Over the pollutions of the river, and over the tidal exposure of its malarious banks, you have no power. Whether for the relief of your low-lying districts--subject to imminent risk from causes I have described--there can be found any temporary protection to save their atmosphere from contamination, is a question which you will resolve upon other judgment than mine. Along the river-bank there is one especial source of nuisance which has repeatedly been under your notice, and which is likely to become of serious local import under the presence of epidemic disease. I refer to the docks, and chiefly to that of Whitefriars. I mention it particularly, not only because the accumulations of putrid matter there have often been alarmingly great, but likewise because, at the head of this dock, during the former invasion of Cholera, there was remarkable prevalence of the disease; and I can well remember how often the offensive condition of the dock was accused, not unjustly, of contributing to the mortality of the neighbourhood. The fœtid materials, floated into these several recesses of the river, and left stranded there by the receding tide, are often so copious as to produce very objectionable effects on the atmosphere which surrounds them; and I would beg leave strongly to urge that such sources of nuisance should be thoroughly and permanently removed. Further--from what I have said as to the conditions of our vulnerability by Cholera, you will be prepared to think it of great importance that, during the next six months, you should be certified on the state of your sewers, in every part of the City, as to their greatest possible cleanliness and least possible offensiveness of ventilation. Fifty miles of sewer, reticulated through the City, sufficiently attest your active desire to provide for the complete and continuous carrying away of all excremental matters: and you will excuse me, I hope, in consideration of the anxieties of my office, if I seem superfluously cautious in reminding you that the test of successful sewers lies in an inodorous fulfilment of their duty, and that every complaint of offensive emanations indicates, in proportion to its extent, a failure of that sanitary object for which the construction was designed. There is one precaution--always of great value to the health of towns, and especially useful against any malarious infection, which happily I find it needless to recommend. The paving of all public ways within the City--including every court and alley--is already so complete as to constitute a very favorable point in your sanitary defences. In order that this excellent arrangement may give its full fruit, it will be requisite--though this again I need hardly press on your consideration, that the duties of scavengers and dustmen be thoroughly and punctually performed.