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contention is ridiculous and frivolous. I would not, however, have
mentioned this matter, but that I have noticed a similar disposition
amongst a few Islingtonians and Vestrymen, and, therefore,
I venture to remind them that there exists such a dreadful disease as
Diphtheria, which in the first quarter of last year, in one district,
destroyed nearly one out of every two (42.1 per cent.) persons whom
it attacked; and also to inform them that sewer gas, apart altogether
from the debateable question of its being able to convey the germ
of the disease into a house, renders human beings, chiefly children,
by lowering their vitality, by debilitating their constitutions, and by
producing a morbid condition of the throat, especially liable to fall a
victim to the disease, if by chance they are brought into contact
with it.
It is, therefore, no wonder, living, as Londoners do, in houses which
are indifferently drained, into which sewer gas obtains an entrance, that
when the disease gains an admittance it spreads rapidly and results
fatally to so many.
While such a disease as this is possible in Islington, I much mistake
the feelings of the Vestry whom I serve, or of the Public Health Committee
to whom is delegated the responsibility of administering the
Public Health Acts, if they will abate any of their demands on propertyowners
to put t heir houses in a thoroughly sanitary condition, or if they
will at all slacken their efforts, now that they have taken up sanitation
in an earnest spirit, not only to keep the district in its general
healthy condition, but also to make it more salubrious, if that be possible
—and it is—in so large a community.