Genre:

Essay, Spoof, Polemic

Subjects:

Public Health, Sanitation, Disease, Government, Statistics

    Attacks recent legislation on public health, including the Public Health Act of 1848 and the Baths and Wash-Houses Act, as threats to 'the Briton's inestimable privilege of self-government'. Expresses approval that 'Parliament is awake to the levelling and dangerous principles of the so-called "Sanitary-Reformers"'. Upholds the fact that in many London districts self-government flourishes and the drainage and other sanitary ideas of the reformers do not work. Rebutts reformers' sanitary ideas concerning the operation of standpipes and the location of water butts and the notions of 'that despotic and un-English body, the Commissioners of Sewers' concerning ditches. Relishes the victories of the independent landlord over the commissioners and denies the use of sanitary statistics.