View report page

18
as they have failed to comply with the request of
the Sanitary and Public Health Committee to
cleanse the bed of the Basin during the cold
weather, the Vestry will hold the Company responsible
for the consequences that may ensue in
the hot season by reason of such neglect." The
further proceedings to which this Resolution has
given rise during the present summer will be related
in the next Annual Statement.
Smallpox.
During the recent epidemic of Smallpox in the
Metropolis, the diffusion of the disease in Paddington
has been comparatively limited, and the number
of cases and deaths would doubtless have been
further diminished had it been possible to make
adequate provision for the reception and isolation of
infected persons. The most important prophylactic
means which have been adopted have consisted
in the distribution of Handbills in the streets and
places inhabited by the poor, and in visiting infected
neighbourhoods from house to house, for
the purpose of seeing that the people availed themselves
of the existing facilities for vaccination.
This disease, like every other of a like nature,
having manifested itself principally in the neighbourhood
of the Canal Basin, domiciliary visitation
has been principally confined in the streets
adjoining that quarter, and I have no hesitation in
expressing my belief that the immunity which these