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to the period when the proceedings of the Board of Works
came into operation, that disease was found to greatly
diminish. The increased fatality from Fever during
the past year, however, would seem to point to the possibility
of there being, in the immediate carrying out of
most sanitary measures, especially with regard to the
disposal of sewage, some danger, for a time at least, of
increasing rather than of diminishing malarious influences.
That such is the case, may be inferred from the fact of the
prevalence of a larger amount of Typhus, during the past
year, in those parts of the District in which the great
Intercepting Sewer was in process of construction. There
is the more reason, therefore, whilst this extensive undertaking
is being completed—whilst innumerable cesspools are
being emptied of their contents, and new ground as constantly
opened in all directions, in the formation of tributary
house drains—to exercise the greatest possible caution, to
watch carefully for the earliest indications of the advent of
zymotic disease, and to maintain a thoroughly well-cleansed
condition of the entire District by an efficient and unremitting
system of Scavengering.
After the completion of the Main Drainage, it is confidently
hoped that every house in the District will be
found to possess its own proper drainage, a constant and
liberal supply of water, and to be free from the many other
sanitary defects which now so largely exist in the dwellings
of the poor.
And, finally, the great evil of overcrowding ought to be
prevented to the utmost; inasmuch as it presents, even
when all other sanitary defects may have been remedied,
one of the most favourable conditions for the propagation
and aggravation of infectious diseases.
Any measures, therefore, which may be adopted for the
purpose of affording to the labouring man a more capacious
and healthful class of houses, will be the means of not only
improving his moral and social welfare, but of indirectly
conferring upon the public at large great and lasting benefits.