been left to do for himself, but only saving him from suffering by the selfishness of third parties beyond his reach."

"In the restrictions which prevent every man from doing for his own profit or gratification that which inflicts on his neighbor a deadly injury, there is no hardship;-it is simple justice. Our law requires that the railway company, the master of the steamboat, and the manufacturer of gunpowder, should respectively conduct their operations so as not to endanger the safety of the community; and there can be no reason why the same responsibility should not be attached to those whose profitable occupation is building or spinning. Such intervention on behalf of the public is not to be confounded with the old sumptuary laws, for it interferes with things, not with persons; nor can it be compared to attempts to regulate labor and wages, or to restraints on trade,-for it is not done to procure, by the artificial adjustment of something which men can best settle for themselves, some speculative advantage, but, on the principle of salus populi suprema lex, to protect one set of human beings from being the victims of disease and death through the selfish cupidity of others. The owner of the soil is the person. who mainly profits by the accumulation of a city population; -his, at all events, are advantages for which he neither toils nor spins; and many of the princely fortunes of our day have been created by the rapid rise,-often causeless and capricious, so far as the owner himself may know,-of city populations. It does not seem then to be a very hard rule either of morality or law, that a proprietor who accumulates wealth by any such means, shall be compelled to submit to regulations which, should they even in some degree reduce the amount of his gains, may be a security, against the lives of those who by the necessities of their position are enriching him, from being sacrificed to his avarice or his recklessness. While he derives a profit by letting out his square yards of the earth's surface, it surely is not unfair that he should become bound not to transfer it to the occupant perforated throughout with pit-falls in which health and life may be lost."2

1 Edinburgh Review, January, 1850, p. 213.

2 Ibid. 214, 215.

"It is the common right of the neighborhood," says Dr. Simon, "to breathe an uncontaminated atmosphere; and with this common right nuisances must be considered to clash. It might be an infraction of personal liberty to interfere with a proprietor's right to make offensive smells within the limits of his own tenement, and for his own separate inhalation; but surely it is a still greater infraction of personal liberty, when the proprietor, entitled as he is to but a joint use of an atmosphere which is the common property of his neighborhood, assumes what is equivalent to a sole possession of it, and claims the right of diffusing through it some evanescent effluvium which others, equally with himself, are thus obliged to inhale."

Such are the opinions of some of the most eminent authorities in England on this matter; and they are sanctioned by the highest judicial tribunal in our own State. There have been few decisions in our courts, in cases for violations of the sanitary laws of the Commonwealth; but such as have been made are in opposition to the principle of this objection, and in accordance with the views here presented.1

6. It may be said, "Your measure will create an unnecessary expense; the State already spends too much money; we cannot afford it."

Every one should reflect that this is not an expense, but ån investment, a saving,-a "stitch in time," which is designed to add to the wealth and not to the poverty of the Commonwealth; and such we have proved will be the result. Expenditures for celebrations, and for various temporary or other purposes, and of doubtful expediency, more than sufficient for this purpose, are often made within this State, without opposition. and without counting the cost; and why should the trifling

See Pickering's Reports, Vol. VII, p. 76; and Vol. XII, p. 184. We extract one of these decisions. "It is not only the right but the duty of the city government of Boston, so far as they may be able, to remove every nuisance which may endanger the health of the citizens. And they have necessarily the power of deciding in what manner this shall be done, and their decision is conclusive, unless they transcend the powers conferred on them by the city charter. Police regulations to direct the use of private property so as to prevent its being pernicious to the citizens at large, are not void, although they may in some measure interfere with private rights without providing for compensation. The property of a private individual may be appropriated to public uses in connection with measures of municipal regulations, and in such case compensation must be provided for, or the appropriation will be unconstitutional and void."

outlay for this most useful measure be urged to defeat it? But we have already demonstrated the economy of the measure (especially in pages 250 to 260,) and we deem it useless to reply further to such as may still persist in making this objection.

7. It may be said, "If you diffuse information on these matters generally among the people, will you not make every person his own physician? will you not increase, and not suppress quackery; and thus magnify and not diminish the sanitary evils which it is your purpose to prevent ?"

