25th February.
In the recently published minutes of a Council meeting, our readers probably noticed a reference to an article which appeared in these columns on the 29th ult., entitled "The Dissemination of Disease." Judging, however, from the authorised publication of a memorandum submitted to the Council, its subject should either have been " Fluctuation in Prices," or "When will the Tael reach Bottom?" One sentence, and one only, could have hurt the feelings of the most sensitive member of the Council's or any other staff. Respecting the improvement in dairies and laundries, we wrote "It is tre that we have to pay for it in more ways than one." We did not wish to insinuate that our improved sanitation was adding obnoxious financial burdens, and there was nothing in the article to suggest suc: a desire. Why the Council should reply by publishing a curtailed market list is best known to itself. It is interesting to see that beef, fowls, and eggs cost exetly twice ax much to-day as they did in 1870, and that samh and snipe, though in just as great. abundance as ever, have doubled in price, but none of these things touch the point of our article. We do pay more for washing, and more for most things. That is a matter of common knowledge and common regret. But we never imagined that the Council or any members of its staff were to blame for it.
Our object in writing the article in question was, we should have thought, plain enough. Subsequent events have added point to what was then said. There is a section or department of the Council's work that needs reorganisation in certain ways. We hinted at some, and detailed others. The department is the scavenging department. As we said, no better means of scattering disease germs broadcast could be suggested than those in daily use by the coolies whose business it is to remove refuse. Even the insanitary Chinaman will try to get rid of anything that he knows to be infected with emall-pox or scarlet fever, What does he do with it He puts it into his dust bin, where with the weather we have had, it will have had a sufficient number of hours to become nicely dry and fit for transplanting whatever germs the coolies can shake out of it in the morning.
How does the Council reply to this, the crucial point of our leader? It rakes up an old notification which tells the community that they are not to be permitted to place refuse in the streets at a later hour than 6 am. in the summer or 7 a.m, in the winter, and that the police are to see that this regulation is kept. So far as it goes, and with th present system, that is all very well. But it leaves the collec. tion where it was. Surely it must be plain to everybody that what is wanted is not a rule as to the time when rubbish may be put into the streets, but one defining strictly the time when it is to be taken away. What is the use of having the refuse boxes in the street at six, or five, or four o'clock, if the carts do not come round till ten? So far as the public is concerned, it would be more conductive to health for the rubbish to be brought out at the time the cart comes along, rather than have it laid open to every puff of wind along the road of down the alley-way The whole system needs recasting. Everything offensive to health should as far as possible be done while men sleep, and we hope the next regulation of the Council witl lay down an early hour, not Inter than five all the year round, when the dust carts shall have finished their work, and not be on the point of beginning it. Ir is generally acknowledged that the type of cart, also, needs entire change, Instead of being as high as possible, it should be as low as possible, for obvious reasons. Another improvement in detail would be the employ ment of the coolie who leads the horse or mule in some more useful and profitable work. As it is, his duty is to stand by doing nothing while the others throw dust into the air, We are wrong in saying that he does nothing. He keeps a look-out for any foreigner who may be piss ing, and orders the dust-heavers to cease dissemination for the moment so that the susceptible vitlander may not be infected. He pays no attention whatever to a native, an indi ous distinction which is evidently the result of instructions. In passing, it may be noted that as the morning gets on, and the number of foreign passengers increases, a scaveuging party thus wastes considerably more than half its time. As a farther matter of detail we should give to the look-out in question a pair of garden buckets with which he should precede the cart for the purpose of sprinkling very thoroughly every heap of dry refuse on his way, replenishing his buckets from the hydrants en route. This would at any rate abate the dust nuisance. But as we have said, the only satisfactory reform will be that which ensures the removal of rubbish before people are about. Is this too much to ask, considering the acknowledged danger of the present system
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.