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sanction of the magistrates in Surrey, in destroying
a quantity of useful property in these parishes.
Your notice has been called to these cases as I had
been employed to examine the condemned premises.
The property thus sacrificed had been grossly
neglected by the landlord, who, against the provisions
of the Sanitary Act, had allowed it to become
dirty, neglected, and overcrowded. If such property
were condemned in all other parts of London, it
would involve the destruction of half the metropolis,
including the unsanitary homes of the rich as well
as the poor. If we would avoid the poor turning
round, and legislating on these principles for the
rich, we should take care that the reduction of rates
and the getting rid of the poor are not the motives
for driving the poor from their homes.
Zymotic Disease.
This group of diseases is always the most interesting,
because there is a well grounded opinion
that they are preventible. That they are not prevented
is not so much the fault of the law and the
authorities as the apathy and ignorance of the
public. These diseases are all of them capable of
spreading from one person to another, or are generated
by agencies external to the human body. The
public generally, however, believe that most of these
diseases, as measles, scarlet fever, and hooping
cough must be taken once in a life, and the sooner
children have them the better. Hence the difficulty
of getting any one to take precautions. People fly
from the bedside of infected persons and go to their