LIFE IN MONTREAL. [Chap. VII. 



Canada Medical x\ssociation, who wanted information on the 

 connexion between climatology and mortality : " The few who 

 concern themselves here with sanitary science are so occupied 

 with great, tangible and preventible evils, that we scarcely care 

 to go into matters over which we have no control. We cannot 

 alter the weather : we can alter our disgraceful sanitary con- 

 ditions. And while we have to contend with the M.D.s, and 

 others, who have organized a Sanitary Association for the 

 express purpose of resisting vaccination ; . . . when the Editor 

 of your Journal sneered at our Public Health Association for 

 concerning itself with such silly matters as dirty lanes and 

 yards; — when an M.D. has been appointed Professor of 

 Hygiene, who built houses in a back yard on a swamp, without 

 back door or windows: — when some of our leading M.D.s, 

 including Professors at McGill College, exerted themselves to 

 procure building on the old Catholic Cemetery ; — and fourteen 

 of them gave evidence that earth from said cemetery, in which 

 earth the remains of eleven bodies had been found, was not a 

 nuisance, when deposited on a swamp, in the middle of the 

 city, in order to build upon ; — when such is the teaching of 

 influential members of the Medical Profession in this city, it 

 is scarcely the time to enter into climatic relations/' 



Philip, and those with whom he worked, did not get all that 

 might have been desired : there were three other cemeteries 

 that it would have been well to have secured, although these 

 had not been disturbed : and the assessment of two-thirds of 

 the cost was levied on the St. Antoine Ward, though the 

 nuisance had been caused by interments from the whole city ; 

 while the Fabrique had been more than paid for the ground, by 

 the purchasers of graves which they ought to have respected. 

 Philip paid his share of the assessment instantly, and would 

 have paid ten times as much to prevent the impending evil. 

 He found, however, four years after, that some members of the 

 Finance Committee proposed to sell some of the ground, to 

 make up for the default of some property-holders to pay their 

 rate. As the Secretary of the Citizens' Committee, he wrote at 

 once to the City Attorneys, reminding them of the previous 



