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7
I need not trouble your Hon. Court by repeating
former arguments, to shew that your present
death-rate, even though it contrasts favorably with
that of many urban districts, still admits of being .
largely reduced: but glancing at the important
physical changes you have now wrought within the
City, and at their encouraging success, I may express
my confident hope and conviction, that, partly
through arrangements which are already in operation,
and partly through others which will soon
come into effect, you possess the means of increasing
very considerably the salutary results which yet are
only in their dawn.
Habitual and detailed inspection of the poorer
houses in the City, numbering nearly seven thousand,
will indeed still be requisite, even to maintain the
vantage-ground you have gained; for the evils
incident to such dwellings tend to perpetual relapse,
and it is only by incessant vigilance that comparative
wholesomeness can be enforced.
In respect of all that is necessary for this purpose,
I venture to believe that my successor will
find his path the easier for his not being the first
to tread it: not only because the chief difficulty of
applying your Acts of Parliament to the sanitary
improvement of the City has now been overcome,
and legal precedents have been established ; nor