460 The Public Health. [July, 



open some cellar-dwellings of the filthiest and most abominable 

 description, and which the Council had therefore ordered to be 

 permanently closed, was at the last meeting of the Council defeated 

 by a majority of 26 to 20. It would be well for the ratepayers at 

 the next annual election of councillors, to look after those of the 

 minority who shall then present themselves for re-election. This 

 vote shows that the majority of the Council are at least unwilling to 

 go backward in sanitary matters. If they are not at present pre- 

 pared to take decided steps in a forward direction, allowance must 

 be made for the difficulty of their position. Neglect, not altogether 

 their own, but in part that of their predecessors in office, has per- 

 mitted the causes of disease in Manchester to grow to a magnitude 

 sufficient to appal the most courageous of sanitary reformers. Fifty 

 thousand middens such as were described in our last number cannot 

 be converted into water-closets, or even into dry-closets ; twenty- 

 five thousand back-to-back houses cannot be demolished and rebuilt 

 on a more rational plan, except at an enormous cost. That cost 

 the public mind of Manchester has probably not yet risen to the 

 height of calmly contemplating. Pressure from the executive 

 under, probably, a more stringent law than now exists, will have to 

 be applied before the needful work is done. 



But if the authorities are not yet prepared for vigorous action 

 in this direction, they may at least do something to diminish the 

 nuisances they are themselves perpetually creating. Surely the 

 more right-feeling members of the Council cannot be conscious of the 

 trouble, the discomfort, the absolute misery, to say nothing of the 

 injury to health, which their servants still produce by their mode 

 of removing the night-soil. If they wish to prove that they are 

 really anxious to improve the health and comfort of their fellow- 

 citizens, as well as to set them an example of cleanliness, let them 

 order every night-soil cart to be followed by a water-cart containing 

 a deodorizing solution, with which the foul traces of the nocturnal 

 doings of their servants may be washed into the sewers. Let them 

 order the men thoroughly to empty the ashpits, and cleanse them 

 with a similar solution, instead of, as is now too often the case, 

 picking out only the more choice and richer portions of the soil, leaving 

 the greater part of the ashes saturated with liquid putrescent organic 

 matter to poison the surrounding atmosphere. And let them also 

 take steps for the early removal of the mountain of mingled excre- 

 ment, slaughter-house refuse and ashes, now standing in their depot 

 in Water Street. And they may at least discontinue their active 

 opposition to such measures as the Bill of Mr. M'Cullagh Torrens 

 for the improvement of the dwellings of the working classes. To 

 use the weighty words of a local weekly contemporary : — " The 

 insalubrity of Manchester may proceed from causes altogether beyond 

 their ken, but we do say that in the exceptional, and by no means 



