The effect of this startling exhibition of the horrible sanitary condition of New York, both upon the joint committees and the large audience, was evidently very profound. And this effect was heightened by the early denials by the then City Inspector and his followers of the truth of the description of the condition of special localities, and the immediate exhibitions by the speaker of the sworn statements of the Physician-Inspectors of the Citizens’ Association, with photographic illustrations. Pressed by members of the committee to state when he last had these places inspected, he admitted that they had never been inspected by his Department. Intense interest was manifested in the custom of wholesale dealers in clothing of having their goods manufactured in tenement houses; in the fact that Inspectors had often found such clothing thrown over the beds or cradles of children suffering from contagious diseases, as scarlet fever, measles, smallpox; and in the evidence that these diseases were distributed widely over the country by this infected clothing. Several of the committee seemed much disturbed, as did the audience, during a recital of cases, and when the hearing closed, one of the committee said to me, in an excited manner, “Why, I bought underwear at one of those stores a few days ago, and I believe I have got smallpox, for I begin to itch all over!” Indeed, the effect of the discussion before the joint committees was so favorable, that several members declared that the bill would immediately pass both Houses without opposition. But the City Inspector secured delay by requesting another hearing, in order to investigate the facts presented in my quotations from the report of our inspection. This delay gave him the desired opportunity to defeat the bill, by means at his command and by methods familiar to that class of politicians. But the public, and especially the medical profession, both of the city and the State, had become so interested in the measure that at the next election it became a prominent issue and led to the defeat of seventeen candidates for the Legislature of 1866 who had voted in opposition. [Sidenote: Triumph at Last] It is said that epidemics are the best promoters of sanitary reform, and very opportunely cholera made its dread appearance in Europe late in 1865, and from its rate of progress it seemed likely to visit our shores early next year. These favoring conditions led to the passage of the “Metropolitan Health Law” among the first measures of the Legislature in 1866.