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22 SANITARY POWERS OF THE COMMISSION.
to me indispensable that you should exert direct
supervision against so serious an evil.
I would recommend to your Honourable Court
that, in issuing orders for the construction of drainage
and water-supply, you should require a full
specification to be delivered you of the works about
to be undertaken, and should distinctly decide as to
their sufficiency; or by a still simpler process, that
you should fix and determine a certain standard of
combined works; a model plan, in short, for housedrainage,
privies, and water-supply, and should
direct your Inspectors to certify to you the sufficiency
of only such works as might accurately correspond
to this design.
I cannot but regard it as a grave calamity, that
the general supply of water to the City remains
beyond your control, in the hands of irresponsible
traders ; for its imperfect adaptation to the requirements
of the public constitute the largest sanitary
evil of the day.
4. You have entire control over the pavement of
every public way within the City, for its construction,
maintenance, and cleansing; and in this
respect you exercise a power of great sanitary
value. The preservation of cleanliness along the
whole extended surface of the City, including its
many hundred courts and alleys, is indeed a branch
of your functions which can hardly be