1866. | The Sanitary Condition of Leeds. 491 
Hon. H. A. Bruce, in his advocacy of his excellent Public Health 
Bill, of the circumstance that the city had voted over a million 
and a quarter for the purpose of rebuilding its courts and wynds ! 
Honour to Glasgow for its beneficent care for its defenceless 
and misguided poor ! 
Excepting the filthy condition of the Clyde, and the evils already 
referred to, there is little to be noted in the way of nuisances in 
Glasgow. The authorities, through the Sanitary Committee and 
Medical Officers of Health, are a-head of the ratepayers. The 
former scarcely need any stimulus from the latter. The inspectors 
of police and the Sanitary inspectors are about as lynx-eyed and 
keen-scented as it is desirable they should be, and they readily find 
out any external nuisances, that is, external to the places of abode. 
Anything that may escape the inspectors is most likely to be 
discovered by some indignant ratepayer, who forthwith makes his 
complaint publicly known. This is generally through the medium 
of the press, for in Glasgow they are a great newspaper-reading 
people. The complaint thus reaches the notice of the authorities, 
and if it is really a grievance, it is very soon remedied. 
Ii is well to find such a facile mode of rectifying the abuses, 
or exposing the neglect of the Sanitary Authorities, but what we 
have said of Glasgow is unfortunately rather the exception than 
the rule, and the large and important town of Leeds, to which we 
shall now direct the attention of our readers, whilst it possesses one of 
the most influential Journals in the country, sufiers under a sanitary 
executive of a totally different character; impressible only by the 
most energetic external action. The health of Leeds is supposed 
to be protected by the Town Council, whilst really what little is 
done in that direction emanates from the Board of Guardians, who 
are entrusted with the carrying out of the Diseases Prevention Act, 
and who usually proceed with tolerable vigour in periods of 
emergency. Probably they would have done more good for the 
town, had they not received a caution from the Privy Council last 
year, that they were acting beyond the law, and since that time 
they have confined themselves to their functions as a vestry. 
But what shall we say of the Town Council, which through 
its Nuisance Committee, and Streets and Sewerage Committee, is 
supposed to be the sanitary executive in the borough ? 
There are upon these Committees, some individuals who are 
anxious to do what is right; but there, as in some other large towns, 
local “ politics” form the active agent in the election of councillors, 
and the result is that knowledge, judgment, and modesty are sup- 
planted by qualities of an opposite character. 
The town is in a most disereditable condition as regards its back- 
lanes and alleys; the absence of connection between its houses and 
main sewers ; its “becks,” which are open and full of abominations. 
VOL, TL. 21 
