In order that any Committee, acting for sanitary purposes within the City, shall have a reasonable chance of success in its endeavours for the public good, the following means of information will be necessary for its use:--
1. That an account should be kept, corrected year by year, of every house within the City; as to the area of building, the number of floors, rooms, and windows; as to its ventilation; as to its drainage, water-supply, and other facilities for cleanliness; as to its method of occupation, and number of inhabitants:
2. That from this account there should be made out, at least twice yearly, a list of houses and streets remaining in an objectionable sanitary state; and a list, also, of such as may have been remedied to the satisfaction of the Committee since the formation of their last preceding list:
3. That, while trades injurious to health or offensive to their neighbourhood are suffered to continue within the City, there should be given periodical reports on the condition of such establishments, to the end that they may be so maintained as to be least detrimental to the public health:
4. That a record of every death registered as occurring in the population of the City should lie before the Committee; and
5. I consider it quite indispensable, that they should likewise receive the largest and most accurate returns which can be procured of all sickness occurring among the poorer classes; and (particularly in respect of all epidemic, endemic, and infectious disorders) that the medical practitioner who communicates the fact of illness, should likewise report the existence of any local causes, or other influences of general operation, which have tended to produce, or are tending to continue, such illness.
On the subject of returns of the nature last referred to, I have already, on various occasions, submitted my opinion to the judgment of your Hon. Court. A year ago, in the first Report which I had the honour to make here, and in various discussions which during some months followed the reception of that Report, I stated how necessary I deemed such returns, for the purpose of guiding and justifying the various recommendations which it would become my duty to lay before you. The period which has since elapsed, including its three months of pestilence, has furnished me with the strongest confirmation of those views. As I formerly stated by anticipation, so now I repeat from experience, that nothing deserving the name of sanitary administration can exist in the City, without accurate periodical intelligence of all such sickness (at least) as comes under parochial treatment; or without such reports on the local sanitary conditions, and on other causes of disease, as were desired to accompany that intelligence.