A sum of 12/. was then for this purpose placed in the hands of the consulting sanitary officer, who on February 2 furnished a detailed statement of his disbursements, which amounted to 137. 135. On February 2, the following proposition was moved as a resolution by Councillor Byrne, and unanimously adopted, namely: If disinfection is effective, it should be relied on to the exclusion of destruction of clothing, and if it be not effective, the clothing should be burned, but the chamber should be discontinued, and the cost thereof, together with the keepers and carriage, avoided. Refer above to Drs. Mapother and Cameron for report by next Friday.' On February 9, the following joint report was presented by Drs. Mapother and Cameron, namely: February 9, 1877.-'We beg to report that disinfection of small-pox clothes is now desirable, and can be done efficiently. In cases where the clothes were only value for a few shillings, it would be cheaper to burn them than to incur expense of carriage and disinfection. In cases of death such valueless clothes should be burned by the hospital authorities. (Signed) CHARLES A. CAMERON, E. D. MAPOTHER. And this report was then ordered to be approved.'

The following letter was, on February 23, received by the consulting officer from Cork Street Hospital, namely: To E. D. Mapother, Esq., M.D.

House of Recovery, Cork Street, February 22, 1877. DEAR SIR,-I am directed by the managing committee of Cork Street Fever Hospital to express their regret that the order of the Public Health Committee, communicated through you, and acted on up to the present, has been rescinded without any apparent reason; and I have been requested by our board to ask that you will use your influence with the Public Health Committee to cancel such order. The special case of M'Entire is as follows: Himself and wife were suffering from small-pox at the same time, and were inmates of this hospital. The wife recovered and left the hospital, in a suit of clothes paid for by the Public Health Committee, and her own clothes were destroyed. The husband had a much heavier attack, and consequently remained much longer in hospital. If it were necessary in a light case to destroy the clothing, how much more so is a heavy case like that of the man M'Entire, who is now fortunately cured?-besides the evident inconsistency in the treatment of husband and wife. I trust you will place this matter before the board in its most favourable light.

(Signed)

G. PURCELL ATKINS, Registrar and Medical Officer.

All of which we hereby submit as our report.

(Signed) HENRY MACLEAN, Chairman. When examined before the Select Committee of the House of Commons on Local Government and Taxation in Ireland, last session, Mr. Gray stated in reply to a question put by Mr. Bruen.- Mr. Byrne is a very able and very active member of the corporation, and has an enormous amount of personal influence, especially in the Public Health Committee, and I think practically he could stop anything that he desired to stop on that committee.' In this case Mr. Byrne has proved his ability not only to stop, but absolutely reverse the action of Mr. Gray, and the

' unanimous' action of the committee. We regret still more to find that even the medical officers of the corporation can be influenced by Mr. Byrne, so as to report against a proceeding which has been approved of by every well-educated sanitarian. The action of the Dublin Sanitary Association, of which Mr.Brooks, ex-Lord Mayor of Dublin and M.P. for the city, is an active member, contrasted favourably with that of the constituted authorities of the city and their officers.

The proceedings of the committee of the Sanitary Association are as follows:

The Executive Committee met on the 30th ult., at 15, Nassau Street, Mr. Davies in the chair. The following letter was read from the secretary of the Public Health Committee :March 23.

Sir,-Having laid your letter of the 22nd instant, conveying a resolution of the Dublin Sanitary Association, in reference to the destruction of the clothes of small-pox patients, before this committee at their meeting to-day, I have been directed to send you the report of their medical officers on the subject.-I am, sir, your obedient servant, JAMES BOYLE, Secretary.

The Assistant Secretary Dublin Sanitary Association. Here follows report of Drs. Cameron and Mapother, quoted above.

:

The following resolution was then adopted :That, having read this letter and report, as well as the report of the Public Health Committee to the corporation on the same subject, we are still of the opinion expressed in our resolution of the 22nd inst., that in the case of so dangerous and terrible a disease as small-pox nothing short of destruction of infected clothing will insure the safety of the community; and that, in declining to avail themselves of the provisions of the Act which enables the sanitary authority to compensate the owners for the clothes so destroyed, the Public Health Committee are neglecting one of the most useful means provided by the Legislature for preventing the spread of this disease, the suggestion by the medical officers in their report that in cases of death valueless clothes should be burned by the hospital authorities being manifestly impracticable.

