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CONCLUSION.
39
authority of your Act, to thin the court-population
of the City, and to diminish the too dense array of
houses inhabited by the poor.
As I look to the poor-rates of the City of London,
as well as to the other circumstances just adverted
to, I feel the deepest conviction that property, no
less than life, is interested in the progress of sanitary
reform: and once again, most earnestly, I beg
leave to congratulate your Honourable Court on the
acquisition of powers, conferring on you the inestimable
privilege of doing so much good for those
whom you represent, and for the often unrepresented
poor; of relieving so much suffering; of
prolonging so much life.
That much improvement remains to be accomplished
within your province, is a certainty which
I have endeavoured here, as on former occasions,
plainly to set before you.
But I cannot close my Report without adverting
to the feet, that both within and around the City,
there are sanitary evils for which you are not
responsible—evils beyond your control—powerful
causes of disease in hourly operation; and that
these are so extensive in their agency, as to neutralize
much of the good which it lies in your
competence to effect.
The mere fact, that for the Metropolis generally
there is hitherto no sanitary law, such as you possess
for your territory, is an evil to you. When, at the
commencement of next year, you will be proceeding