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76 SUGGESTIONS FOR SANITARY ORGANIZATION.
sons, who should give their whole time to the duty
of exploring and reporting on that state, I am persuaded
that this expensive and cumbrous proceeding
would have a smaller measure of success than
that which I submit to you, and which consists
essentially in availing yourselves of the local knowledge
and daily observations of a staff of officers,
already organized and in active occupation for the
very purposes in question.
That such intelligence, embracing weekly returns
from the eleven parochial surgeons of the City of
London, and including their comments on the local
causes of prevailing disease, will involve an annual
expenditure of money,*—and that this expenditure,
sooner or later, and in some form or other, will be
derived from the rate-paying portion of the community,
are facts which cannot be doubted. But
that the expenditure will be a judicious one; that it
is indispensable to the effective working of any
Health-Committee, or any Health-Officer within the
City; that it will be the first step to the mitigation
of the disorders reported on; that it will disclose
evils which else would escape recognition and
remedy; that in a few years it will have rendered
a general mortality of 3 per cent. on the entire
population of the City a matter of history and a
warning, instead of its being, as now, a present and
*When the matter was formerly under consideration of the
Commissioners, it appeared that the expense of such an arrangement
would be about £500 annually.