§ 103. A set of remedies, as proposed in the Committee of the House of Commons, and agreed to, has been before the public, and the chief part of them embodied in a bill proposed to the House at the close of the Session of Parliament of 1842. All the evidence of disinterested persons which I have met with, all paid and experienced officers connected with parishes, whose interests would perhaps be the least disturbed by parochial establishments, concur in the conclusion that the measures proposed for creating such establishments would not diminish, but would rather diffuse, and might even aggravate the evils intended to be remedied. By the first clause it was proposed to enact— That the rector, vicar, or incumbent, and the church-wardens of every parish, township, or place in every such city, town, borough, or place respectively, shall form a parochial committee of health for every such parish, township, or place. § 104. The first observation which occurs on this proposal is, that it involves the formation of “a committee of health,” for the execution of a sanitary measure, requiring the application of a very high degree of the science applicable to the protection of the public health, and omits all provision of services of the nature of those which would be required from a well-qualified medical officer. A provision on a parochial scale would indeed preclude the regular application of such service, except at a disproportionate expense. As a remedy against undue charges on the smaller parishes, a power of forming unions for the purpose is provided by the clause. Or it shall be lawful for the rectors, vicars, or incumbents and church-wardens of any two or more parishes, townships, or places therein, to form such parishes, townships, or places into a Union for the purposes of this Act; and in such cases the rectors, vicars, or incumbents, and church-wardens of each parish, township, or place so united, shall form a parochial committee of health for such Union; and all the powers hereinafter given to any such committee may be executed by the majority of the members of any such committee at any meeting. It is agreed by the most experienced public officers, that even a compulsory power to form unions of two parishes, but leaving the union beyond that number optional, would be equivalent to a provision, that two and _no_ more shall unite; but that a merely permissive power to unite would be nugatory, except perhaps in the case of the smallest parishes: in other words, since there are in the district to which the enactment would apply, in the metropolis, upwards of 170 parishes, it would imply the establishment of upwards of 100 places of burial in such places as the following clauses would enable the parishes to provide.