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14
prefer following reasonable advice and suggestion, rather
than subject themselves to any description of legal process.
INSPECTOR'S RETURN OF NUISANCES REMOVED UNDER HIS
SUPERVISION DURING THE YEAR ENDING
MARCH 25, 1863.
Privies emptied 107
Drains cleansed 121
Privies connected with sewer, panned,
and trapped 167
Cesspools emptied 43
Removal of swine 28
Removal of accumulations of offensive
matter 110
Houses cleansed 43
Total 619
Permit me to draw a few general conclusions with regard
to the facts here submitted. It should never be lost sight
of, that it is less the object of a Sanitary Board to relieve
sufferers from disease, or even to arrest the disease where
established, than it is to nullify the conditions in which
disease can exist. Quarantine laws, the gigantic drainage
of ancient Rome, and the recognition of the essential causes
which occasion the spread of sickness, succeeded the ravages
of plague and pestilence. Thus these scourges of mankind
became, as it were, great public instructors.
That which was true in ancient times is equally true in
our own day. Few persons complain of the activity of
sanitary officers during the prevalence of a severe epidemic,
or profess to regard their labours as useless or inquisitorial