475 
l88i.] The Sanitary Institute of Great Britain * 
rapidly among us, what can be the cause of such an in- 
crease, and if nothing can be done to stay the growing evil ? 
We do not in the least seek to under-rate the importance of 
the latest phase of Sanitary Reform, the agitation for a 
smokeless and fog-free atmosphere in our cities. But for 
one person killed outright, or enfeebled by a foggy atmo- 
sphere, we believe that many are cut off or debilitated by 
nervous disease, the offspring of worry and anxiety. It 
seems to us almost farcical to see persons connected with 
the system of competitive examination — and therefore pro- 
moters of worry — anxious about such a minor evil as a stove 
which does not consume its own smoke. The victims of fog 
are to a great extent elderly persons, whose part in the 
world is already played. Those who fall a sacrifice to 
examinationism — and they include a serious proportion of 
the successful as well as of the unsuccessful candidates — 
are young men who, had their strength not been exhausted 
by hurried work under the pressure of anxiety, might have 
done a good life-work, and become the fathers of vigorous 
descendants. By the wonderful scheme that we have devised 
they are reduced to shadows ; “ mox daturi progeniem dete- 
riorem.” 
But even within the limited sphere of aCtion which official 
sanitary reform has chalked out for itself,— to wit, the puri- 
fication of the soil and the waters from animal, and espe- 
cially human, excreta, — there is a want of broad views, of 
candour, of a disposition to recognise and to acknowledge 
the truth. All differences of climate, soil, situation, &c., 
notwithstanding, the work must be done in one way only- 
irrigation. Our true doctrinaire sanitary reformer seems to 
wear a kind of mental spectacles which enable him to ignore 
or to misconstrue facts in the most singular manner. Some 
years ago an expert, of irrigationist proclivities, came over 
to England from abroad, and inspected the principal systems 
of dealing with sewage. At the Knostrop Works, Leeds, 
looking through the spectacles aforesaid, he saw “ six iron 
tanks.” Men not provided with such optical instruments 
can see merely twelve tank's of masonry, and none of iron ! 
That the writer’s report on less palpable matters was not 
unimpeachable may well be taken for granted. 
Again, we find it asserted, by men who ought to know 
better, that though earthy and metallic salts may precipitate 
the suspended impurities in W'ater, they have no aCtion upon 
the dissolved impurities. This statement has been made, 
among others, by a gentleman — neither physician, chemist, 
nor engineer — who had been “ cramming ” in order to read 
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