SCHOOL CHILDREN AND INFECTIOUS

DISEASES.

THE prevalence of infectious diseases among school children recently formed the subject of a letter to one of the daily papers, giving an experience which we believe is in no sense peculiar to the district of South Wales:

I have observed during the past two or three years a gradually increasing number of diseases (principally skin) among children attending public elementary schools. I have practised in this district for 20 years, and during that period have held, and now hold, appointments as surgeon to collieries and other works employing juvenile labour of both sexes in large numbers. During the past ten years, in my capacity as certifying surgeon under the Factory Acts, it has been my duty on several occasions to send girls and boys home whom I found at their usual work suffering from chicken, modified small-pox, and slight scarlatina. The provisions of the Factory Act empower the surgeon to do this, and no doubt the spread of disease is thus lessened throughout the country. I am forced to the conclusion that the assembling together of large numbers of children (many of whom when at home live in ill-ventilated, badly-drained, and overcrowded dwellings), every morning in a board school, to the number of three or four hundred, must of necessity lead to the propagation of contagious and

MR. RUSKIN announces that he has, at the request of a few Sheffield workmen, authorised the investment of 1,200/. in an estate of thirteen acres of land near Sheffield, whereupon the workmen may spend what spare hours they have, and for which they agree to pay 3 per cent.

JAMES HARRISON, of Ashford-in-the-Wale, Derbyshire, was last week fined 10l., and costs 87., at Sheffield, for sending to that town the liver and other parts of an animal which had been poisoned by eating yew leaves. Defendant was recently fined 20/. at Guildhall, London, for sending the carcase to London.

THE attention of the City Commissioners of Sewers having been directed to the great want of a proper inquest room within the City of London, the medical officer of health has made inquiries, and on a report from that gentleman the commissioners have determined to provide the required accommodation.

ACCOUNTS from Madras state that the immense number of 1,237 died in that city in the week ending March 2347 from small-pox and 169 from cholera. Öf the others not a few sank under the wasting effects of long-continued privation. The population in round numbers is about 450,000, so that the death-rate is really alarming.

DR. CORNISH, the Sanitary Commissioner for Madras, has officially protested against Sir Richard Temple's maximum of one pound of rice per diem for an adult, and declares that 24 ounces is the minimum upon which a man can labour, even in the desultory, spasmodic manner peculiar to relief works. The Madras Government at once adopted their sanitary commissioner's regimen, and wrote to the Viceroy in Council protesting against the 'starving-point' diet.

THE first inquiry which has been heard in Ireland under the Artisan and Labourers' Dwellings Act, 1875, took place on the 3rd instant, in Belfast, and was conducted by Dr. Roughan, one of the Local Government Board inspectors. The Belfast Corporation are taking steps to put the Act in operation on an area which has been for many years in a very unhealthy and dilapidated condition.

MR. HENLEY, Local Government Board inspector, attended the meeting of the Birmingham Board of Guardians last week, and having called attention to the crowded state of the workhouse, suggested that one of the architects of the Local Government Board should be requested to make a thorough investigation as to the accommodation provided, with a view to a better classification of the inmates. The suggestion was adopted. Upon Mr. Henley's suggestion it was also decided to call in some medical gentleman to report upon the outbreak of ophthalmia in the house, and to ascertain, if possible, its cause.

SMALL-POX IN LONDON.

