156 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Dec. 



During the year 1864, without any known special predisposing 

 cause, but apparently through the cumulative virulence of the 

 deadly agencies always at work, the fearful scourge of mortal 

 disease carried off 3,516 of our children, or 341 out of every 

 myriad of our population, which exceeded even the abnormal 

 number of our births by 280. It does not appear that the legal 

 guardians of the public health took any steps to mitigate this 

 frightful calamity ; and again in 1865, the mortality of children 

 (as well as of adults) was above even the high average of 

 twelve years. 



But in the spring of 1866, owing to a wholesome dread of 

 cholera, a strong public opinion, an Order in Council, and the 

 labours of the Sanitary Association (then first formed), the 

 Corporation appointed two Health Officers for three months, and 

 detailed police to act as inspectors. Only a very partial surface 

 cleansing of the yards was the result; the streets remaining as 

 before, the subsoil retaining all its pollutions, and the production 

 of fresh poisons unchecked ; and yet what was the result of this, 

 aided probably by the unusually cold, wet, and windy season ? Four 

 hundred and seventy lives of children were saved as compared with 

 the previous year; and June, which on the average is the most 

 unhealthy month except July or August, acturdly furnished the 

 week of lowest deaths. Yet, no sooner was the cleansing finished, 

 and the July sun drew forth to the surface the substratum of 

 xymotic poison, than the death-rate of the children rose at once 

 from 362 per myriad to 852; and the deaths of adidts in the 

 whole year exceeded those of 1865 by fifty-five. 



But if this minute instalment of what ought to be done, 

 produced at once such a marvellous benefit as the saving of 470 

 children's lives, what might not be expected, were councillors, 

 owners of property and householders to perform their manifest 

 duties ? And if they are not willing, for the love of God and 

 the good of their brethren, to obey the plain laws of health and 

 remove the causes of disease and death, ought not the power of 

 the law to protect the helpless, and prevent the selfish from 

 robbing their neighbours of their happiness, and the very lives 

 of themselves and their children ? 



Editor's Note. — The present number of this journal is published 

 April 26, 1867. 



