View report page

50
wood, but it is like a tree growing in all parts at once, stem, root,
leaves, keeping a constant and never failing symmetry in its progress.
Any real improvement must be effected by means as wide and varied
as human nature is varied, and not by means confined and stunted
in their action. No great reformation will ever be effected by one
single remedy, no matter what that remedy is. Men who cry up
one drug as a cure for all disease, are guilty of a gross absurdity,
for they forget that disease has many forms, and is brought about
by many causes, and consequently needs many drugs for its relief.
The condition of our lower classes, to the consideration of which
I have devoted much of this report, because it is one of the great
problems of the day, is a disease set a going and intensified by
numberless causes, and hence the sound philanthropist should ever
bear in mind the danger of a single pet scheme which he imagines
is a charmed drug—the cure which will work miracels. The sound
treatment in such a case cannot be sought in any single specific,
good as it may be when combined with other things, be it a licensing
bill, a club, a model lodging house, or a board school.
y
I have to express my satisfaction at the ready and conscientious
manner with which all the Inspectors of the Sanitary Department
have worked during the past year, with the disadvantages which
most have had of being new to their work. They have shown an
activity, a discipline and a willingness to receive instruction which
have overcome, in a great measure, the difficulties that a new work
presents, and in these respects your now senior Inspector, Mr. Pain,
has always been a most excellent example. I cannot help expressing
also my regret at the illness of your old Inspector, Mr. Mayes, whose
personal loss to myself as a man of sound judgment, is as great as
his loss to you as a valuable and conscientious servant. A Sanitary
Inspector's work is not easy. Surrounded by many temptations
and liable without great care, as I know they are, to become tools in
the hands of the unscrupulous to serve their own ends and purposes, I
feel I should not be doing right unless I expressed my strong belief
in the rectitude that marked every thing Mr. Mayes did in his
public career as your officer, and at the same time my conviction