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5
It is then to such localities that I shall first and especially
direct your attention.
The sanatory measures that I hope to have the honor of laying
before you, and the remedies that I shall feel it my duty to recommend
for your adoption, may, at first sight, appear to be likely to
involve the Board and the Parishes generally in a very large outlay
and expenditure. Now, I am desirous that you should take this
expenditure into your consideration under two principal heads—
first, for the lessening of sickness and mortality; and secondly,
for the relief of Parish rates.
During the last visitations of Cholera, and under the influence
of diseases more particularly occurring in the unhealthy localities
of your District, I have had a painful experience of the vast
expenditure of human life.
The father, the mother, and the heads of families were frequently
carried off after a few hours of the most intense suffering, leaving
their helpless orphans entirely depending on the generosity of the
parishioners. What would have been the result at the present
time had the measures now proposed been carried into execution
previous to the visitation of that pestilence? These children would
still have had their natural guardians to protect them, instead of
being now an expense upon your Parishes; and your rates would
have shown a different aspect, compared with the state in which
they now appear before you. Your heavy rates operate also very
injuriously on your towns generally, and on your tradesmen individually.
Often has the remark been made to me by respectable
people who were desirous of residing in this town—"We cannot
"think of taking a house here, to pay a high rent, high rates and
"taxes, and at the same time be inhaling the smells and noxious
"vapours arising from the filthy places we see in the neighbour"hood;"
at once depriving your towns of a class of persons that
would lessen the rates of your District. To remedy these injurious
operations on your towns, to prevent this large amount of human
suffering, to relieve the vast increase of your poor rates, consequent
on such suffering—I cannot but urge upon you the necessity for at