AT the meeting of the Metropolitan Asylums Board on Saturday last, Colonel Radcliffe presented the report of the Hampstead Asylum, stating that during the past fortnight 135 cases had been admitted, 116 had been discharged recovered, and 29 had died, leaving 269 under treatment. Mr. Barringer reported with regard to the Limehouse hospital, that no patients had of late been sent, and of 83 who were there a fortnight since 48 had been discharged. In the Homerton Asylums there were 197 and 137, after 60 and 54 had been discharged, 26 in the two asylums having died. Deputy Inspector-General Bostock, C.B., stated that at the Stockwell Fever Asylum 41 cases of various fevers had been admitted in the fortnight, and 26 had been discharged, leaving 82, these being all the fever cases under the Poor Laws in London. For the small-pox side there were 129 cases, after 70 had been discharged, 74 having been received in the fortnight, and 14 had died. In all the asylums there were 979 cases of small-pox.

ADULTERATION OF GIN.

MR. WIGNER, public analyst, has presented a special report to the Woolwich local board of health on some samples of gin which he had found to be 50 degrees under proof. The board, thinking that this gin-and-water could hardly be mistaken for gin unless some deleterious agent had been added to tickle the appetite, inquired of the analyst, who stated that there was nothing mixed with the gin but water, and that, as the ordinary 'gin of commerce' was lawfully 22 degrees under proof, the spirit in question had been mixed with only one-third water. One of the samples, all of which appeared to be purchased in bottles of wine merchants or grocers, was marked 'half-proof,' in which case the analyst thought a prosecution would not succeed. Mr. Malings, a member of the board, said he regarded it is an act of philanthropy to make gin as weak as possible, and that he would rather prosecute people who sold it too strong. The Rev. T. Tuffield said the gindrinkers might be left to take care of themselves, and the board decided unanimously not to prosecute.

REDDITCH DRAINAGE.

WE are sorry to learn from a communication received, and which we publish elsewhere, that the hope we expressed with reference to a speedy and happy solution of the Redditch drainage has not been fulfilled. In our issue of March 30, we mentioned that, although some little hitch had occurred, matters were in a fair train for solution.

Since then we have been favoured with a copy of No. 3 of the Local Board Election Chronicle, which has furnished us with a very good idea of the deadlock in which the drainage scheme is now placed, and of the acrimony which has been unfortunately imported into the question. It is to be hoped that this far from satisfactory state of things will speedily be terminated. According to one authority, the death-rate of the town for the last decade has averaged 214 per 1,000, which should prove a great incentive to immediate action. Which scheme will be adopted eventually by the Local Board, and approved by the Government inspector, it is not in our power to prophesy, but we repeat, what we said in our short note of the 30th ult.—and there we distinctly hinted at the very state of things our correspondent, Scio,' fancies we overlooked'it is to be hoped that no local differences will stand in the way of a speedy and satisfactory solution of the question.'

THE BELGIAN COMPETITION PRIZE. WE have perused, with an immense amount of satis faction, Suggestions' which have been written by Mr. Edwin Chadwick, C. B., in relation to the 'Competition in the Sanitation of the Dwellings of the Wage-Classes,' the prize for which is a gold cup of 5,000 francs value, to be awarded, as from the King of the Belgians, to that Municipal or Local Authority, or private Association, which shall, by the improvement of the dwellings of the wageclasses, effect the greatest reduction of their death-rates at the lowest cost. In order that our readers may for themselves become acquainted with this valuable brochure, we may mention that it has been printed for circulation by order of the Council of the Society of Arts.

The sanitary specification therein set forth is of the completest kind, and includes a mention of the necessity for subsoil drainage, impervious foundations, compact, nonconducting, and washable walls, proper computation of window space, thorough changing of air in the rooms, advantageous heating arrangements, and ventilating gas services. It also sets forth the necessity for a water service on each floor, an improved closet and sink wastes, adequate drainage, a sanitary collection of dust, ashes, and vegetable refuse, and also dry approaches from the street and from the yards. Nothing, in fact, seems to have been omitted, as a guide and direction to the competitors, and we trust that, when the essays are opened at the next International Sanitary Congress, it will be found that all these points have been carefully considered, and the whole subject thoroughly worked-out.

