It appears that a great part of the land of your parish is common, and that a portion of the population borders upon the common. What is the state of that population as compared with that which is too far removed from the commons to enjoy any of their privileges?—The persons who live in the immediate neighbourhood of the commons are evidently much poorer than those who live at a distance.

To what do you attribute this?—I attribute it to their depending upon a precarious and uncertain income; and I am sure, from all the observation I have been able to make, that a poor man’s best subsistence will always depend upon constant work and good wages, and that he never works for so bad a master as when he works for himself. And all employments, such as attending sheep, geese, &c., besides the precarious nature of the return made by them, usually impair his habits of steady and patient industry, and frequently give him a turn for poaching and pilfering, and engender other irregular and demoralizing habits.

But may not the children of the cottager, while he is engaged in steady and patient industry, be usefully and profitably employed in taking care of a pig or geese on the common?—No. The reason which applies against the father doing so, namely, the bad desultory habits engendered, applies with greater force against the children doing so. If they are old enough to be able to attend to these things, they are usually old enough to be employed in some rural occupation for which wages would be earned. Many mistakes are prevalent with respect to the profits from keeping cows, sheep, geese, pigs, &c., for I do not believe that any of these are really profitable; and though I am glad to see a pig as an appendage to a cottage (if the cottager’s employer has no reason to be sorry), because the pig serves as a sort of savings bank to the labourer; for if the labourer had not the animal, he would not put by, and out of his reach, from day to day, the money which the pig costs him in fatting; yet it is notorious that a labouring man pays more dearly for his bacon than he would do if he purchased it ready prepared to his hand.^[54] Nor would he be the better clothed or cheaper shod if he took the operation of the Manchester weaver or the Nottingham shoemaker into his own hands.

But may not a labourer attend to the management of pigs or cows after the hours of work?—I think not, because a good labourer usually works by the great, and has done as much as his strength will allow when he returns home; and because nothing is gained by feeding cattle upon commons, where the cattle have nothing else to depend upon. The very worst master a poor man can work for is himself.

You say that the reason which applies against the father attending to pigs, geese, &c., on commons, applies equally against the children being so, i. e., the idle habits engendered; and that if they are old enough to be able to attend to these things, they are usually old enough to be employed in some rural occupation, for which wages would be earned. Now would not the children be employed by farmers in the same sort of labour, namely, in looking after cattle; and if so, why is it that the care of cattle on the common for the other is worse or more demoralizing than the care of the same sort of things for the farmer?—I conceive that I have answered this question before. If a farmer sends his pigs or other cattle into open fields or commons, and requires the assistance of a child to watch them, they are turned out only for a change, but are never in this part of the country kept upon the commons.

Do you think allotments of land to the labourer beneficial; and if so, what quantity may be usefully occupied by him?—I do not think allotments of land to the poor beneficial. I had rather see the allotments gathered into one large one, a farm, and the labouring man employed at good wages, by a superintendent managing the whole at his own risk and for his own interest, in the share to which his undivided and greater attention and anxiety justly entitle him, that is, by a thriving farmer. The poor man must be a poor master, and he had better serve a rich one.

What do you believe would be the consequence of too large allotments of land being made to the labourers?—That the poor man could not cultivate it. The wealth of his employer is the poor man’s safeguard against want. I approve of the practice of a benevolent farmer in my parish, who is accustomed to give to his labourers a headland of his field as a bonus to industry. He says he will make it worth the while of his labourers to be honest and diligent towards him, by letting them feel that they will have a suitable return from him. If what are called “ample allotments” are given, it appears to me to be a sort of wholesale almsgiving, attended with more than the usual mischiefs attendant upon most almsgiving. The orchard and garden before me might, if cut up into allotments, serve for six families of young labourers. It may be all very well to say, “Take these, my good men, and be happy;” but when, in the progress of population, there arises four times six families to be fed from the same soil, where will then be the happiness of the allotments? What, I submit, are small farms but ample allotments, and what, when stripped of romance, is found by experience to be the superior condition and power of production of the small farmers? Are they not, even where they farm their own lands, almost universally failing (like the small manufacturers against the large ones) in competition before the more scientific management, economy of labour, and more powerful application of capital of the large farmer. What is all Ireland but a country of cottage allotments; and what is there in that theatre of disorder and wretchedness that should induce the benevolent (or those who may have in their eyes the immediate temptation of Irish rents) to make trial of any such system in England? Are the cottiers who possess the fee-simple, the small freeholders of Ireland, in a superior condition by virtue of their allotments?—Many of the promoters of allotments doubtless intend well, and act upon the evidence of immediate benefits and satisfaction derived from them; so, probably, did the original promoters of the bread-money, scales, and the allowance system, labour rates, and the train of corrupting palliatives?

Have you had an opportunity of observing experiments in what is termed spade husbandry?—I have never seen spade husbandry; but I should wish to see it universally adopted, if the adoption of it would add wealth to the farmer, for in that case it could not fail to benefit the labourer.

It is said that farmers ought to take the single agricultural labourers into their houses, and preside at the labourers’ tables as formerly; what is your opinion as to the practicability of recurring to the old system?—Those who say so are very ill formed upon the subject. Farmers, who were (in manners, wealth, and education) but very little better than their own labourers, might formerly, with comfort to themselves and advantage to their men, receive their carters into their family, and dine at their table with them; but the habits of those times are gone for ever.

Do you think the enclosures of such parishes as Cookham beneficial to the poor?—Yes I do, inasmuch as they extend the demand for the poor man’s only marketable commodity—his labour.

[Every position stated in this examination with relation to the practical operation of the theory of small farm allotments, and of the pig and cow theories, was corroborated by a large mass of evidence from every part of the country, where they had been, for any length of time, in operation.—E. C.]

13.—Arrangement of Public Walks in Towns; Plan of the Arboretum at Derby, laid out by J. C. Loudon, Esq.

When it appeared that a general botanic garden would be too expensive, both to create and to keep up; that a mere composition of trees and shrubs with turf, in the manner of a common pleasure-ground, would become insipid after being seen two or three times; and, in short, that the most suitable kind of public garden, for all the circumstances included in the above data, was an arboretum, or collection of trees and shrubs, foreign and indigenous, which would endure the open air in the climate of Derby, with the names placed to each. Such a collection will have all the ordinary beauties of a pleasure-ground viewed as a whole; and yet, from no tree or shrub occurring twice in the whole collection, and from the name of every tree and shrub being placed against it, an inducement is held out for those who walk in the garden to take an interest in the name and history of each species, its uses in this country or in other countries, its appearance at different seasons of the year, and the various associations connected with it.

