The Express.
London, England, 1865-04-20 00:00:00

THE PUBLIC HEALTH.

REPORT OF THE MIEDICit; OFFICER OF THE
PRIVY COUNCIL.
Tl,;s ut.onlog was issued in a blue book of 532
pages the seventh report of the medical officer of the Privy
Council, Mr. John Simon, comprising an account of the
proceedings which the Lords of the Pei'', Council took
dr -ing the year 1864, together with au appendix containing
various reports of other medical inspectors. The latter re-
ports give an account of the present state of public
vaccination in parts of England which had not been before
impacted. We may state that the quality of the lymph is
reported as being everywhere quite astidectory. Amain the
papers is one by Dr. Hunter, who was employed last year
to inquire as to the hones accommodation of the agricultural
and other labourers of rural districts, examining in different
counties in England as many as 5,375 occupied houses. To
the insufficient quantity and miserable quality of
this acoommodation, almost every page of Dr. Hunten's
report bears testimony ; and the evil, especially
within the last 20 or 30 years, has been very rapidly
increasing. Dr. Hunter describes great owners as escaping
from poor-rates, through the intentional depopulation of the
leads over which they have control, the nearest town or
open village already crowded receiving the evicted labourers.
Among the exceptions to th,s kind of relation between the
large landowner and the labouring population ere men-
tioned the properties of the Dukes of Bedford, Rutland, and
Neworvtle, and of the Marquis of Exeter. While our Poor.
law, however, Mr. S' son says, continues unaltered
in its provisions concerning settlement and chargeability,
each instances must tend to become still rarer and more
exceptional ; "for, practically, any future may be foretold
from the known interests of those who can control it ; and
it would be too much to expect that landowners, es a clue,
should be the voluntary bearers of a re maim while the
law leaves it optional with them to escape." We
remark that it is the common conclusion of competent
observers that even the general badness of the dwellings is
an evil infinitely lees urgent than their mere numerical
insufficiency. Some of the came of overcrowding given in
Dr. Hunter's report are revolting. Mr. Simon seems to
expect much benefit from the Union Chargeability Bill, as
removing in great pert the present strong inducements for
the dislodgment of agricultural labourers from places where
their industry is employed ; but the ulterior question
which he thinks will have to be considered is this—whether
all land which requires labour ought not to be held liable
to the obligation of containing • certain proportion of suit-
able labourers' dwellings.
Bat the alms employed in agriculture is not the only one
to which the above inquiry extended ; the household eir-
cumetanoes of mining and colliery populations fell within
ill scope, es did also the position of that large class of the
rural population which follows the more migratory kinds
of labour. Among these various non-agricultural sections
of the rural population, are reached apparently the lowest
levels at which • so-called house accommodation exists.
"In the mining and colliery dittricts," says Mr.
Simon, "it is frequent that large populations are
gathered together with scarcely more Feriae organ-
isation than if the people were but to be tented
there for a night." The apology made for this seems
to be that mines are oommonly worked on lease, and that
the duration of the lessee's interest is not so long that he
should deem it worth his while to create good accommoda-
tion for his labonrers. Here again Mr. Simon argues that
claims of landlordship are being so used as to do gnat
public wrong. " The landlord in his capacity of mine-
owner invites an industrial colony to labour on his estate,
and then in his asperity of surface-owner males it
impossible that the labourers whom he collects should
find proper lodging where they must live. The beiges
meanwhile has no pecuniary motive for resisting that divi-
sion of the bargain—well-knowing that if its latter condi-
tions be exorbitant the consequences fall not on him ; that
his labourers, on whom they fell, have not education
I enough to know the ulna of their eanitar► rights, that
I neither obscenest lodgings nor foulest drinking water will
be appreciable inducements towards a strike. Accordingly
; for remedying the present state of things—the great desi-
deratum is that no mineowners should be able to dissociate
from one another the two capacities of his landlord•bip."
With regard to the removal of nuisances, the reports of
the inspectors furnish overwhelming proof, in the opioico of
Mr. Simon, that our present law is inauffinient for its
understood purpose. The inaction of local authorities is
commented upon, and Mr. Simon submits certain amend-
ments in the Nulesnces Removal Acts. We may state that
me of these in that it ought no longer to be discretional in a
plies whether it should be kept filthily or sot, and that any
extreme ataitary neglect in ► district should be an evil for
which the Court of Queen's Bench, with its ordinary mai-
; nary of mandamus, could apply a remedy.
I Mr. Simon's report further deals with the inquiry which
was made last year as to the prevalence of parasitic die se
in the nest of the London markets, and with hispectims
made on certain °crevices of local alarm and eomplaias, or
on officially repotted local manes of preventible dilemma