FLAT ROOFS AS RECREATION GROUNDS. IN the course of a paper read by Dr. Wilberforce Smith before the British Medical Association at Sheffield on The Flat Roof as a Recreation Place in British Schools,' he alluded to the playground on the roof of the charity school in East Parade, Sheffield, and showed that if such a scheme were generally adopted, thousands of acres of open space would be secured in crowded towns, and recovered from the exclusive possession of the house sparrows. He maintained that the air circulated more freely over the house-tops, and was fresher than that below, and that the access of the sunlight on the roof was greater than in the streets. The additional cost of such playgrounds would, he was assured by builders, be very small. One objection to the proposal was, that our climate was not so suitable as it was in warmer lands; but the same objection would apply to all open spaces. It was said, too, that smoke would descend on the roof; but it would only do so in bad weather, which itself was sufficient to keep the people indoors. One of the greatest difficulties was that referring to the noise which the children would make overhead; but that could be obviated by a space filled with sawdust or concrete being provided between the roof and the ceiling.

INFECTIOUS DISEASES AND THE
LIVERPOOL PLUMBERS.

A DEPUTATION from the Plumbers' Association of Liverpool have had an interview with the Workhouse Committee, on the subject of the spread of infectious diseases. On behalf of the plumbers it was represented that members of their trade had frequently to work in fever and small-pox wards, and that thereby themselves, their families, and the inmates of other houses to which they might be sent to do some job immediately after leaving one of these wards, ran considerable risk. The question was asked whether this risk could not be lessened, and, as a practical suggestion, a member of the deputation thought a special suit of clothes should be provided for plumbers while employed in the wards, and that they should be allowed a bath on leaving in the evening. The committee promised to consider the matter, but they did not seem to think that the plumbers were in any worse case than joiners, painters, and other tradesmen, who were exposed to similar hazards. As to suits of clothes and evening ablutions, the chairman thought a plumber might provide himself with a change of raiment if he thought it necessary, and Mr. Wilkie, the governor, intimated that any plumber inclined that way might at any time have his choice out of eight baths, which would be at his disposal.

WHOLESOME CLOSETS.

AT a late meeting of the Merthyr local board of health, Mr. Harris called attention to the fact that so fast as new and wholesome closets were provided for the people they were destroyed. Doors were taken off their hinges, pans broken, and seats used as firewood, at least so says the Merthyr Express, in commenting on Mr. Harris's speech. Mr. Harris demands, and with right on his side, that the people who so negligently use their new closets should be punished. Unfortunately there is no provision in the Public Health Act aimed directly at such a class of offences. In the Salford Improvement Act there is a clause to the following effect, If any person shall injure or improperly foul any privy, water closet, or ashpit used in common by the occupants of two or more dwelling-houses, or any ashpit or receptacle for fæces belonging to or connected with such privy, water closet, or ashpit he shall for every such offence forfeit and pay a penalty not exceeding 20s.' Such a clause would meet the Merthyr difficulty, and the board should memorialise the president of the Local Government Board to introduce similar powers into his next bill. We think, however, that it is almost tempting providence to give Merthyr colliers water closets. Of all systems the 'Goux' is evidently the system for Merthyr.

SEWAGE FARM FOR NOTTINGHAM. WE are informed that something like 600 acres of land have been acquired, some five miles distant from the town of Nottingham, by the Corporation, in order to achieve the disposal of the town sewage by means of a sewage farm. Several large suburbs are also included in the scheme, and the work is fast advancing. The cost of carrying out the project has been estimated as high as 200,000/., but that is surely an improbable figure.

At the present time the sewage flows direct into the river Trent, and undergoes no purification whatever, in consequence of which complaints have been made by the river-side landed proprietors of the pollution of the water, and in some cases threats have been made that injunctions would be applied for unless measures were taken to remove the cause of offence. The present system is considered very unsatisfactory, and the farm sewage principle was resorted to as the best expedient. We hope the scheme at Nottingham will succeed, and not add another flagstone to a certain pavement.

OUT-DOOR RELIEF.