A similar interest might no doubt have been created by a collection of herbaceous plants; but this collection, to be effective in such a space of ground, must have amounted to at least 5000 species; and to form such a collection, and keep it up, would have been much more expensive than forming the most complete collection of trees and shrubs that can at present be made in Britain. It is further to be observed respecting a collection of herbaceous plants, that it would have presented no beauty or interest whatever during the winter season; whereas, among trees and shrubs, there are all the evergreen kinds, which are more beautiful in winter than in summer; while the deciduous kinds, at that season, show an endless variety in the ramification of their branches and spray, the colour of their bark, and the colour and form of their buds. Add also, that trees and shrubs, and especially evergreens, give shelter and encouragement to singing-birds, to which herbaceous plants offer little or no shelter or food.

There are yet other arguments in favour of trees and shrubs for a garden of recreation, which are worth notice. Herbaceous plants are low, small, and to have any effect must be numerous; while to acquire their names, and look into their beauties, persons walking in the garden must stand still, and stoop down, which, when repeated several times, would soon, instead of a recreation, become very fatiguing. Now trees and shrubs are large objects, and there is scarcely one of them the beauty of which may not be seen and enjoyed by the spectator while he is walking past it, and without standing still at all.

A glance at the plan, fig. 2, in p. 6, will show that I have provided as great an extent of gravel-walk as the space would admit of; the total length, including the walk round the flower-garden, exceeding a mile. There is a straight broad walk in the centre, as a main feature from the principal entrance; an intersecting broad and straight walk to form a centre to the garden, and to constitute a point of radiation to all the other walks; and there is a winding walk surrounding the whole. As a straight walk without a terminating object is felt to be deficient in meaning, a statute on a pedestal is proposed for the radiating centre i. in fig. 2; a pedestal with a vase, urn, or other object, for the second circle in the straight walk, fig. 2, k; while the pavilions fig. 3, form terminating objects to the broad cross walk.

As a terminal object gives meaning to a straight walk leading to it, so it is only by creating artificial obstructions that meaning can be given to a winding walk over a flat surface. These obstructions may either be inequalities in the ground, or the occurrence of trees or shrubs in the line which the walk would otherwise have taken, so as to force it to bend out of that line. Both these resources have been employed in laying down the direction of the surrounding walk, though its deviation from a straight line has chiefly been made in conformity with the varying position of the trees in the belt already existing. This belt, and also the trees in the flower-garden, and in other parts of the plan, which were there previously to commencing operations, and which are left conformably to Mr. Strutt’s instructions, are shown in the plan, fig. 4, p. 75. The point of junction of one walk with another is always noticeable in an artistical point of view, and affords an excuse for putting down sculptural or other ornamental objects at these points.

Before the revolution of 1789, M. Lenoir, one of the last lieutenants of police of that period, and one of those who most particularly occupied themselves with the health of the city of Paris, consulted on questions of health and salubrity two men, Pia and Cadet de Vaux, both of them apothecaries; the last had the title of inspector-general: it was to him that all matters of health were habitually referred. Later, on the institution of the prefect of police, in whose hands was vested all that related to salubrity and the public health, this magistrate consulted sometimes a physician, sometimes a chemist, sometimes a veterinary surgeon, according to the nature of the case upon which he had to determine.

This state of things presented inconveniences so much the more serious that the number of affairs increasing every day, demanded more unity in the reports, and more activity in the labours. It was then that the necessity was felt of establishing a permanent council. Such was the origin of the “Conseil de Salubrité,” instituted by the prefect of police, Dubois, the 6th of July, 1802. It was composed of four members,—Deyeux, Parmentier, Huzard, senior, and Cadet-Gassicourt. In 1803, M. Thouret was called to the council; afterwards, in 1807, Leroux and Dupuytren; in 1810, M. Pariset replaced M. Thouret, and it was at the same period that the nomination of Doctor Petit took place. From that time the men of the greatest consideration sought to have a part in the labours of the “Conseil de Salubrité.” Thus we see enter successively M. d’Arcet in 1813; M. Marc in 1815; M. Berard in 1817; the engineer Girard, and Huzard, junior, in 1819; Pelletier and Juge in 1821; M. Gautier de Claubry and M. Parent Duchâtelet in 1825; MM. Adelon, Andral, junior, Barruel, and Labarraque, in 1828; Doctor Esquirol in 1829. The greater part of these men no longer exist. Deyeux, Parmentier, Huzard, senior, Cadet-Gassicourt, Thouret. Leroux, Dupuytren, Marc, Girard, Parent-Duchâtelet, Barruel, Esquirol, are no longer there to direct the labours of the council, to contribute their long experience and indefatigable activity; but their labours remain to us, and we can at least draw from them useful instructions, and still enlighten ourselves by their valuable opinions.

Thus, and with the view to preserve these precious traditions, which maintain in the council an unity of design so remarkable, the administration decided from the commencement that their general reports should be printed.

This publication, which stopped in 1828, and of which the continuance was greatly desired, has just been resumed by the orders of M. Gabriel Delessert, prefect of police.

This collection, which is of such general interest, embraces therefore a period of nearly forty years.

Perhaps we are to congratulate ourselves on the delay which has taken place in the publication of these reports. In going over these ten years it becomes more easy to follow the council in the progressive march of their labours, to perceive that they were all based upon a uniform and constant jurisprudence; that they had no other end than the preservation of the public health, the well-devised interest of property and industry. On this account we have always thought that besides the annual reports, extremely useful in other respects, but confined within too narrow a circle, it would be well to publish every ten years a summary, which, retracing what had been done in that long period, should offer a wide field of study both to governors and governed.

Since 1829 the reports addressed to the administration, on the numerous questions which it submitted to the council, amount to 4431. But that of which there remains no trace are the experiments, often even the preliminary reports, the trips, and sometimes the journeys, which each of these reports rendered necessary; labours of which the report is only a summary, and which impart such great authority to the decisions of the council.

