In 1809, for example, the paper braved the anger of business men by asserting on July 24 that, despite all denials, several deaths from the fever had just occurred in Brooklyn. Though an epidemic was raging in Cuba, ships from Havana had been allowed to come up from quarantine within four days of arrival, and had not been unloaded and cleansed according to the law. On July 28, by diligent scouting among doctors, Coleman was enabled to report a death from fever in Cherry Street and another in Beekman Street. He renewed his charge of malfeasance and neglect by the Health Officer at quarantine, a political appointee who pocketed $15,000 a year. Why, he demanded, were the laws as to the removal of the sick and the reporting of new cases not enforced? Four days later Mayor De Witt Clinton by proclamation forbade intercourse with the village of Brooklyn. At last! exclaimed the editor. But why not look to conditions within Manhattan itself, and make the ordinary physician obey the law? “If he does, one of the learned faculty will set a young cub of a student upon him to tear him in pieces for alarming the old women; and then there is another set who declare him a public enemy.” Just ten years later, remarking that “it has heretofore been the practice to stifle, as long as possible, the intelligence that the yellow fever existed in the city,” Coleman served notice that if it broke out, as it did in August, he would advertise the fact. In 1822 there was a severe pestilence. The first case occurred on July 11 in a house on Rector Street, and was immediately made known to the Board of Health and to the officer deputed by law to give the first notice of its appearance. Yet it was concealed from the public for nearly a month, deaths occurring all the while, but no precautionary measures being taken; and before the epidemic ended, late in October, 388 persons died. The flight of the population toward the open parts of the island was unprecedented. An immediate agitation was begun by the _Evening Post_ for a different organization of the Board of Health. By an act two years previous, it consisted of such persons as the Common Council should appoint, a phrase which the Council always construed to mean that it should itself act as the Board. The members were quite untrained, while they were too numerous, and too busy with politics. Coleman suggested a Board of from five to seven qualified men, to be nominated by the Mayor and confirmed by the Council, and a reform actually did soon follow.