Of the three great East-end parishes that have set their faces against out-door relief, viz. Stepney, Whitechapel, and St. George's-in-the-East, we find in Stepney the number of persons receiving out-door relief in 1868 was 4,347, and in 1876, during the same period, the number had fallen to 224. In Whitechapel the number has fallen from 3,000 to 150, and in St. George's-in-the-East there were, in 1870, 4,272 persons receiving out-door relief, and in 1876 only 197. This great reduction has been effected in the face of a great increase of population, estimated to exceed 12 per cent. Looking at the above figures it is not too much to say that 11,000 persons have been taught in these three London unions the wholesome lesson of selfhelp, instead of foisting themselves upon the rates. This has been done without any counterbalancing increase in the number of in-door paupers or any cases of hardship coming to the knowledge of the clergy or the press. The Saturday Review, writing on this subject, says that the issue whether pauperism is to increase or decrease is substantially decided by the adoption or non-adoption of indoor relief as the general rule. Wherever out-door relief can be had easily, there pauperism will be abun dant; wherever out-door relief is administered with a sparing hand, and the workhouse is habitually offered in cases of alleged destitution, there pauperism becomes rarer.'

STATISTICAL IMPROBABILITIES.

DR. BOND, the medical officer of health for the combined district of Gloucestershire, recently addressed a letter to the Times, which was published on the 5th inst. under the heading A Singular Coincidence.' The ground on which he based his plea for the publication of the letter was to record 'a coincidence of so singular a character that it is worth mentioning, if only as an illustration of how improbabilities of the most extreme kind may occasionally assert themselves as facts. The letter then proceeded to state that in the two parishes of Newnham and Awne, situated within the Union of Westbury-on-Severn, the number of births recorded in each of three successive years had not only identically corresponded with the numbers of deaths recorded in each of the same years, but that sex proportions of the births and of the deaths had also been identically the same. Dr. Bond was unquestionably right in asserting that even to the most unmathematical person, it must be evident that the probabilities against such a coincidence, or rather such a series of coincidences, must be enormously great. It did not require much acumen to discover the strong probability that Dr. Bond's singular coincidence was simply the result of a blunder, and a letter was inserted in the Times of the following morning by Mr. N. A. Humphreys, of the Registrar-General's office, pointing out that a reference to the birth and death register of the district showed that during the year 1876 the births

in each of these two parishes very considerably exceeded the deaths, as they do in almost all English populations. It is not easy to divine the nature of the blunder which Dr. Bond appears to have committed, but it seems clear that he must have used the same series of figures both for births and for deaths, and then was astonished at their coincidence. The error has been a perfectly harmless one, and may serve a very useful purpose to the increasing number of students of vital statistics, if it leads them to bear in mind the maxim referred to by Mr. Humphreys in the opening of his refutation of Dr. Bond's error. This maxim enjoins a wholesome scepticism of figures which appear to prove improbabilities of the most extreme kind.' If Dr. Bond's astonishment at the truly extraordinary coincidences which he hastened to impart to the readers of the Times had led him to look a little further into the matter,

he would have found that his figures signified that the annual birth-rate in these two parishes, each having a small town in its centre, during the three years 1874-76, did not exceed 13 per 1,000! Now we are sure that if Dr. Bond had looked at the bearing of his figures in this way, their gross improbability must have led to the discovery of his error before instead of after he had written to the Times. To the uninitiated and untrained statistician the construction of vital statistics is beset with unnumbered pitfalls, or sources of blunder, but a chronic suspicion of all grossly improbable and sensational results will afford invaluable assistance in avoiding such errors as the one into which Dr. Bond so unaccountably fell.

SCARLET FEVER AND PIG-KEEPING.

