am about to write, but I do not desire to enter into any competition with kindred situations on the shores of the channel, and am desirous merely of pointing out to those menaced by the approach of disease, suffering from its earlier visitations, or recovering from its ravages, where they can find air as pure and as genial, conditions as favourable to health, and charms of scenery and advantages of situation as great as they can discover in any of those esteemed retreats, while, in some respects, there are, as I shall endeavour to point out, peculiar reasons why many persons should select the quiet yet cheerful village of Sandgate for their summer and autumnal residence. It may be taken as matter of fact, that the mineral watering places have had their day. Old ladies and gentlemen who love whist, and scandal, and Bathchairs, will not, it is true, desert the springs of Prince Bladud. There are still many who resort (and with reason) to Harrowgate, Cheltenham, Tunbridge and Scarborough, but it is not the less certain that physicians, now-a-days, look with greater favour on the influence of climate than on those natural alembics which were once thought to distil health and strength as fast as they flowed. Much of the reputation of these springs was attributable to the fact that change of scene, regular hours, gentle exercise, proper diet, society, and fresh air, produced their usual effect on the refugees PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 3 who crawled down there, enfeebled and languid, from the metropolis and from the round of balls, routes, operas, and the gaming-tables. Physiology, pathology, and chemistry have now probed this reputation to the bottom, and have found out whence the benefit was really derivable. We have discovered that the magical effect of a warm, light atmosphere, in a sheltered situation by the sea side, is owing to certain natural laws, which can be tested at all times, and we can now, from our knowledge of the barometrical and thermometrical state of any locale, predict with certainty, whether it is suited or not to any one of the various types of disease. Why should a patient with phthisis come to the south coast instead of going to Hampstead or Dulwich? For a simple reason. The cure of such a patient depends much on a mild temperature, on a well oxygenated, light, and changing atmosphere, and on a proper distribution of caloric in the air, so that violent transitions from heat to cold are not of constant occurrence. The mean annual temperature of London is 50° 39', that of its environs to the east and south, each being 49° 9'-to the north, south and south-west, a little higher. If, as Sir J. Clarke in his admirable work on Climate has observed, we were to rest contented with looking merely to the mean annual temperature, we should find very little differ rence between London and the south coast, but, on examining the details of the thermometer and barometer, we find there is a remarkable difference between the two places. We find that the south coast is not so cold in winter nor so hot in summer as the vicinity of the metropolis, and, above all, that the temperature of the nights on the coast is considerably higher than that of London, and the temperature of the latter has been proved, by Mr. Luke Howard, to be no less than 3° 9 higher than the temperature of the country around. The minimum of the south coast temperature varies from 3° to 4° above that of London, and in the hot months the temperature is less by about 1° to 1° 30' than that of the interior, the fervour of the sun in June, July, and August being tempered by the cooling breezes which sweep from the plains of France over the waters of the Channel. The instinct of man, indeed, at a very early age, led him to think there was some secret source of healthfulness in the neighbourhood of the sea, nor was it, perhaps, without some subtle sense of this, in addition to the joy of returning to their native land, that the Grecian Ten Thousand broke into a thundering shout of "The Sea! The Sea !" when they beheld its waters in the distance. The debauchees of Rome found at Baiæ or Procida, a medicine for bodies and minds. alike diseased; and even the breezes which fanned the "stagnant" Mediterranean were found to be fraught with health-réstoring powers. I shall now give my readers a description of Sandgate, stating its natural and artificial advantages, without colour or exaggeration. Some half century ago the curious traveller who wandered westward along the cliffs of Dover, after a walk of eight miles or so, might have looked down on an ancient castle on the beach below-a building slip, and some three or four houses in a cluster near it. This was all of which the pleasant village of Sandgate then consisted. It is now a thriving town, and, in the short space of fifty years, streets, or rather rows of elegant villas, detached mansions, and comfortable dwellings, have sprung up under the shelter of the cliffs, so that the sea laves their garden walls and breaks on the very road-side. Shops, provided with all the luxuries of London, are numerous. The means of living and enjoyment are cheap and abundant, and opportunities for healthful recreation, of walking, riding, driving, boating, and bathing—of botanizing, of indulging in the pursuits of Natural history, and of studying geology, are to be had freely by those who desire or need them. The town, as I have said, lies stretching along the beach, the main street being a continuation of the road from Folkstone, from which place it is distant about two miles. It is sixty-eight miles southeast of London, and eight miles west of Dover. It is easily accessible from the Folkstone terminus, and flys and omnibusses are always in readiness to transport the visitor at a trifling charge by the noble road which passes under the Cliffs to the town. The locality has been found so delightful that the chain of detached villas, from Folkstone to Sandgate, is but little broken, though pleasant meads and lawns rise |