21G 
Village Sanitary Econonvj. 
exist physical drawbacks exercising special influences on health 
not to be nnnovcd by human action, and that in others the 
excess of mortality is greatly attributable to the unfavourable 
condition of the soil and subsoil in the neighbourhood of the 
village, owing to wetness, over which the residents have no con- 
trol, and which is only to be removed by under-drainage which 
the owners of the land have the sole power to efl'ect. The Reports 
of Dr. Buchanan, which are appended to the 9th and 10th Reports 
of the Medical Officer of the Privy Council, show clearly that 
the existence of undrained wet lands in the immediate vicinity 
of dwellings, and of saturated subsoils beneath them, provoke 
and maintain several Jatal diseases — particularly pulmonary 
phthisis or consumption. Natural drawbacks, such as the exist- 
ence of seaboard and riverside marshes and inland morasses, 
which offer no prospect of profit to induce reclamation, can only 
be partially met by those outside improvements which may reduce 
their injurious effects to the narrowest limits. In the case of neg- 
lected drainage of wet land adjacent to villages it is to be hoped 
that when the owners become thoroughly impressed with the 
truth that its existence has an injurious influence on the health 
of the people living near at hand, they will set to work to drain 
the land, with the twofold satisfaction that they are effecting a 
sanitary improvement at the same time that they are securing 
a benefit to their tenants by increased produce and greater 
facilities of cultivation, although it may occur that the occupy- 
ing tenants may prefer lea\ ing matters as they are. However, 
after making all allowances for the drawbacks referred to, there 
can be no question that the owners of property in villages have 
the power in themselves to effect improvements which will 
reduce the mortality. 
The greatest obstacle, and doubtless the real stumbling block, 
to village sanitary improvements, is the undeniable fact that, 
where small and scattered communities are called upon to eflect 
them, the cost involves a comparatively heavy taxation, however 
cheaply the works themselves may be executed — almost invariably 
increasing in proportion as the number of inhabitants decreases. 
There does not appear to exist any published data for arriving 
at the average number of dwellings and persons congregated 
in villages, but a certain number of each may be taken for 
the purpose of illustration. A village, for instance, with 
60 dwellings, of which 50 may be cottage tenements, will 
probably contain 400 persons of all ages, of which three- 
fourths will be farm labourers and their families, who can 
badly bear taxation. It is true that some of tlu; difficulty arising 
from the poverty of village cottagers may be met in' the obligation 
imposed on the owners of cottage property to pay local rates levied 
