Under both these heads, you possess a power hitherto but imperfectly used, the complete and constant exercise of which I would strongly recommend to your Hon. Court. In all those clauses of your Acts of Parliament, which relate to private works of house-drainage and water-supply, there occurs a very important phrase:--such works shall be constructed ‘to the satisfaction of the Commissioners.’ Now, of private works effected under the authority of your Act, during the last three years, a certain, not inconsiderable, share proves inoperative and bad. The mere overflowing of a water-butt (and in numberless instances this is the arrangement evasively adopted under your orders) can never suffice for the effectual cleansing of house-drains. I need scarcely inform you that an obstructed drain and choked privy, wherever they occur, are equivalent to a cesspool; shedding abroad the same effluvia, and producing the same deadly results. No gain is gotten to the wholesomeness of a house, by substituting for its former cesspool an equally offensive and inoperative drain. To my knowledge, much of the drainage done during the last three years is liable to this risk; and it appears to me indispensable that you should exert direct supervision against so serious an evil. I would recommend to your Hon. Court that, in issuing orders for the construction of drainage and water-supply, you should require a full specification to be delivered you of the works about to be undertaken, and should distinctly decide as to their sufficiency; or by a still simpler process, that you should fix and determine a certain standard of combined works; a model plan, in short, for house-drainage, privies, and water-supply, and should direct your Inspectors to certify to you the sufficiency of only such works as may accurately correspond to this design. I cannot but regard it as a grave calamity, that the general supply of water to the City remains beyond your control, in the hands of irresponsible traders; for its imperfect adaptation to the requirements of the public constitutes the largest sanitary evil of the day. * * * * * 4. You have entire control over the _pavement of every public way_ within the City, for its construction, maintenance, and cleansing; and in this respect you exercise a power of great sanitary value. The preservation of cleanliness along the whole extended surface of the City, including its many hundred courts and alleys, is indeed a branch of your functions which can hardly be over-estimated for its importance; and the fines which you have the power of levying from your contractors, whenever the scavenging is neglected, are useful securities for the general performance of their duties.