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in our first line of defence. As regards the Metropolis, we were,
probably, never so well prepared against a danger the gravity of
which no one pretends to undervalue; for, as I have shewn in
former reports, should cholera threaten to invade us, the Local
Government Board would instantly call into operation the several
Diseases Prevention Acts. Thereupon a complete system of
hospital accommodation would be provided—by the Metropolitan
Asylums Board in the first instance—while the Local Authorities,
Vestries and District Boards, would be armed with power to provide
subsidiary hospitals, as well as refuges for the healthy, taken
from infected houses. By medical visitation of their several
districts, moreover, and by provision of medicine, &c., in cases
of diarrhoea, the Local Authorities would be enabled to do all that
the requirements of the emergency dictate, and so complete the
second line of defence for the security of our vast population.
HYDROPHOBIA.
Much alarm was caused throughout the Metropolis by an
unusual prevalence, in 1884, of hydrophobia, which led to publication,
by the Chief Commissioner of Police, of an order for the
muzzling of dogs when allowed to go at large, or not led so as to
be "under proper control." At the end of 1885 this muzzling
order was withdrawn, and dogs were allowed to go free as usual.
During the time that the order was in force, wandering dogs were
seized by the police and destroyed if not owned. Many thousands
were so destroyed. A new "Order in Council," dealing with the
subject and known as "The Rabies Order, 1886," has been issued.
It transfers the duty of preventing the spread of Rabies from the
police to the " ocal authority," under the Contagious Diseases
(Animals) Act, 1878—the authority for London, except the City,
being the Metropolitan Board of Works, whose half-dozen of
inspectors will have, in addition to their other multifarious duties,
to see to the due carrying out of such regulations as the Board
may think fit to frame. The Board cannot be accused of unwillingness
to undertake any duty cast upon them by the Legislature, but