360 PROCEEDINGS OF THE SECTIONS. 
The true premiss is—not that society must make money out of its 
necessities, but—that society must preserve health and useful 
activity under the artificial conditions it has itself created, as long 
as may be. So it comes about that, while removal of refuse 
matters and expense are both conditions of good scavenage, the 
actual cost is but secondary to the urgent necessity for doing it. 
Nevertheless, whatever expense, within reason, might be in- 
curred to secure good scavenage, ultimate profit could be shown to 
accrue. For dirty districts are unhealthy, and disease costs money ; 
but to cleanse districts is to reduce disease, and therefore to save 
. The profit is incalculable ; not, however, because it is 
infinitesimal, but for an exactly contrary reason—that it is rever- 
atory or regenerative. The householdev, in estimating the ex- 
penses of city life, should set down a rate for scavenage as much 
as a matter of course as he sets down the rate for water, or for 
gas, or house-rent itself. Yet, just because the profit arising from 
public cleanliness is not calculable at so many sovereigns per cent. 
upon so many sovereigns invested, but even more, perhaps, 
because it does not visibly flow into individual pockets, it may 
be too much to expect that the average householder should be 
eager to pay a scavenage rate which does obviously diminish his 
individual banking account. His judgment of the necessity for 
such work, and therefore of the amount it is worth his while to 
pay for having it done, is likely to be fallacious, in so far as it is 
formed upon the events of daily life as they appear in the obscure 
and confusing light thrown by half-forgotten memories of inaccu- 
rate observations, Experience has shown that even so indisput- 
able a necessary as pure water cannot be made to appear so 
or not. How much more likely is the same experience to follow 
it, therefore, that town councils should everywhere be granted 
power to strike a scavenage rate !* 
Act they can recover from householders any expense incurred in removing 
night-soil from premises. But the 26th section, which defines the nuisances 
. . bd erTr- 
in ee fe aay taken 
.. d to apply to garbage ; and the cost of removing this must at present 
_— eansi of a at rate. And the 
of amount up to which a rate for general purposes may be levied is now 14 
too = “4 r the expense of scavenage as well as the other expenses it 
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