That such intelligence, embracing weekly returns from the eleven parochial surgeons of the City of London, and including their comments on the local causes of prevailing disease, would involve an annual expenditure of money,[28]--and that this expenditure, sooner or later, and in some form or other, would be derived from the rate-paying portion of the community, are facts which cannot be doubted. But that the expenditure would be a judicious one; that it is indispensable to the effective working of any Health-Committee, or any Health-Officer within the City; that it would be the first step to the mitigation of the disorders reported on; that it would disclose evils which else must escape recognition and remedy; that in a few years it would render our general mortality of 3 per cent. on the entire population of the City a matter of history and a warning, instead of its being, as now, a present and awful reality; that in lessening sickness and death, it would stay a large source of pauperism, would diminish the number of occasional and habitual claimants of Union relief, and would become a measure of real and considerable economy;--these are points on which, with the utmost sense of official responsibility, I beg to record my deliberate conviction. [28] When the matter was last under consideration of the Commissioners, it appeared that the expense of such an arrangement would be about £250 annually.--J. S., 1854. Accordingly, I have to recommend that any Committee, which may undertake the administration of sanitary affairs for the City, shall be furnished as completely as possible with information of the nature I have specified. * * * * * Another element to which I think it necessary to advert, in connexion with a future sanitary organisation for the City, is this,--that some permanent arrangement should be made, by which the maintenance of exterior and interior cleanliness, the enforcement of scavengers’ duties, the suppression of nuisances, and the like, should be brought under habitual and systematic surveillance; one, by which all breaches of your present or future sanitary regulations may be quickly detected, and may be visited with their appropriate penalties as speedily and as certainly as possible. I am induced the rather to bring this subject before you, as complaints of scavengers’ duties being neglected have reached me at every turn. I am informed that it is usual for them to refuse to remove dirt and rubbish from houses, according to the terms of their contract, except on the tenants’ payment of an additional gratuity; and it must be obvious to your Hon. Court that the arrangements which you have made by contract for this purpose are virtually defeated, as regards the poorer population, when the removal of refuse-matter is made contingent on the gift of beer-money by those whose means are so restricted.