1866. | The Sanitary Condition of Manchester. 493 
A shocking cause of mortality in Leeds, another phase indeed 
of the same which exists in many of our large towns, is maternal 
neglect. In London, Liverpool, Manchester, and Glasgow there is 
a kind of legalized infanticide called ‘ overlaying,” where the 
mother gets drunk and smothers her child by lymg down upon it 
in bed. In Leeds they are not quite so bad (although no doubt 
that accomplishment exists also) ; the mothers at work in the mills 
entrust their children to old women who feed them improperly and 
drug them to keep them quiet, which they do effectively. 
Mx. Darnton Lupton, the ex-Mayor, has done much good through 
the establishment of a Working Man’s Club; Dr. Allbutt has 
started a Labourer’s Dwelling Company, Limited, and they have 
a Sanitary Association. A private individual, too, lately prosecuted 
the Corporation and compelled them to close their manure depots, 
which until recently were fruitful sources of disease ; and from this 
account of the state of the town, we think our readers will agree 
with us, that the Association has a wide scope for the exercise of 
its functions. 
Hitherto we have had to deal rather with sins of omission than 
of commission on the part of our municipal bodies, but when we 
come to deal with the sanitary condition of the metropolis of the 
north of England, Manchester, we find a state of things calculated 
to make Englishmen blush with shame. 
The health authorities of Manchester are the Town Council, 
and this body numbers amongst its members many kind, well- 
meaning, earnest men, who would like to see a radical reform in 
its mode of dealing with sanitary matters. There is a monthly 
visiting Committee, which inspects courts, alleys, and cellars, debates 
on their condition, and proposes action; but still a state of things 
exists—in fact an association of all the monstrous abuses to which 
we have referred in dealing with other towns—which horrifies tyros 
in the Council, and chokes their utterance; and so the world does 
not get to hear of the true causes of the unhealthiness which 
confers upon Manchester the second place in the mortality scale of 
our large towns. 
No doubt the authorities will find apologists. They are kind to 
their equals, don’t annoy their friends, and they are afraid of 
running the town into debt; so they save the money and sacrifice 
the lives of the ratepayers. Of course the dead cannot complain, 
and the burdens of the living are comparatively light. It is even 
whispered that the Corporation drive a lucrative trade in the refuse 
of the town, earning thousands by it. How can anyone be cross 
with such excellent political economists ? 
The mode in which they conduct their gigantic manure manu- 
factory is as follows :—They have four manure depdéts, all within 
the city. One in Water Street, two at the Railways, and one at 
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