A VERY animated discussion ensued at a meeting of the Cheltenham Sanitary Authority after reading the report of the medical officer of health on an outbreak of scarlet fever in Cheltenham. Dr. Wright stated that the epidemic had been spread through children having been allowed to play in the streets, or sent to school, while the skin was peeling, after having suffered from an attack of this disease. That cases had occurred in which a malignant type had supervened, in consequence of the offensive effluvia evolved by pigs kept in a dirty state near to dwelling houses. A smart passage of arms ensued between two members of the board, one regretting that sanitary reform should be made a matter for electioneering speeches, whereupon another expressed his opinion that any member of the board had a right to make political or any other capital out of their speeches at the board. We fear that this feeling is far too common amongst members of local boards, who are inclined to consider how far the course they are about to take will advance their private purposes rather than what is their public duty. After a long discussion the following resolution was carried: That when in the opinion of the medical officer of health, the owner or occupier of any house should cleanse the same, or any article therein, with a view to checking the spread or progress of any infectious disease, he (sic) is empowered to incur the expense of such disinfecting and cleansing, and to have such house or article disinfected and cleansed.' We must confess that we do not quite understand who the he is that is to incur the expense and do the work, because it is stated that these are to be performed when the owner or occupier should carry out what is necessary. If therefore the medical officer is to incur the expense, it is quite clear that he will be paying for what should be done by others. As however the chief thing is to get such works done as will check disease, it does not matter much to any one except the ratepayers and those more intimately concerned by whom the cost has to be defrayed.

Dr. Wright has issued a circular to managers of schools, requesting them to direct the schoolmaster and mistress to give the sanitary inspector the names and addresses of the children who remain away from school through illness, which we think á very prudent course.

Special Report.

UNDERGROUND WATERS OF THE NEW RED AND PERMIAN FORMATIONS.

MR. C. E. DE RANCE, F.G.S., read before the British Association Meeting, Glasgow, Sept. 1876, the second report of the Committee on Underground Waters of the New Red and Permian Formations of England. At the outset he referred to the wells at Liverpool, Birkenhead, Nottingham, and Birmingham, etc. The details of wells in the new red sandstone were collected, which yielded in Liverpool no less than 7,197,330 gallons daily; at Coventry, Birmingham, and Leamington, 4,500,000; at Nottingham, nearly 4,000,000 gallons; at Birkenhead, more than 7,000,000; at Warrington, 572,300 gallons; at Stockport, 1,073,820 gallons. The largest yield of an individual well was that at Green Lane, Old Swan, in Liverpool-the average daily yield of which, in 1875, amounted to 2,533,050 gallons, and the present maximum of which amounted to no less than 3,243,549 gallons, pumped up by three engines, one of which was always at work, from a depth of 136 feet. It seems that in Liverpool the water in the wells was diminishing, but there was not yet sufficient evidence to prove what balance of absolute quantity of water still remained capable of being drawn. The rocks beneath the Permian had been

proved by the borings made by the committee to be of Yordale age, the coal measures being absent. An interesting feature in the boring was the presence of petroleum oils in Yordale rocks near the bottom, which caused the water cut in penetrating the sandstone to be much charged with oil. The committee called attention to the publication since the last meeting of the sixth and final report of H.M. Commissioners appointed to inquire into the best means of preventing the pollution of rivers. The volume issued by them treated of the domestic water-supply of Great Britain, and in it the Commissioners stated that the new red sandstone rock constituted one of the most effective filtering media known, and was at the same time a powerful destroyer of organic matter. The evidence of previous pollution in water drawn from deep wells in this rock might be safely ignored, for, being a porous ferruginous rock, it exerted a powerful oxidising influence upon the dissolved organic matter which percolated through it. To such an extent was this oxidation carried, that in some cases, as in those of the deep well waters supplying St. Helens, Tranmere, every trace of organic matter was converted into innocuous mineral components. The Commissioners further added that, though the quartz sand constituting the bulk of the new red sandstone was usually connected together by carbonite or sulphate of lime, that the of a nature that could be softened by time, according hardness of the water was generally moderate, and to Dr. Clark's method, and that the unpolluted waters, drawn from deep wells in the new red sandstone, were almost invariably clear, sparkling, and palatable, and were amongst the best and most wholesome waters for domestic supply in Great Britain. They contained, as a rule, but a moderate amount of saline impurity, and either none, or but the merest trace, of organic impurity. There was every reason to believe that a vast quantity of hitherto unutilised water, of most excellent quality, was to be had at a moderate expense from this very extensive geological formation. This area was cer