View report page

48
pose of seeing that previous orders have been
executed; another proportion, repeated at fixed
intervals, simply to ascertain that houses, once
cleansed and repaired, are not relapsing into filth,
nor their works becoming inefficient.
By utilising, on some such plan as this, the
increased staff which you have appointed for the
purpose, and by giving to its execution my continual
superintendence, I trust to be able, from time to
time, to certify you that the City becomes better
and better capable of resisting epidemic invasion.
From such statements as I have set before you, on
the local affinities of disease—not of Cholera alone,
but of typhus and its kindred, you will be prepared
to expect increased sanitary advantage, from this
more systematic suppression of the causes of death:
and I believe you will not be disappointed. Whether
the anticipated pestilence rage in our metropolis
or not, you will be combatting, day by day, the
influence of other malignant diseases. Whenever
it may be in my power to tell you generally
of the City, that the dwellings of the poor are
no longer crowded and stifling; nor their walls
mouldy; nor their yards and cellars unpaved and
sodden; nor their water-supply defective; nor their
drainage stinking; nor their atmosphere hurt by
neighboring nuisances; then, gentlemen, whether
Cholera test your success or not, surely you will
have contributed much to conquer more habitual
enemies. For, whatever there may be specific and