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ago is found in the absence of a damp course, so
that in spite of concrete and dry areas a certain
amount of dampness arises from the earth through
the porous brickwork.
I have to congratulate the Corporation on the
purchase of a piece of land on which it will be
possible to build an isolation hospital. This hospital
is urgently needed by all classes of the community.
Cases have arisen during the last year in business
premises which entailed great expense on individuals,
whose misfortune was probably due to ignorance or
carelessness on the part of other member of the
community. It must also be remembered that
infection in houses of business is always a greater
source of danger to the rest of the community,
through the enormously increased social intercourse
giving numerous facilities for the spread of the
infection. Several members of the working classes
have also been put to great inconvenience, and even
loss of employment, owing to occurrence of infectious
disease in their families or that of their lodgers.
Persons engaged in businesses dealing with provisions
(milk, bread, &c.), stuff goods of all sorts,
conveyances, or in offices, are obliged to cease work
when infection breaks out in the household, unless
there is some means of isolating the sick ; and this
means of domestic isolation is entirely absent in
three-fourths of the houses in this town. I am aware
that great pressure is exerted by ratepayers against
increased expenditure, but I think that in this connection
the weighty words of Sir Albert Rollit, M P.,
are well worth recording.
Reference to rates demands one word of warning, and, as I
venture to think, of wisdom. Too high rates may create re-action,
and accumulated public debt may have even worse consequences.
Economy is, therefore, the highest prudence; but, in some things,
and chiefly in matters of health, parsimony is not economy. The
expense of epidemics is not to be counted as against the