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47
the most pressing sanitary need of London was so long practically
shelved. The fact that other more attractive schemes—schemes
which perhaps appealed more to the general mass of their critics—
were meanwhile dealt with, may in some measure explain their neglect,
but it does not justify it.
Supposing that in one of the Metropolitan Boroughs the sanitary
requirements of the people were so neglected by the local authority
that numbers of the residents were compelled to live in dwellings at
times flooded with sewage, and that the remedy lay with the sanitary
authority, I am confident that the sanitary authority would at once
recognise the gravity of the situation and deal with it promptly and at
all costs; but if for argument we assume that the local authority
were in default, they would have the London County Council pressing
for the necessary improvements. The defaulting authority in this
matter has been the London County Council, and many of us who
have at times been urged by that body to greater energy in prosecuting
public health measures of relatively little importance compared to the
one under discussion, have felt disposed to adopt the biblical
rejoinder that they should first remove the beam which is in their
own eye.
I for one would have preferred to have seen this great sanitary
need of London given precedence over many improvement and rehousing
schemes undertaken by the Council, which have furnished
very modest results having regard to their costliness.
If it is not a matter of the first importance to keep sewage and
sewage gases out of dwellings, then I do not know what is. It is the
first principle of all our sanitary teaching, and it is the greatest lesson
of all our public health experience. The stringent bye-laws of the
London County Council are very largely designed to guard against
this great danger, and the people have been educated to appreciate it.
The present Main Drainage System was constructed to serve a
population of 3,450,000 with an average water supply of 31¼ gallons
per head, whereas it now serves 36 per cent. more persons with a water