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165
o Vestry Clerks and Surveyors, and to members of
???/estries who serve on Sanitary Committees. But
????vestrymen, as a rule, and still more the general
???mblic, can scarcely be expected to be minutely in???ormed
on the subject; and hence the abstracts of
he Sanitary Acts which have been prepared by the
Local Government Board and distributed among the
Metropolitan Vestries are likely to be of some service.
Anyone hitherto unacquainted with the powers
}f Vestries in regard to sanitary matters, who
peruses these documents carefully, will probably be
struck with the large and extensive powers which
Vestries wield, and will probably be inclined to think
that, possessing such powers, they are deeply to
blame for allowing any such sanitary evils to exist
as have lately been described, or in fact for allowing
the existence of any sanitary evils at all. With
these abstracts before us it is not necessary for me
to enlarge either on the sanitary duties or on the
sanitary powers of Vestries. Indeed, they are unintentionally
magnified in the abstracts by the fact
that difficulties of administration are not referred to
in them, and that important defects in the Acts
themselves, which interfere much with their efficiency,
are ignored or omitted. I purpose, therefore, to call
attention to some of these omissions, and to show