View report page

22
the public health and general well being of the community
must be disastrous. How is the atmosphere, or
rather the compound of vapours and smoke which
represent it, to become purified? The early morning
atmosphere of London is now tolerably clear and pure,
the smoke (which ought to be more consumed) and
other impurities having managed to escape, but to be
presently again re-placed by a similar almost unbreatliable
atmosphere. Under such circumstances, it is
impossible to obtain a sufficient supply of pure air for
the due maintenance of health. Hence the pressing
necessity for legislative interference in the question of
Metropolitan Building Extension—not, of course, to
limit, but to regulate building of dwellings. For
instance, it might be enacted that no more houses
should be erected within two miles of the present
inhabited circumference of the Metropolis, the circle
to be defined and modified according to circumstances.
In this way a great circular lung or reservoir of air
would be secured to the half stifled people. It is quite
plain that some such course must eventually be adopted,
enforced, probably, by the gradual degeneracy of the
multitudes who are compelled to exist permanently
under such devitalizing conditions.
Provision is made in the Sanitary Acts to prevent
overcrowding of human beings in the interior of houses,
on account of the danger to health, in an insufficient
supply of air. The same principle and effect would
apply and result from overcrowding houses themselves
for habitation upon a given area. This is probably the
most important of all questions relating to the public
health. A plentiful supply of air, light, and means of
recreation, would do more to resist and suppress disease
than all other sanitary measures combined.
For these reasons, the recently expressed adverse
views of the present Government, with regard to