These decisions relate to three great divisions,—health, salubrity, and industry. Under health are classed, among other things, the researches on the adulteration of food, on the vessels used in its preparation, on the precautions to be taken with respect to the vessels and utensils of copper, regard being had to the uses for which they are employed; the experiments on the adulteration of salts, on the adulteration of bread and of flour by different substances, on the poisonous substances employed to colour bonbons, liqueurs, &c.; the examination of the methods employed in preparing pork; the examination of the water used for drink; the adulteration of the flours of linseed and mustard; the use of meat of animals who had died of disease; the researches into the salubrity of dwellings. The head of salubrity comprises the anatomical theatres, their construction, the means of remedying the causes of the unhealthiness which these establishments present; the discharge of sulphurous waters from the public baths, the utility of street fountains, the inspection of barracks, and the sanitary measures to which they should be subject; the improvements to be made in the fires of the establishments which employ coals; the arrangements to be made for the deposit of filth in the rural districts; the purification of sewers; the supply of water for domestic and industrial purposes; the steps to be taken in exhumations; the examination of different contrivances to empty privies, the ameliorations to be introduced into this portion of service; the wholesomeness of the markets, the inspection of prisons. The reports which relate to industry principally treat of the construction of slaughter-houses; the condensation of the gas and vapours resulting from the refining of metals; the fabrication, preservation, and sale of fulminating and lucifer matches; the precautions to be taken in the construction of fulminating powder-mills, and in the manipulation of the substances employed there; the measures to be taken for the conveyance of the fulminate of mercury; the researches into the employment of bitumens, and the conditions to be prescribed to the makers; the making wax-candles; the conditions to be imposed on cat-gut factories; the researches on the fires of wash-houses, and on the necessity of decomposing the soapy water to prevent putrefaction; the sanitary measures applicable to white lead manufactories, and the researches on the diseases of the workmen; the propositions of classification for different trades, such as the silk-hat factories, the forges, the places for making and keeping ether; and the beating of carpets.

Thus health, salubrity, industry, offer to the “Conseil de Salubrité” a vast field of researches and investigations, and we may affirm that there is no question relating to these three great departments of the administration which they have not profoundly meditated, and in part resolved. If now we turn to other subjects we still find important labours which touch in several points on the different matters of which we have just spoken, but which have not, like them, a special and clearly-defined character: such are the reports on epidemics and small-pox; the measures to be taken to prevent or combat them; the epizooties that have prevailed at different epochs among several species of animals, and particularly among milking-cows; the sale of horses with glanders, and the regulations to which they should be subject, as well as other animals seized with contagious diseases; the measures to be taken against mad dogs, and the precautions in case of bites from these animals; the modelling, examination, and embalming of corpses; the aids to be afforded to the drowned and suffocated; the measures to be taken to ascertain the number of these accidents as well as of suicides; the compilation of a new nosographic table of the diseases which cause death; the measures to be taken to prevent fires in theatres, &c. &c.

Such is a general view of the subjects upon which the council has been called to give their opinions. It now remains to describe the circumstances which demanded them, and the results they have produced.

One of the objects which more especially engaged the care of the council was that of bread. It is the thing, it is true, which most directly interests the people. The quality of bread may be deteriorated by various ingredients, but no one could have foreseen that noxious substances would be employed with the view, ostensibly at least, of improving it. Nevertheless the correctional tribunal of Brussels was called upon some years since to try some bakers brought before it under a charge of selling bread adulterated with noxious substances. On the occasion of this trial the prefect of police inquired of the council if, as these bakers alleged in their defence, a small quantity of a substance which they called blue alum, put into the yeast, had the property of rendering the bread whiter and less heavy.

In order to give their opinion, the council first examined what was the substance called by the name of blue alum. Some designate by this name the sulphate of copper, but most people mean by blue alum the rock alum, (sulphate of alumina and potass,) because this salt in the lump has a bluish tinge, and, as with all the sulphates, the sulphate of which the base is alumina is the only one which bears the name of alum, it is to be presumed that it is this salt, or rock alum, which goes under the name of blue alum, and not the sulphate of copper which is known in commerce by the name of blue vitriol.

It had been long known that alum, by the action of heat equal to that of a baker’s oven, swells, increases in volume, and becomes a porous mass, light and very white, which is no longer alum, but a mixture of a great deal of insoluble sub-sulphate with a small quantity of alum, a substance astringent, and not poisonous. It is probable that this property, known to some bakers, determined them to add to bread made of certain flour a little of this alum, which, without being injurious to the health, really made the bread whiter, at the same time that the crust became brown at a less heat.

As to the employment of sulphate of copper (blue vitriol), it is only by a gross error that it could be supposed capable of making bread white. Nevertheless a baker of the town of Gand was prosecuted for putting this poisonous salt into his bread. The commission appointed to examine the bread not having been able to discover any trace of copper, mixed a kilogram of flour, to which was added twenty-four grains of sulphate of copper, and they affirmed that it was impossible to detect in the bread the least trace of the salt they had introduced.

After such an assertion it became interesting to make some researches on the subject. In consequence, the delegates of the council who were entrusted with the inquiry, had four loaves of a kilogram of flour made under their eyes: in one of these loaves was put twelve grains of sulphate of copper, in another eight grains, in a third four grains, and but two grains in the fourth. These loaves rose ill, and although the flour with which they were made produced bread very beautiful and white, the four loaves were so heavy as scarcely to present any cavities. The loaf No. 1 had a green disagreeable colour; the loaf No. 2 was in like manner green, but of a less deep colour than the preceding; No. 3 was also greenish; and No. 4, though colourless, could not support a comparison with the bread made from the same flour pure.

All these loaves were burnt separately in porcelain crucibles to complete ashes. Those of the loaf No. 1 were a beautiful azure blue; those of No. 2 a clearer sky-blue; those of No. 3 had a blue tint of a lighter hue; and those of No. 4 were so slightly coloured that it would have been impossible to infer that they contained copper. But all these ashes, when submitted to the action of sulphuric acid diluted with water, were dissolved, and when tested separately by hydrosulphuric acid, produced black precipitates of sulphuret of copper, which precipitates, tested separately in their turn by concentrated nitric acid, furnished each a quantity of nitrate of copper, equal, within a few fractions, to the sulphate added to each of the four loaves.

It results, therefore, from the preceding experiments which have been made with the greatest care,

1. That the sulphate of copper (blue vitriol) cannot be used in making bread for the purpose of rendering it lighter or whiter, because it prevents its rising, and gives it a disagreeable colour;

2. That by reducing it to ashes, and employing suitable means, almost all the salt of copper added to the bread may be collected again.

