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 : " Each poor man is now 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." 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., 



