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years or more. By careful and faithful inspection of
houses whenever any sanitary defects are reported or
suspected, and by an insistence on an efficient
remedying of the evil, an insanitary becomes a
sanitary house, and who benefits from that more
than the susceptible infant? Add to this good
water, properly flushed closets, provision of ash bins,
regular removal of refuse, clean and well-kept roads,
etc., and all the inmates (especially is this so amongst
the dwellings for the working classes) live healthier
lives and happier. Members of the Council come
and go, but I have had the supervision of this work
for 30 years and I feel it is my duty to publicly
testify to the great ability, thorough knowledge of
his duties, and unsparing efforts to ensure good
results, shown by Mr. Nesfield, the Sanitary Inspector,
during the last 10 years, and I rightly
attribute the undoubted high and up-to-date sanitary
condition of this district to the efforts of a vigilant
Sanitary Committee, supported by an enlightened
Council, and to their instructions being thoroughly
and properly carried out by a reliable officer.
In connection with a declining birth rate and a
greatly-to-be-feared deterioration of the race, there is
a matter of national importance that everywhere
now-a-days demands attention, and must go hand-inhand
with the hygienic surroundings of the infant,
and that is the method of rearing it.
The crusade against "bottle-fed" infants should
be pushed with the utmost vigour, and mothers
should be encouraged to perform their maternal duties
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