We should exceed the bounds of this Article if we were to re-produce the numerous reports on the bread or flour submitted to the analysis of the council, and especially on the bread and flour destined for the use of prisons, on mixed flour, and on the quality of bread prepared from flour mixed with starch. The council after examining this bread remarked, that it was not disagreeable to the taste, nor liable to injure the health. However, they were not able to pronounce on its nutritive qualities. It has therefore been recommended that if bread made of flour so mixed was offered for sale, it should have a peculiar form, in order that the public should know what is the nature of the food which is sold to them. The same conclusions have been come to with respect to the sale of bread made of flour mixed with a seventh of the flour of rice. This bread is, according to the council, savoury and it keeps well, and does not become hard so soon as the bread prepared in the ordinary way. As to its nutritive qualities, the council cannot determine on this particular, the question being one of those which, in the actual state of science, is the most difficult, and which can only be solved by a prolonged use of the bread. To complete the series of reports on all that concerns this species of food, we must speak of the leaden reservoirs made use of by bakers. It was of moment to know whether the employment by the bakers of Paris of leaden reservoirs to keep the water used in making bread could give rise to accidents; whether these reservoirs should be prohibited, or whether they might be allowed with certain modifications?

The council have studied this important question, which is become among chemists an object of controversy. Some have affirmed that the water gets charged with oxide of lead by remaining in reservoirs formed of this metal. Other chemists, of no less repute, and among others Guyton de Morveaux, have established, on the contrary, that the presence of a neutral salt, like sulphate, nitrate or muriate, in whatever quantity, as 000·2, suffices to prevent the water from dissolving the lead; and they explain in this way the use that is made, without any ill effects, of the water of the Seine, and of wells, preserved in leaden vessels, with or without exposure to the air.

This diversity of opinion rendered necessary numerous experiments, which have been made with the greatest exactness by a commission of the council. It results from these experiments:—

1. That distilled water put into a reservoir gives rise at the end of some minutes to the formation of a salt of white-lead, but that this salt does not dissolve in the water, and is precipitated, on the contrary, to the bottom of the reservoir.

2. That the waters of the Seine, and of wells, placed in leaden reservoirs, have given rise, at the point of contact of the water and air, to the formation of a white saline matter, which does not dissolve in water but is precipitated to the bottom of the vessel.

3. That the gaseous Seltz water acts the same on the leaden reservoirs as the water of the Seine, and of wells. Before affirming what precedes, the commission left some water for several weeks in four leaden reservoirs. The liquid was almost entirely evaporated, and the remainder of the water, when filtered, showed no trace of lead on the application of the most delicate tests, such as the chromate of potash, hydrosulphuric acid, and hydriodate of potash.

Water which had remained in a bucket, spread over at the moment, and throughout its whole extent, with a saline matter composed of carbonate of lead and of lime, of sulphate of lime and organic substances, did not leave the slightest trace of lead by the action on the water of the most powerful tests.

In consequence of these experiments, the council pronounced a formal opinion, that the bakers might be permitted the use of leaden reservoirs on condition that they put a cock three inches from the bottom of the reservoir, in order that if the insoluble carbonate formed it might be deposited in the water below the cock, and with the further condition that the reservoir should be cleaned once a-month. For greater security, the council thought that it should be required of bakers to cover over the lead which lines these reservoirs with a thin coat of wax, which would prevent the contact of the water with the metal, and stop the formation of the insoluble carbonate of lead. To apply this wax it is only necessary to heat slightly the lead, and rub it rapidly and several times with a piece of wool done over with wax.

Besides these questions which relate to the quality of the bread, the council examined what mischief could arise from the use of copper scales to weigh the dough of which the bread is made. It is known that the dishes of these scales are copper, and that instead of being cleaned with cloths they are cleaned with the chains by which they are suspended, and which, for this purpose, are heaped together and act like a brush. This state of things seriously engaged the attention of the council with respect to the danger it presents. The dough, composed of water and flour, and containing in addition a certain quantity of marine salt, sticks to the dishes of the scales, and exercises on the metal a chemical action, of which the result is the oxide of copper. The oxide, or salts of copper, which is formed, next penetrates into the portion of the dough which is afterwards detached by the friction of the chains.

We may suppose that in this case some of the oxide of copper would be introduced into the bread, and that it is important for the public health to take measures to prevent, from negligence or imprudence, bread which contained even very small quantities of salts of copper, from being offered for consumption. The council thought that all danger would be prevented.

1. By compelling the bakers to use no scales but those of which the dishes were of tinned iron.

2. In prescribing to them to clean the dishes of the scales by means of chains of tinned iron, which should only be used for this purpose.

3. By obliging them to wash the chains, and the pan in which they are kept, with warm water.

4. By prohibiting the bakers to employ in their bakehouses utensils of zinc, or red and yellow copper.

5. By ordering the bakers, if it is not found expedient to impose the execution of the measures indicated in the first and third articles, to tin substantially the chains and dishes of their scales, and any utensils of zinc, or red and yellow copper.

The council have been occupied at different periods with the adulterations of salt, and they have not ceased to lend active assistance to the measures of surveillance prescribed by the Government. Unhappily its efforts were long unsuccessful. Even now the analysis which has been made of more than 6000 samples of salt, proves that fraud always exists, although of a kind less detrimental to the public health. In 1829 the council proposed to forbid the sale of salt which contained from five to six per cent. of salts with a potash base, and to oppose, in addition, the sale of salt mixed with sea-weed, even in small quantities. The council has since renewed their investigations. More than 3000 samples of salt, taken from the shops, were analysed by M. Chevalier, who discovered that 309 samples were adulterated by ground plaster, or salts of potash, or sulphate of soda, or by the iodines. These adulterations were found chiefly in the grey salts. The later experiments of the council have confirmed these results. They have, moreover, shown that the salt derived from the mines of the south is more pure than the salt of the west. It contains less water, and less of the insoluble matter foreign to sea-salt.

We wish we could follow the council in their numerous observations on the filtering of water—on the use of vessels and utensils of copper—on the dangers they present according to the circumstances in which they are employed—and on the regulations of which they ought to be the object; but there still remains much to be extracted, to show their solicitude for everything which concerns the well-being of the people, and the preservation of the public health.

The council, in an article entitled, “Necessity to submit the Construction of Houses to Sanitary Rules,” inserted in its General Report for 1827 (p. 39), expressed the wish to see established in the centre of every quarter of the town a spacious square, railed in, and planted with trees, in which the children of all classes might, without, apprehension, and without the special superintendence of their parents, give themselves up to the exercise suitable to their years, and in which the inhabitants of all ages might enjoy the solar influence, and breathe a purer air than in their dwellings. It is, they said, so much the more needful to come to this determination, that nearly all the gardens have given place to houses, to streets, or to passages, and that the greater part of those which have been preserved are surrounded by houses so lofty that vegetation languishes for want of air and light, which renders their existence more hurtful than beneficial to health. To these reasons, which have lost nothing of their force, we will add that which results from the advantages the quarter would receive from the presence of such squares in respect to the healthiness produced by favouring the ventilation of the streets; because a square is to all the streets which open into it a true fourneau d’appel with a double current, acting by night as well as by day, at the same time that it is a powerful means by which to facilitate the action of the winds in the interior of the town.

