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884 THE LADIES' SANITARY ASSOCIATION.
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Transcript
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
. B* — ^ Made Satisfaction " The Stead C...
"We all know the difficulties of Sanitary Legislation . One looks with at theni which at I tinies will not almost trouble with this despair meeting . I have for looking my own on reasons them ,
, with more despair than eyer ; not on account of the government of the time , or any possible government that could come to England ,
but on account of the peculiar class of persons in whom the ownership of the small houses has become more and more vested , and
who are becoming more and more , I had almost said , the arbiters of the popular opinion , and of every election of parliament .
However , that is no business of mine here , that must be settled somer where else ; and a fearfully long time , it seems to me , before it is
settled . But , in the meantime , what legislation cannot do , I believe private help , and , above all , woman ' s helpcan do even better . It can
, do this ; it can not only improve the condition of the working man ; I am not speaking of working men , just at this time , I am
speaking of the middle classes , of the man who owns the house in which the working man lives . I am speaking , too , of the wealthy
tradesman ; I am speaking , it is a sad thing to have to say , of our own class as well as of others . Sanitary Reform , as it is called ,
or , in plain English , the art of health , is so very recent a discovery , as all true physical science isthat we ourselves and our own class
, know very little about it , and practise it very ill . And this Society , I do hope , will bear in mind that it is not simply to affect the
working man , not only to go into the foul alley ; but it is to go to the door of the farmer , to the door of the shopkeeper , ay , to the
door of ladies and gentlemen of the same rank as ourselves . Women can do in that work what men cannot do . Private
correspondence , private conversation , private example , may do what no legislation can do . I am struck more and more with the amount
of disease and death I see around me in all classes , which no sanitary legislation whatsoever could touch , unless you had a complete
house-to-house visitation of a government officer , with powers to enter every houseto drain and ventilate itand not only that , but to
, , regulate the clothes and the diet of every inhabitant , and that among all ranks . I can conceive of nothing short of that , which
would be absurd and impossible and would morally be most harmful , that would stop the present amount of disease and death which
I see around me , without some such private exertion on the part of women , of mothersas I do hope will spring from this Institution
, more and more . * ' 1 see this , that three persons out of four are utterly unaware of
the general causes of their own ill health , and of the ill health of their children . They talk of their * afflictions' and their '
misfortunes God' and ; ' of and 4 the , if visitation they _Tbe of pious God . peop ' I le do , they not talk lik , e to of trench 'the will of
, , upon those matters , but when I read in my book and in your book that * it is not the will of our Father in Heaven that one of these little
ones should perish , ' it has come to my mind sometimes with very
884 The Ladies' Sanitary Association.
884 THE LADIES' SANITARY ASSOCIATION .
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Aug. 1, 1859, page 384, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01081859/page/24/
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