SAN J TAR Y PL UMBIN G. 609 



that the child must live for the parent, that the investment of money, love and 

 affection by the parent must be reimbursed and returned by the offspring. It 

 has no fear of the over-production of the human race, and no alarm lest the food 

 supply of mankind will leave them without subsistence. Although I believe that 

 the teachings of Malthus are false and untenable in theory, yet it is a fact that 

 they have been verified in many countries. In many of the capitals of Europe, 

 and in some of the cities of this country, the annual death rate has equaled and 

 in some years more than equaled the birth rate, so that were it not for the con- 

 stant recruiting of population from the rural districts, the population of these 

 cities would diminish or even become extinct. Some of these cities, however, 

 with the highest and most abnormal death rate, have grown with unparalleled 

 vigor and rapidity, owing exclusively to the influx of population from the country 

 districts. 



This destruction of human life in great municipalities, however, has no 

 necessity. It has no compensating advantages to the race; it is not, to any great 

 extent, in obedience to the law of food supply, but is purely the result of human 

 ignorance and indifference to those conditions of health which surround us. It is 

 the result of defective sewerage, ignorant plumbing, ill-ventilation, the over- 

 crowding of tenement houses, and the non-observance of cleanliness, all of which 

 evils characterize all great municipalities. With these general remarks, let us 

 consider particularly the business or profession of the practical plumber. 



The plumber is a practical sanitarian and is, perhaps, the oldest worker in the 

 art of protecting the public health. His art reaches far back to the first pages of 

 history. He was known to Jerusalem in the days of the magnificence of Solomon, 

 to Babylon when she was the seat of empire, and to Athens and Rome as they 

 successively triumphed as the controlling powers of the Orient. Wherever the 

 genius of man founded great cities, the homes of wealth and splendor, and the 

 centers of political influence and power, there the cunning of the plumber was 

 invoked to bring pure water from the rivers and lead and control it within the 

 habitations of man, and to give comfort and health to palaces and luxury to the 

 king and his court. In modern times the plumber has figured more conspicu- 

 ously. His art has been used not alone for bringing limpid streams into palaces 

 for the gratification of courtiers and kings, but it has brought the luxury of pure, 

 wholesome water into the habitations of the poor, into the workshop and manu- 

 factory, and has made it subservient to numberless uses unknown to the ancient 

 world, such as for heating purposes and for driving machinery, and thereby re- 

 lieving man of much drudgery. We are, therefore, principally interested in the 

 plumber of the present day. On this point we may remark, that plumbing is a 

 progressive art, and has undergone many improvements within a comparatively 

 recent period. The practical inquiry then presents itself — what is the state of 

 the art in this city ? Has the work performed here been done in the best style of 

 the art ? Before answering this question I will say that I have every reason to 

 believe that the gentlemen before me are as well versed in the theory and art of 

 their profession as any equal number of plumbers in any other city of this coun- 