By placing the charity schools in the vicinity of these squares an advantage would be offered to the children of the poor which can rarely be procured for them, that of experiencing the salutary action of the sun, breathing a pure air, and taking their exercise safe from all danger during vacations and play-hours.

These powerful considerations naturally lead the council to speak of the construction of houses under the double relation of public and private health.

“There are,” they say, “in the march of civilization, as in that of sciences, epochs of progress which should be marked by the creation of new laws. With all nations the monuments which attest their pride have preceded the monuments which testify to their true glory; the first, sterile, so to speak, in their existence, fix the attention by the beauty of their form, by the elegance and grandeur of their proportions; the second, created for the wealth or happiness of nations, attract our notice to the utility or wisdom of their establishment. This epoch of true glory has arrived for France. Enough of sterile monuments cover her soil, still unfruitful in so many respects. Works of public utility, laws which conduce to the common happiness, these are the monuments that it is proposed to raise at the present day.

“It is a monument of this last kind of which the council ventures to suggest the erection, in demanding a law to regulate the construction of towns, villages, and houses, under the double relation of public and private health; a monumental law, if ever there was one, since it will embrace France in its conceptions; all the citizens will enjoy its benefits with a perfect equality; and the poor man, even more than the rich, will find himself protected by it in his health, in his life, in his happiness; because health is life—it is more, it is happiness.

“A similar law has never existed among any ancient people, although we find among several of them no equivocal proofs of the solicitude of their legislators to introduce into the laws some precepts of health, applicable to the people they governed.

“We certainly find among the greater part of modern nations some ordinances, and regulations, relative to the salubrity of towns and houses; but their operation does not extend beyond the localities for which they were made, and little, or not at all, known out of these localities, they are still very imperfect, and altogether insufficient for the localities themselves.

“Nevertheless, can any one doubt the immense influence which the salubrity of towns, of villages, and of the dwelling, even when it is isolated in the midst of fields, exercises on the health and life of the people. All statistics, general and individual, attest this extreme influence; and there is no physician, a little observing, who has not had frequent occasions to verify it at the bed-side of his patients.

“We must be like the men, so well painted by the Psalmist, to reject such evidence—eyes have they and see not. How shall we explain, or rather, to what shall we attribute the difference that is remarked between the mortality of one quarter and that of another quarter of the same town; of one street and that of another street of the same quarter or of the same village; or, lastly, the difference that is observed in this respect between the houses of the same street, and those houses which are completely isolated. Misery, it is replied to us, is the cause. Yes, without doubt, misery is a powerful cause; but it is so especially when it is driven back into the most insalubrious quarters, streets, and houses; when it lives habitually in the midst of filth and dirt, that is to say, in the midst of an infected atmosphere; and when there is no misery, or when it exists in the same degree in the quarters, in the villages, in the streets, and in the houses with which the comparison is made, and, stronger still, when poverty is met with precisely there where there is the least mortality, in what is to be found the cause of this difference, if it is not in the insalubrity of the dwelling-places?

“If you had not seen yourself, Monsieur le Prefet, in one of the most beautiful streets of Paris, and in the vicinity of the most frequented promenade of the capital, the influence which the construction of the houses we inhabit has on the health, we would seek by some facts to convince you of this truth; but we are happy to need only to refer you to your own experience. This great fact, which naturally results from the comparison you have drawn, in a report addressed to the Minister of Commerce, the 31st of June, 1832, between the mortality of the quarter of the Hôtel-de-Ville, and that of the quarter of the Chaussée-d’Antin, has not escaped you. Yet, in the striking difference which is found between the mortality of these two quarters, you have not taken into account the poor who died in the hospitals, and who were, undeniably, more numerous from the quarter of the Hôtel-de-Ville than from that of the Chaussée-d’Antin. What calculation has demonstrated to you for one quarter of Paris exists in all in different degrees; and the same calculation applied to other localities, very distant from the capital, in which the condition, the habits, the mode of living, and the nature of the labour which the inhabitants perform are nearly the same, has given analogous results, presenting the same extremes, without the possibility of assigning any other cause than the insalubrity of the dwellings understood in its widest acceptation.

“The council might accumulate facts, calculations, and quotations, to support the opinion they have formed of the necessity of a law to regulate the construction of towns, villages, and houses, under the double relation of public and private health; but they have no need to be at this pains to induce you to share their conviction, and they are fully persuaded that, in proposing to you to promote a law so important, they are only anticipating your desire to co-operate for the well-being: of your fellow-citizens, and to aid the enlightened zeal of the Minister of the Interior for all that is great and useful.”

Under certain points of view, salubrity confounds itself with health; on another side, it governs health; because, without it no good rules of health can be established. Thus it has engaged the special attention of the council. We see them to shrink from no difficulty, from no mission, however painful, however dangerous even, it may be. Nothing escapes their vigilant attention, and the administration is always sure to have their aid in all the amendments that it wishes to introduce into this important branch of public service. It is thus that they pass in review all which appertains to the wholesomeness of sewers, to the improvement of the paving, to the establishment of street-fountains, to the flow of water for domestic or manufacturing purposes, to the cleansing of wells, and of waste-water wells. The construction of the receptacles of privies, those incessant causes of insalubrity and inconvenience, occupies them above all. Here is what they say upon this point:—

“The emptying of the privies in the city of Paris has become a very heavy expense to the proprietors, and the expense is always on the increase, in consequence of the modifications in the construction of the receptacles, and the more abundant use of water; a use rendered necessary by the actual form of the seats, and still more by the introduction of private baths.

“It is evident that the first condition for obtaining a result at once economical and salubrious, is to separate, on the spot, the solid matter from the liquid, to preserve what has an intrinsic value, and to reject what is only cumbersome.

“For more than half a century some men, animated by love for the public good, and several speculators, have directed their researches to discover a method of making this separation. At the head of these are Girard and Gourlier, Casaneuve, Sanson, Derosne, Chaumet, the authors of the article in the Mémorial de l’Officier du Génie, and, lastly, the architects Payen and Dalmont.

“The system of Gourlier is seducing: if it has not yet been submitted to all the trials it requires, we are able to predict before hand that it will succeed, and that it will be productive of advantage.

