Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1884-08-16
SANITARY REFORM.

one Of the City Trustees vouches for the
accuracy of the statement that taxpaying
and influential citizens, at least men whom
he considered it worth while to listen to,
have protested to him against any munici-
pal expenditures in the prosecution ofpub-
lie sanitary measures. Or, in plain Eng
fish. there are some few citizens of Sacra-
mento who oppose cleanliness of the city.
It is inconccivable that any suck in this
day Of light. intelligence and general in
formation can exist but we are forced to
admit il. Sill we know the number to be
few. But it is difficult 10 estimate such
men truly. Are they ignorant or seltishly
cruel and reckless? 1t would be charitable
to conclude that their opposition arises out
of ignorance. They may believe that the
necessity does not exist for sanitary reform,
but in that they confess their ignorance of
the facts. We tell them plainly, as this
journal did long ago, that evidences just as
strong and clear as any proving that George
Washington ever lived, or that there ever
was a visitation of cholera az Chicago and
New Orleans. are adducihlc to establish
beyond question or doubt theory or specu-
lation, JEat the soil OF the city has about
fulfilled its Office as an oxydizing agent,
and that TO continue to Saturateit with foul
matter is to insure, with perfect certainty,
q terrible punishment; that many such ex-
amp!cs of cause and effect are on record and
that the opposition to municipal action in
the way of public sanitation Is nothing less
than morally criminal aud murdcrous.
There are no other or uilder terms to be
applied The whole scientific world Is
agreed; the physicians of all nations and
climcs are unit; the sanitarians and
health officials of all countries are united
upon the proposition that typhoid fever,
scarlet fever, yellow fever, malarial feyers,
and cholera and the like, result from filth
and soii-poisoning. The air is never
poisoned that Is impossible; all noxiou-
vapors Imaginable may be discharged
into it, and it will take care OF
them, and resolve them in time into
harmlcssncss. But cxhalatious Of the soil
and from matter 90 its surface or in it, will
be borne in the atmosphere and held in it,
and transmitted by it and do deadly work
When, therefore, we purify the soil, we d,
the whole work In 1882, the popu
lation OF New Orleans was 5000
Cholera appeared, and swept of l4710 pc
1000 of all that people, or over 5000 out c
$1,000 remaining, for 10000 people fed Sly
thousand died within twenty days, and III,
dead accumulated in unburied heaps, putri
flying beneath the sun. The President o
the Board Of Health Of New Orleans, say,
concerning the cause With the accus
toned ignorance indifference and incom
potency Of the civil authorities Of New Or
leans, the cholera found this city in filthy
condition: cutters reeking in filth, tn,
streets quagmires of mud and filth, tn,
houses built upon low, ill-drained sites, tn,
privies overlooking with urine and excre
ment; the drainage canals broken tho
cemetery located i'll the heart of the city
badly constructed. badly drained ans
crowded with corpscS.' Now let oppo
nents of sanitary reform mark just as i'm
proved drainage and publication has pro
gressed in New Orleans, so has mortality
ccreased In 1870 some improvement