The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1885-06-13 00:00:00

A CABINET MINISTER OF HEALTH.

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On Saturday evening the second annual dinner of
the Association of Public Sanitary Inspectors took
place at the Holborn Restaurant. Nearly 200 sani-
tary officials, both county and metropolitan, were
present. The president occupied the chair, and with
him were Dr. Cameron, M.P. for Glasgow; Dr.
Alexander Bain, Lord Rector of the University of
Aberdeen; Dr. Richardson, F.R.S , Captain Douglas
Galton, C. 8., Mr. James Beal, Dr. Duafield, Mr.
Jerram, the chairman, and Mr. Legg, the secretary.
Letters were read from the Earl of Shaftesbury and
Earl Fortescue. The toast of the evening,
4' Success to the Association,' was proposed
by Dr. Cameron, who referred to the enormous
strides sanitary science had made of late years,
though no great party chief had yet been
found bold enough to follow in the path of the
late Lord Beaconsfield, and make sanitation a part
of his imperial policy. It was derided at the time as
a "policy of sewage," but the country generally would
have been wiser,. happier, and better had it been
carried out. Mr. Chadwick had done more than any
man living for the improvement of the sanitary con-
dition of the people, and he hoped that in the dis-
tribution of titles that was bound to come with the
death of the present Parliament, the father of
sanitary science in England would not be forgotten.
Mr. Chadwick, in reply, said that whatever honour
might come to him would be wholly devoted to the
work in which he had spent his life. Referring to
the part sanitary science will take in the approaching
general election, he said the object should be to
impress the new constituencies with their para-
mount interest in this subject; with the wasteful-
ness of ignorance, of which the metropolis has pre-
sented so great an example; with economy of true
science, and with the nT;I of legislative securities for
its application in administration. To this end it
would be necessary to bring together the sanitary
functions, now scattered and wrkened and wasted in
different departments under distracted and divided
attentions, and to consolidate them under the un-
divided attention of a Board of Specialists, presided
over by a Cabinet minister of health. The need of
the consolidation of the educational fuirtions, now
i
scattered and weakened and wasted n independent
departments i
,is at length recognised, and t is proposed
to bring them under the undivided attention of a
Minister of Education, but the scheme at present dis-
played imperfect conceptions of administrative organi-
sation in the omission of fundamental provisions for
physical training, such as have been the greatest suc-
cesses of our time, and also in the need of preventive
sanitary inspection.

•
"How are you, Smith ?" asked a Fourth-avenue
man of a friend he had not seen for nearly a year.
'How are all the girls? Aro you as sweet upon Miss
Jones as you used to be?" " Oh, no. I left that off
several months ago." "Have a quarrel ?" "No, I
married her last August."
Dr. Hinchliffe, who died Bishop of Peterborough,
had much ready wit. He was asked orp day what
was to be understood by the expression," He clothed
li!iiinaelf with curses as with a garment ?" The clearest
thing in the world," replied the doctor, "the man had
a habit of imearing:"