"I can but express a strong conviction that the sanitary measures carried out are working slowly but steadily a vast improvement in both the morale and physique of the inhabitants of this metropolis in particular ... a great work is progressing, the effects of which will be seen more and more as years roll on, and will be recognised in the greater comfort, better health, and augmented self-respect of the people, and in an increased and increasing improvement in the homes of those on whose strength or weakness must depend in no slight degree the position for better or worse of the English nation." The Medical Officer of Health for St. George the Martyr, in his report for 1870, makes a retrospect of fifteen years:-- "When the Vestries began (1856) their mighty task they had to contend against evils and prejudices which had their origin in far away back generations, and which have cast down their roots deep and intricate into our social system.... "The Acts under which the Vestries had to work were very imperfect. Opposition was strong on every hand, the magistrates sympathised with the defendants. Property and its rights were apparently invaded; and property and its rights have always claimed more support than property and its duties. "What was our physical condition? (in 1855). "In every yard were one or more of 'the foulest receptacles in nature,' namely, cesspools; these gave off, unceasingly, foul effluvia, filling meat safe, cupboard, passage and room. The smell met you on entering the house, abode with you whilst you remained in it, and came out with you on leaving it. The parish was burrowed with them, and the soil soddened with the escape of their contents. The emptying of them proved a true infliction. They have now been emptied for the last time, filled up with coarse disinfecting materials.... They would not now be endured for a moment, yet with what difficulty they were abolished. They were clung to as if some old and honoured relic was about to be ruthlessly torn from its possessors." Dr. Simon, the Medical Officer to the Privy Council, gave, in his report of 1868,[116] a view of sanitary progress in the country generally, much of which applied equally to London:--