The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1871-08-19 00:00:00

MR. SIMON'S REPORT ON THE PUBLIC
HEALTH.

The following is the concluding portion of Mr.
Shnon's rep ott to the Privy Coudicil on the public
health, which "has just been isstyal :

• -
At the present date, when according bi statute the depart-
mental proceedings 44 P.,","0 must be reported to your lord-
ships, the proceedings from liv i 0 glay are such os ti leave
little opportunity for retrosp,ct. An epidemic of 31.11-pox, I
greatly more severe thm any in the last thirty years, is pre-
Vailolg throughout this limtropolis while at the Slime Utile,!
n virtue of an engagement 1111010 in the lust session of Pa,
liament, a gelect Committee of the House of Commons, ap-
pointed for the pinpose, is tubing evidence at to the work-
ing of the Vaccination Act if len7, and no to the value of
various objeetions which have been agitated againd the
practice of vaccination. These exeeptiomil circumstances,
h hue large daily chd ins which they 14 COlll3O make on the
stall id this department, forbid illy dealing in the present
ri with ally subject-matter which can properly be pOst-
polled. And having above laid before your lordships,
as the statute requires, my summary of the work of
Is7o, I find only one further matter which ill my opinion
is at mice so importont and so urgent that even now
I must submit it for your consideration. I refer,
namely, to the extremely unsatisfactory state of the
laws which concern the g,encial sanitary adminidration
of the cuatiticy a subj,et, concerning which I two years ago
submitted the chief facts to your lonlships, mid on which
the Royal Sanitary 12OMIllielS1011 has recently made its final
report. I would beg leave bi represent to your lordships
that the meinanded State of those laws, especially as regards
the constitution of local authorities and the powers which
they ought to have and exercise for the prevention of
disease, is not only an extreme difficulty and discouragement
tel persons emaged in sanitary administration, but :ilso
in-
voles-s a large laid constantly increasing waste of human life;
mei that since the resources which might be utilized for the
better protection of life are also wills the progress or know-
ledge constantly illerVaSilig, so, almost month by month, the
contrast becomes more mot 1110 re glaring, between the lade
which is it, and the very much which with amended law
might be done, to reform the sanitary circumstances of the
masses of 011 r I0T1.11:01011. I believe that your lordships will
decin this matter to be, in various points of view, deserviug
of the partientir justice of Parliament. In the first place,
there Is the largeness of the continuing waste of human
life. It scents certain that the deaths which occur in this
country are fully a third more numerous than they would
be if tur existing knovvledge of the chief causes 44 disease
were ream pliably well applied Um mahout the country that,
of deaths which ill this sense may he called preventable, the
average yearly number in England ant Wales is now about
120,000 Cand that of the P.!9,600 cases 44 preventable suffer-
ing which thus in every year attain their final place in the
death register, each unit rcpresen ot% a larger r smaller
grOUP 'if .utlivr, cases in which preventable disease, not ending
iii death, though often of far-reaching ill effects on life, his
bcon watered. And while these vast quantities of needless
animal suffering, if regarded merely as such, would he matter
, for indignant Inman protest, it further has to be room-
tiered, as of legislative concern, that the physical strength of
! ft people is an essential anti main fat:l,r of national pros-
perity ; that disease, so far as it affects the workers of the
I population, is in direct antagonism to industry I and that
disease which affects the growing anti reproductive parts of a
population must also in part be regarded as tending to deterio-
rathm of the race. Then, any Lords, that is the fact that this
terrible continuing tax on human life and welfare falls with
. . . .

immense over-proportion upon the most helpless classes of
the community: upon the poor, the ignorant, the sulmrdinate,
the immatum : upon classes, which in great part through
want of knowledge, and in great part because of their de-
pendent posiflon, cannot effectually remonstrate for them-
selves against the miseries thus brought upon them, and have
in this circumstance the strongest of all claims on a Legisla-
ture which can justly measure, and call abate, their suffer-
ings. There are also 501110 indirect relations of the subject
which seems to me scarcely less important than the direct.
Fri., where that grevious excess of physical sidfering is bred,
hart: Parts of the same soil yield, sb le by side with it. equal
evils of another kind ; and your Lorlships will oft‘u have
seen illustrated hi my reports, that, in some of the largest
regions of insanitary inilnence, civilisation and morals stiffer
almost equally with health.

NO CONJUROR'S CONJECTURE.
coold meteoric Stone,
rray, Sir 'William Thomson,
Fall, with lichen ont, own ?
Say, Sir William Thomson.
Front Its orbit haring shot,
Would it, coming down red-hot,
liareall.life burnt oil it not?
Eh, Sir William Thomson?
• Not? Then showers of fish and frogs
Too, Sir William Thomson
Fall; it might min cats and dogs.
Pooh, Sir William Thomson !
That they It come down we're told.
As for at4.olite with mould,
That's at least too hot to hold
True, Sir William Thomson !--Peseft.