It seems to us that this measure will have an effect directly opposite to the one here supposed. It is not intended, in the least degree, to usurp or to interfere with the duties of the physician, in the cure of disease, but to aid him in his professional efforts, and to dignify the importance of those efforts. It is, however, intended to teach the people so much of their physical organization, and so much of the influences that act upon them, that they may know, and be led to avoid, the causes of disease, and thus escape the infirmities, the sufferings, and the consequences of sickness. of sickness. This measure will teach the people to obtain proper medical advice when they are sick, and not to tamper with themselves or with their diseases, by unsuitable or dangerous remedies, nostrums or drugs, ignorant of their applicability to their own particular cases. It will lead them to understand when or in what stage of the disease, it is best to obtain professional advice; from whom to obtain it; and to discriminate between the good and the bad. Ignorance permits a cause of disease to operate unchecked until the disease itself actually invades the system; and the same ignorance permits the disease to make such advances before advice is obtained, that it is often impossible to arrest it. Intelligence, on the other hand, understands and avoids the causes of disease; or if disease should happen to have made its attack, the same intelligence will require medical advice of the proper kind at the commencement of the disease, when advice is most useful, and when the power of medical remedies is most decisive. And this intelligence will preside over all the domestic management of the sick room; and thus second all the efforts of the medical adviser, and give all possible effect to the reme

dies used for the expulsion of the disease. Ignorance and assumption constitute the essence of quackery; intelligence and a desire to do right, contemn it; and this measure is designed to prevent the former, and promote the latter.

8. It may be said," If you say so much about health and disease you will excite the alarm of the people, and create more disease than you prevent. It is better to let a place that is unhealthy remain so, unimproved, than to alarm the people about it."

If a place is unhealthy, and on that account an improper place of residence, does not a feeling of common humanity require that it should be known? If people are on the brink of a dangerous precipice, shall they not be told of their danger? -shall they be permitted to pursue their course to destruction, for fear of exciting their alarm? Is not a knowledge of their condition their only safety? The objection, in our judgment, instead of being a reason for the rejection of this measure, is a powerful one for its approval. "To be forewarned is to be forearmed." It is only those who know their capabilities and their liabilities,-who know their dangers and means of removal or escape, that are confident and unalarmed. The ignorant, unconscious of the means of mitigation, are more likely to be timid, alarmed, and to be overpowered with groundless fears, on the approach of danger.

Suppose that it should be ascertained, after careful and particular investigation, that a certain locality in the State is unhealthy, that in that place certain influences exist, and certain diseases prevail, that destroy, unnecessarily, a great amount of life, and produce a great amount of physical debility, and incapacity for labor. What is duty in such a case? to permit the evil to remain unexposed, and the destruction of life and happiness to continue unchecked? or to make known to the people the exact circumstances in which they are placed, the causes of the sanitary evils which they suffer, and the means of removal? Would not this knowledge lead them to adopt those precautionary means which would reduce the amount of the evil, as their only safety? or, if this were impossible, induce them to seek some other place of abode ? and under such cir

cumstances would not such a removal be a duty? Self-preservation on their part, and philanthropy on ours, say so; and so in our judgment this objection is removed and rendered power

less.

9. It may be said, "It will interfere with Divine Providence."- "It was to be so."-"It was so ordered."-"If we are to die of cholera, typhus, consumption, or any other disease, it must be so, it is useless and improper for us to interfere."

This is an old sentiment. It has formed a part of religious belief in different nations, from remote antiquity to the present time. Death, whether it come in the shape of a plague, mowing down its thousands, or as a solitary messenger, slowly wasting or suddenly destroying the individual, has been considered by many as the special Providence of God, with which we ought not and cannot interfere. As late as 1720, when inoculation for the small-pox, as a protection against the disease in the natural way, was introduced into Boston, it was strongly opposed; and one reason given was, that it would interfere with this Providence. And even in our day some consider it a disobedience to a Divine command,-" in sorrow thou shalt bring forth,"-to inhale ether or any other agent to mitigate pain, or to alter the character of labor!

We shall not attempt a discussion of any theological or philosophical question, relating to the providential agency manifested by the Supreme Governor of all things, in presiding over and governing the universe which he has made; but we would view this great matter of life and health in the same light that we view all other matters with which they are connected, and over which this providential agency is extended. Could we see clearly the operation of cause and effect, we should see wise laws wisely administered in every event that takes place in the universe. The husbandman does not sit down by the side of his field, and wait until the time of the harvest; and if he does not receive a crop, when he did not sow his seed; or if he did sow, when he neglects the proper care of the growing plant to protect it from injury,-from weeds, noxious agents, or "filth" of any kind,-say "it was to be so." His agen