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166
Report of Her Majesty's Commissioners for enquiring into the
Housing of the Working Classes.
The labours of the Commission have hitherto borne little fruit
—probably because of the disturbed state of the political world,
which takes little heed of questions which concern health and life
merely. The report itself did scant justice to the work of the
sanitary authorities, which, though carried on under pressure of
many difficulties, has had the effect of making London the
cleanest, best paved, best drained, best lighted, safest, and
healthiest of great cities. The outcry against the existing
system of local self-government is largely factitious, being raised
at convenient seasons by those who desire to promote the creation
of a "municipality," against which per se I have nothing to say.
The outcry being for the time useless is now seldom heard.
The present Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, brought in a
Public Health (Metropolis) Bill in the Session of 1885, which, as
a measure for consolidating, with some few useful amendments,
existing scattered statutes, fourteen in number—all bearing more
or less on the question under consideration—would have proved
serviceable. But there was not time to pass the Bill, which,
moreover, is not likely to be reintroduced in the current Session.
The Housing of the Working Classes (England) Act, 1885,
to which I adverted in my last report, is a well-intentioned
measure, which, however, has not bome much fruit hitherto.
Nevertheless it is not without value, containing as it does powers
which, when the times are less out of joint, may be found useful
for promoting some of the objects it was intended to subserve.
WATER SUPPLY.
Professor Frankland's Report.—It being desirable that
your Vestry, as Sanitary Authority, should be well informed on
the subject of water supply, one of great importance in relation
to public health, it has been my custom to summarise the reports
prepared annually by Professor Frankland, for the RegistrarGeneral,
and by the official "Water Examiner," under the