“The benefits of the project of Gourlier are found in a higher degree in that which has been adopted in barracks.^[55]

“The system of movable receptacles has the sanction of time, is applicable everywhere, facilitates the removal of the contents, and enables it to be done without smell or dirt: it preserves the workmen from the dangers of asphyxy, prevents the decay of our houses, and contributes to augment the disposable mass of manure.

“To prevent the gravest consequences, it is essential not to conduct the liquid from the privies into waste-water wells, and put them in communication with the upper layer of the soil in which our wells are sunk. Prudence requires that the liquid should not be directed into the second layer, which in many parts of Paris furnishes very good water. If it is possible, without great inconvenience, to conduct it into channels altogether lower, it is still the opinion of many experienced persons that it ought not to be done under Paris for any very considerable quantities of water, and that it is necessary to reserve this resource for localities badly situated, and which are rarely met with.

“All the proofs show that the liquid of the privies may be discharged into the Seine without inconvenience. An investigation conducted formerly by Hallé and Fourcroy, on the sweepings of Paris, adds great weight to this opinion. The ancient and recent gaugings, as well as the daily observation of facts, demonstrate that the quantity of dirty water sent into the Seine would be so small compared to the water of the river, that it would always remain unperceived, and could in no way be injurious to health.

“To convey these waters to the Seine, the first idea which presents itself is to cast them into one of the three great sewers which surround Paris on the north.

“A mass of facts and observations prove that the discharge into the sewers of the liquid from the privies will not infect the sewers, nor cause danger to those who work in them; that this infection will be so much the less to be apprehended with the apparatus of Gourlier, with that which has been adopted in barracks, and with the movable receptacles, that, by these different methods, the separation taking place slowly and successively, the liquid carries along with it but very little of solid matter.

“Everything seems to show that by mixing the liquid from the privies with a sufficient quantity of water it might, without inconvenience, be thrown upon the public way, and got rid of in this manner; but prudence requires that before any innovations of this kind the project should be submitted to minute and multiplied experiments. These experiments are the more important, that the result would be to increase the revenues of the city by the sale of a considerable quantity of water which it has for disposal.

“If the drying of the solid contents of the privies has hitherto been considered as one of the most infectious and inconvenient trades, it may be affirmed that it can now be made one of the less disagreeable, a circumstance which we owe to the means of disinfection recently discovered, or which, formerly known, have not been put in practice till lately on a large scale.^[56]

“To favour the employment of these means, and to arrive thereby at results of high importance, it is not sufficient for the administration to be animated by praiseworthy intentions. It must obtain, by its interposition with the supreme authority, a modification in the classification of the establishments in which the fecal substances are prepared, and, above all, must use the means at its disposal to disabuse the public of the prejudices it entertains against these sort of places. The administration will meet at first with very great obstacles, but, with time and perseverance, may rest confident of success.

“The changes proposed are of such importance, they will be attended by consequences so useful, and extensive, that they will be sufficient to render illustrious to future generations, and to recommend to their gratitude, the name of the ministers who shall effect them.”

Since their institution, the “Conseil de Salubrité” have been charged to visit all the parts of France in which epidemic sicknesses have appeared. Thus we find them in 1807 investigating the autumnal disorders which broke out at Créteil, at Maisons, at Charenton, &c., and proposing the creation of a travelling hospital to render aid to the country districts during the prevalence of epidemics. Some years later, in 1810, they went to Montreuil, to Montmartre, and other communes in which the small-pox had assumed an epidemic character; to Pantin where there reigned an epidemic fever; to Fontenay-sur-Bois, Rosny, &c., where some ravages had been made by the dysentery. In 1812 they set forth the causes of the epidemic maladies which had declared themselves in the communes of Charonne, and Clicky, and by this means prevented their recurrence. In 1818 they stopped the progress of an endemic fever in the commune of Chevilly, and of the croup in the commune of Montreuil. In 1825 the small-pox committed great ravages among the inhabitants of Paris, and of the rural communes of the department of the Seine. Brought by a mass of workmen who flocked from the country to partake of the high wages produced by a glut of employment, it was rapidly propagated among a population who, through carelessness, or prejudice, had rejected the blessing of vaccination. The small-pox, favoured in its development by the high temperature of the atmosphere, gave rise for a moment to a doubt of the preservative property of the vaccine. An eruptive malady, the varioloïde, confounded with the small-pox by people in general, and by inattentive and inexperienced medical men, originated this idea, which some cases—rare certainly, but distinctly marked—of small-pox in persons who had had the true cow-pox, appeared to confirm. It was then feared that the vaccine had lost with time the advantages which rendered it so precious; that, weakened in its nature, by passing from one individual to another through a long course of years, it was no more susceptible of modifying the organization in a manner to render it inaccessible to the small-pox. It became therefore important to examine with care this interesting point of practice. The difficult task was performed by the council, and the administration, enlightened by their reports, was able both to re-assure the people justly alarmed, and to take the proper measures to arrest an evil of which no one could foresee the consequences.

It is by such labours that the council prepared themselves for the noble and grand mission which was reserved for them by the appearance in the capital of the cholera morbus,—a mission which they fulfilled with so much courage and devotion. In the midst of this public calamity, the “Conseil de Salubrité,” we do not hesitate to say, surpassed all expectation. This same zeal was manifested in 1837, when the epidemic catarrh made some ravages in the capital. Since then, with the exception of local maladies of little importance, the “Conseil de Salubrité” have not been called upon to occupy themselves with epidemics.

The épizooties are in many respects less serious than the epidemics. Nevertheless, as they often affect the animals which serve for the nutriment of man, and that, apart from this consideration, they may have grave consequences for the public health, they have constantly engaged the care of the council. In 1834 an épizootie was reported to the administration, which prevailed among the cows of the communes round Paris, and which caused a great mortality. The researches of the council established that this épizootie was only a chronic disease, a true pulmonary phthisis to which has been given the name of pommeliere, and by which the greater part of the cows had been attacked which fill the stables of the milkmen of Paris and its environs. According to the council, the principal cause of the evil was to be attributed to the vicious regimen to which this species of animal is subjected. “It is known that they pass a part of the year in stables perfectly closed, in which the space is not proportioned to the number of inmates, in which the vitiated air renews itself with extreme difficulty, and in which the heat is sometimes suffocating. It is known also that they pass suddenly from the food of the stable to pasture, and that in this change they go from the hot and humid atmosphere of the stable, to a sudden exposure to the continual variations of the external air. This alternation of food, and of heat and cold, operates as a powerful cause of disease. But as the evil does not announce itself in a violent manner, as its progress is not very rapid, as there is even a period in the disease in which the animal is disposed to get flesh, the cow-feeder, who knows to what point to keep her, sells her when she is ready to calve. It is in a radius of thirty leagues from the capital that cows of this kind are purchased by the jobbers who supply the milkmen of Paris. With these last they still hold out a certain number of years, if they are properly cared for; but in general they are kept in stables which are neither sufficiently large, nor sufficiently airy, where they are exposed to the same causes which gave birth to the malady. The phthisis arrives insensibly at its last stage, and carries off every year from Paris, and its neighbourhood, a great number of these cows.

