REPORT ON THE SLAUGHTER-HOUSES. 165 



The immensity of the mass, however, did not discour 

 age the old Commissioners of the Academy. Let this 

 conduct serve as an example to learned men, to adminis 

 trators, who might be called upon to cast an investigating 

 eye on the whole of our beneficent and humane estab 

 lishments. Undoubtedly, the abuses, if any yet exist, 

 have not individually any thing to be compared to those 

 to which Bailly s report did justice ; but would it be im 

 possible for them to have sprung up afresh in the course 

 of half a century, and that in proportion to their multi 

 plicity, they should still make enormous and deplorable 

 breaches in the patrimony of the poor ? 



I shall modify very slightly, Gentlemen, the concluding 

 words of our illustrious colleague s report, and I shall not 

 in the least alter their innate meaning, if I say, in finish 

 ing this long analysis : &quot; Each poor man is now 7 laid alone 

 in a bed, and he owes it principally to the gifted, perse 

 vering, and courageous efforts of the Academy of Sci 

 ences-. The poor man ought to know it, and the poor 

 man will not forget it.&quot; Happy, Gentlemen, happy the 

 academy that can adorn itself with such reminiscences ! 



REPORT ON THE SLAUGHTER-HOUSES. 



An attentive glance at the past has been, in all ages 

 and in all countries, the infallible means of rightly appre 

 ciating the present. When we direct this glance to the 

 sanitary state of Paris, the name of Bailly will again 

 present itself in the first line amongst the promoters of a 

 capital amelioration, which I shall point out in a few 

 words. 



Notwithstanding the numerous acts of parliament, 

 notwithstanding the positive police regulations, which 

 dated back to Charles IX., to Henry III., to Henry IV., 



