392

SANITARY PRECAUTIONS.

tages which it is hoped will be derived from the measures which you will be requiredto prepare.

The Reports of the Commissioners of Inquiry into the means of Improving theHealth of Towns shew an extent of expenditure in useless and wasteful works whichmay well justify apprehension as to future expenditure under the same managementfor the same objects. In the present depressed state of many commercial and manu-facturing districts you will probably experience a great dread of any new outlaywhatsoever. The Legislature , in authorizing a new expenditure, has appointed thenew Board, whose agent you are for carrying the Act into effect, for the purpose ofpreventing the repetition of the former insufficiency and waste.

It will be your duty by your Report to allay, as far as may be practicable, un-founded apprehension on these heads.

You will shew the description of works required, and state the charges at which itmay be confidently pronounced that such works may be executed under a propermanagement. You will allay apprehensions of immediate outlays being required byexpounding the principle and the equity of the distribution of charges over periodsof time as sanctioned by the Legislature .

You will state the weekly charges per house, and the charges per head on thepopulation, in order that the annual rental, as well as the immediate outlay which isto last for years, may not, as is commonly done, be fallaciously set against the dailyand weekly convenience and economy.

You will moreover take care to ascertain and set forth what are really the existingcharges in respect to which it is hoped the new charges will serve as means of reduc-tion; the existing immediate charges of emptying cesspools by hand-labour and cart-age ; the charges of repairing defective house-drains and cleansing badly constructedsewers; the charges for the construction and repairs of pumps and wells, and oftanks and cisterns where supplies of water are only intermittent; the charges offetching, carrying, and distributing water by hand-labour, and the charges of dilapi-dations of premises arising from damp and ill-drained foundations.

It is important to ascertain such existing charges, as a point of departure as wellas of contrast. One mode of doing this will be by a set of house-to-house queries,such as have been distributed by the Metropolitan Commissioners of Sewers. Youwill exercise your discretion as to the distribution of these queries. In order to keepthem within a manageable extent, you may send them to be answered by the peti-tioners, or you may distribute them to the occupiers of different classes of houses.You may take a block of houses of each of the chief classes, and after having ascer-tained the existing charges in relation to them, set forth the proposed house-drainageand other works, and shew in detail the proposed new charges in relation to them.

You will also advert to the expenses of sickness and mortality. The extent ofinquiry and exposition on this topic will be entirely at your own discretion.

In the event of your deciding to hold an adjourned meeting to hear any parties onany contested question, you will remind the persons applying, or the rate-payers, ofthe expenses incurred by any delay, and ask from what fund the prosecutors of thecontested question expect payment ?

You will bear in mind that your examination is mainly one as to works, or as toengineering appliances for the removal of the evils in question, and you will conductthe inquiry according to the best of your judgment for the attainment of the chiefobjects, according to your own professional views and methods of investigation : andwhere you deem it necessary to examine witnesses, it will be inexpedient that youshould attempt to adopt the technical procedure of the Courts of Law, which isinstituted for the determination of questions as to matters of fact with a view to