“As to the question, whether the sale of the flesh of oxen that have died from the diseases just described should be allowed, the council have already shown that, from time immemorial, the meat of cows attacked by pulmonary phthisis in a slight degree, has been consumed at Paris as good cow-beef. Often even cows which have reached the last stage of this disease are consigned to the butcher, who offers their flesh for sale as meat of the second quality, after taking the precaution to cut away the lungs, the pericardium, the mediastin, and those parts of the sides and diaphragm, which present a state of disorganization more or less advanced. This commerce has always taken place in the environs of Paris, and in Paris itself before the establishment of the abattoirs; and if we are not able to affirm that food of this nature is not bad, there is at least no example of its use having given rise to accidents. It is to be presumed that in this case, as in many others, the cooking destroys the vicious properties of the flesh, and deprives it of all the qualities injurious to the health of the consumer.

“The council have, however, been far from drawing from all these facts the conclusion that it is unnecessary to watch over the sale of butchers’ meat. They think, on the contrary, that this superintendence cannot be too active, in order that the low price of such meat may not lead poor families to make it habitually their principal sustenance. It is known that a bad diet which is not injurious when used casually, may become, by its continual employment, a source of disease. Numerous observations have equally taught us, that the flesh of animals in which putrefaction had commenced, has produced in persons who touched it the most serious consequences. The council, building upon such data, believe that it is indispensable to watch with the greatest care the sale of meat, to have destroyed all the bad meat which is exposed in the shops, and to forbid the butchers to sell the flesh of any animal that has died from disease, or been killed in consequence of disease, unless a veterinary surgeon and physician, appointed by authority, have decided that the meat could be eaten without inconvenience.”

Some considerations of a kind still more general are developed in the important report made by the commission, charged in 1839 with the investigation of the disease called cocotte, which attacked the milking-cows, and deeply occupied the public attention.

We stated at the commencement of this article, that the number of reports made by the “Conseil de Salubrité,” during the years comprised in this account, amounts to 4431. This number greatly surpasses in its proportions that of the preceding years, that is to say, of the twenty years which form the first period of their labours, dating from their institution, and which only presents a total of 5008 reports. This arises from the fact that Paris for a long time has been only a city of produce, and that the labours of the council have necessarily increased with the progress of trade, and the character, altogether manufacturing, assumed by the department of the Seine since 1815. It is necessary, moreover, to remark that the provisions of the decree of 1810 on insalubrious establishments, by submitting certain classes of manufactories to special authorizations, rendered more frequent the intervention of the council, who were the first to demonstrate the necessity of these new measures. “It is a great satisfaction to the council,” say the reporters of their labours for the year 1810, “that every year the observations and reports lead to general measures which simplify your administration, by giving certain rules of which the application becomes every day more easy. The public health was long since compromised by the existence of certain manufactures, and in the general accounts we have rendered we have never ceased to demand the removal of insalubrious establishments. The National Institute, consulted on this important point, shared our opinion, and a regulatory law has just designated the manufactures which may be established in the interior of towns, and those which are not to be tolerated there.”

In the year 1811 we find 118 reports on classed establishments. This number increased in 1812, and so from year to year, till in 1813, 313 reports were made on establishments of this kind. The use of steam-engines increased the labours of the council. In 1813, for instance, there was but one report on these engines; in 1822, the number had risen already to fifteen. The examination of these machines led the council to examine their different systems, the dangers and inconveniences they presented to the public health or safety, and we foresee, in reading their important observations on this subject, all the improvements which experience introduced in the sequel into this new branch of industry. If we pass from the year 1822 to the year 1839, we find there has been read ninety-six reports on engines of this description: but they are no longer simple considerations on machines of which the use is not well understood; they are views of an elevated order, both on the application of these engines, and on their dangers and inconveniences. We see that the council have profoundly studied these important questions.

“We have united under one head,” says M. Busy, the reporter, “all the establishments on which reports have been made relative to steam-engines. Each of these establishments doubtless offers by itself some inconveniences inherent in the kind of trade carried on; but in general these inconveniences are trifling. The greater part of the manufactories about which there is a question are for the construction of engines, and other analogous things, which can only affect the neighbourhood by the noise and activity which reign there. Out of sixty-three reports made to the council on steam-engines, eleven were on sawing-machines, nine on shops for the construction of engines, six on fulminating powder-mills, four on factories for printing and preparing stuffs, three on mechanical printing presses. The other reports are divided in the following manner:

“On machines for flattening metal, for bruising colours, for pulverizing, for mixing mortar, for extracting stone, seven; for sugar refining, for the making of sugar of starch, three; for spinning, two; for turning, two; for optical glasses, two; for polishing steel, one; for cleaning grain, for the preservation of provisions, three; for perfumery, two: for soap-making, two; for bleaching, for making candles, hats, and delf-ware, for ironfounding, for scouring ashes, six; total 63.

“There has been made besides on simple steam-boilers 33 reports, divided among different trades in the following manner, viz:—

“If we add these 33 reports to the 63 preceding, we have a total of 96 reports on steam-engines, or simple boilers. We join them together in consequence of the identity of the inconveniences to which these machines give rise. These inconveniences can only proceed from the chance of explosion of compressed steam, or from the chance of fire, and from the presence of smoke, which accompany the establishment of every furnace, whatever may be its use. It is true, however, that among the complaints or objections which have reached the council, several have turned upon the noise and shaking occasioned by the steam-engines, a shaking which is particularly felt in houses a little shut in, and connected with the neighbouring houses. This occurred with the printing presses, and some other mechanical applications of steam.

“But these results are altogether independent of the steam itself, are inherent in the imperfection of the mechanism employed, and would be produced with much greater intensity by substituting for steam a horse, a fall of water, the action of the wind, or any other mechanical motor.

