132 : The Public Health. [Jan., 
persons, in prisons and workhouses, to go from four or five p.m. 
one day, to eight or nine a.m. the next day, without food. 
We have received accounts of sanitary proceedings from various 
parts of the country. A copy of the ‘Scotsman’ has been forwarded 
to us, containing a letter, printed in prominent type, concerning 
the sanitary improvements about to be made in that city. It is 
the old story—large sums of money have been voted for the 
amelioration of the condition of the lowest classes, by improving 
the closes and alleys; and that money is now said to be expended 
in work, no doubt in itself useful, but of a far less pressing nature. 
In Worcester a great battle is bemg fought on the question of 
appointing a medical officer of health. Although Worcester has 
been recently drained, and has got a good water supply from 
the Severn, its annual mortality is large. During the last three 
years it has been as high as twenty-seven in the thousand, and this 
has alarmed some of the more thoughtful and prudent of the 
inhabitants. In the end of the year 1866 the Sanitary Committee 
of Worcester appointed a sub-committee to report on the condition 
of the town. They report that many parts of the town, in addition to 
obvious abominations—such as general want of cleanliness—present 
nuisances, “such as overflowing privies and cesspools; imperfect 
drains, or an entire absence of them; houses dilapidated and rooms 
injurious to health for want of proper whitewashing and ventilation ; 
which may be taken as a sample of what is always, to a greater 
or less extent, prevalent in the midst of the population.” The 
same report says that, “Many dwellings are greatly overcrowded ; ” 
that “typhoid fever is endemic in Worcester, and it is clearly 
traceable to foul drains and privies, and the use of polluted well- 
water.” Amongst the evils in this fine cathedral city—although 
amply supplied with water from the Severn—is the use of wells 
for the supply of water. There are certain people in Worcester, 
as in London and other places, who believe that the water from 
wells, surrounded by drains and cesspools, and supplied by water 
from the leakage of these places, is better than any other water: 
the consequence is, they pay for their temerity with their lives. 
All this comes out in the report of the Sanitary Sub-Committee 
referred to, and they very properly recommend the appointment 
of a medical officer of health, whose duty it shall be to watch the 
health of the town, and immediately carry into effect the various 
sanitary laws which have for their object the saving of the lives 
and healths of the community. But somehow or other, the Town 
Council do not see their way to put down disease and death by 
spendmg money. They seem to think that doctors, and under- 
takers, and grave-diggers have a right to live, as well as other 
people. ‘To diminish the death-rate of Worcester from twenty-seven 
to seventeen in the thousand (a thing easy to be done), would be to 
