The publications of the Massachusetts Board of Health[S] have been of a superior character, and have given that organization decided prominence among similar American boards. The question of how to prevent river pollution in their State they think can best be solved by placing advisory power in the hands of some Government officer, upon whose conclusions legislative action for each case should be based. This officer would be paid by the parties in interest. Good results are to be obtained only by comparing and altering when necessary what is done. In this country too little is known about this subject, and the appointment of an official "with power" is the first step toward knowledge. The suggestions made as to the way to deal with sewage are also mostly good, but it is doubtful whether general purification can wisely be enforced in the present state of sanitary science. If there are any very bad cases of pollution, they may properly be provided for in the way suggested, and experience gained from them. The lack of experience here is partially corrected by studying the work accomplished abroad; but a rapid review of such work can never replace the slower results of individual experience. The report of Mr. Kirkwood, the engineer, adds to the abundant testimony we already have of the efficacy and power of Nature's quietest work. Analyses show that the water of Charles river above the Newton lower falls is, when filtered, fit, though barely fit, to drink, and yet it has received the refuse of forty-two mills and factories, with a population of 14,000 persons known to be sewering into the river, and a population in the basin of three times that number. The river has a dry-weather flow of only twenty million gallons in twenty-four hours. On the general subject of sewage utilization the secretary concludes that in this country the sewage has no value, but can in some places, at least, be utilized without loss. In the death rate of Massachusetts towns the village of Canton (4,192 population) carries the palm, with only 11.9 deaths per thousand. Holyoke, 56.5 per thousand, has the highest.
--The report that a city is to be built in England on strict sanitary principles, in which man may, if he will, live to a hundred and fifty years of age, will give additional interest to this address[T] in which Dr. Richardson develops the project. The address was delivered a year ago, when the Doctor was president of the Health Department of the Social Science Association. It deserves attention because it indicates, pretty nearly, the goal toward which all the conscious and unconscious improvement in our living for centuries has tended. Whether man can obtain such control over the duration of his life depends very largely upon whether he finds himself able to submit to the discipline and self-abnegation without which the mechanical improvements made will have only partial success. Perfect living is not merely a thing of appliances. These are necessary, but the subjection of the will to the requirements of orderly conduct is equally necessary. However, Dr. Richardson says that "Utopia is but another word for time," and it is certain that his ideal of public and private life will be at least approached by the slow progress of small improvements. Some people have objected that they don't want to live a century and a half, and that a city where men two hundred years of age might occasionally be seen walking about is just the place they would most carefully avoid. But we can none of us escape our fate. If society is progressing toward that end, let us accept it, and even allow the men of science to hurry up matters a century or two. It is, perhaps, significant that this change in man's estate comes just at the time when a reduction in the rate of interest is taking place, and it seems likely that a man will have to live to a hundred years in order to accumulate enough to buy him a house. When he has it, he will need another half century to enjoy it. At all events read this ideal, extraordinary, and learned exposition of the health of the future.