“If we consider the steam-engines and boilers with respect to the explosions to which they may give birth, we see that no accident has happened during the current year from a total or partial explosion of an engine, and yet there is no complaint or opposition which is not swelled by the fear of these dangers. If the accidents of this nature may with justice, by their seriousness and sphere of action, provoke the fears of the neighbours, the wise measures prescribed by the rules are of a nature to render them impossible, when they are faithfully executed. Thus, Monsieur le Prefect, the council have always vigorously insisted on the maintenance of the precautions with which the law surrounds the steam-engines, not only to shield the responsibility of your administration, but also because they are persuaded that it is impossible in the actual state of things to neglect these prescriptions without exposing those who make use of steam-engines to eminent dangers.

“The true and the most serious inconvenience of steam-engines is the smoke. It is against this that most of the well-founded complaints are raised.

“This inconvenience is not only felt at the present moment, but it excites, above all, apprehensions for the future.

“When we consider that in the single year 1839, there have been granted 82 authorizations for steam-engines, and that we are yet but at the beginning of the applications of this mechanical agent,—when we follow the increasing progression of petitions addressed to the administration, we are not able to suppress a certain fear against the ulterior invasions of the smoke from these establishments.

“The council have applied themselves for a long time to the solution of this difficulty, which is met at every turn in the petitions addressed to you, not only for steam-engines, but for all the trades in which furnaces are employed.

“Various systems have been proposed: that which first presents itself is the use of smoke-consuming furnaces, which appears in fact the most rational and appropriate. Nevertheless, although it is very easy to assign the theoretical conditions for complete combustion of coal, the difficulties of application have not permitted this kind of furnace to become general. Hitherto the smoke-consuming furnaces require great precision in the execution, great regularity in the distribution of the fuel,—things difficult to realize in ordinary labour. On the other hand, the great excess of air necessary to obtain complete combustion often diminishes the efficacy of the coal, and renders these furnaces more expensive, in certain cases, than the ordinary furnaces, in spite of the loss of fuel which the latter involve.

“The mechanical distributors to regulate the supply of fuel, and the activity of the combustion, have been also proposed and employed with success; but they are a considerable expense at the outset, and can be but little adopted except in great concerns, and where there is a very constant application of steam.

“It remains to modify the nature of the fuel; and it is this which the council have generally done. They commonly prescribe the use of coke, or some variety of prepared coal, which gives no smoke—leaving it however to the proprietors to make use of whichever method suits them best, whether smoke-consuming furnaces, mechanical distributors, or fuel which yields no smoke.

“These regulations, Monsieur le Prefect, have been adopted in principle by the “Conseil de Salubrité,” and are, in the majority of cases, the condition to which they think it their duty to submit the authorizations they have the honour to propose to you.

“Doubtless their rigorous application may cramp certain establishments. The council are not ignorant that for some particular purposes the use of coke presents great obstacles, considering the construction of the furnaces; but the absence of smoke in the combustion of coal is not so very difficult to obtain, as to shake the intimate conviction of the council that this constriction will be but momentary, and that it will end by turning to the profit of the manufacturer.

“The problem of which the council seek the solution, is able to be resolved; it is so already in great part, but there yet remains one step to arrive at the goal, and they will reach it by persevering in the course they have adopted. In their efforts they have been sustained, we repeat, by the conviction that they labour not only for the advantage of the health and cleanliness of the capital, by seeking to guarantee its inhabitants from the nuisance of smoke, but also for the advantage of the manufacturer himself, by forcing him to a better employment of his fuel, and by putting him into such a condition that he may be able to select the localities which suit him, without being exposed to those continual complaints, to those recriminations, often well-founded, which have not always been foreseen, and which sometimes become the cause of the greatest embarrassments to the manufacturing establishments.

“An important progress in the path we indicate was made in 1839, by the contrivance of M. Beslay, a mechanician, for steam-boilers—a contrivance which has been pointed out in several reports on this subject, and which proposes to prevent explosions and avoid smoke by means of a general use of coke. It is only to be regretted that it has not yet been able to be applied to all the purposes for which steam-boilers are employed.”

The improvements introduced by the council into the different branches of industry with which they have had to deal, and on which their reports enter into details at once useful and interesting, are numerous. Thus the refining of gold and silver, the factories for fulminating powder, for gilding, for chemical products, for bitumen, for melting tallow, and a mass of other trades, owe to them notable improvements, both in the methods of fabrication, and in the conditions for public health and safety under which they are to be carried on. The white-lead manufactories have excited their earnest solicitude. It is known that the workmen who labour in these places are subject to serious and frequent maladies. In consulting the earlier labours of the council, we see them unceasingly occupied with this question; but the frequency of the accidents, and their seriousness, have more particularly attracted their attention in these latter times, and have engaged them to compile a set of instructions which set forth the best rules of health to be observed in these manufactories. (The rules have already been quoted.)

Later, the council have anew examined deeply this branch of trade. They have visited the manufactories of white-lead existing in the department of the Seine; they have obtained the experience of other departments, and they have shown the necessity of commissioning one of their members to follow the results of the rules quoted above. They have required, moreover, that the administration should furnish some statistics on the state of workers in white-lead admitted into the hospital. The administration has hastened to defer to this wish, and there is no doubt that there will result a sensible improvement in the health of the workmen.

(After giving several other minor instances of the labours of the Conseil, the report thus concludes:—)

And now that we have detailed the principal labours of the council, it would be a necessary supplement to this article to show the results that have followed from them,—the reforms they have introduced into the public service. But here we are no more dealing with the labours of the council, but with the labours of the administration. Thus independently of the decisions on classed establishments, and which amount to about 300 a-year, it would be necessary to describe the measures for the public health executed by the administration. But to confine ourselves only to acts which interest the generality of the citizens, we may cite the ordinances of police which relate to coloured sugar-plums; to horses attacked with the glanders, or contagious maladies; to vessels and utensils of copper; to the adulteration of salt; to the aid to be given to the drowned and asphyxied; to the depôts for refuse in the rural communes; to the dissection, modelling, and embalming of corpses; to the cleaning of wells and waste-water wells; to the adulteration and sale of fulminating powder; to the classification of new trades, the amphitheatres of anatomy, the establishments of pork-butchers, &c. &c.

Certainly there are few institutions that can show such results; there are few that receive an impulse so enlightened and constant. Bound in an intimate manner with the administration of which they form part, the “Conseil de Salubrité” has at all times, found in it a just appreciator of their labours. They know the credit accorded to their reports, and the duties imposed on them by a confidence so honourable for the administration that gives it, and so justly merited by the body that receives it.