23 OCTOBER 1869, Page 3

Bristol has reduced her death-rate from 28 per thousand to

22f, saving about 1,000 lives a year. This is due mainly to a system established and maintained by Mr. Davies, an energetic officer of health. Under him are four inspectors, and their mode of war- fare with disease is to visit every court thrice a week, examine every house, disinfect every closet with Calvert's powder, see that all drains are clear, and once a year whitewash every court. Drinking water is carefully separated from sewage, and all Bristol has been provided with closets having strong stone shoots, and

an " eject " communicating with a 9-inch pipe, which it is easy to keep clear. There are 506 courts in Bristol, yet Mr. Davies has extirpated typhus and almost abolished fever, and— what we should have thought impossible—has secured the co- operation of the people, so that women will, unpaid, wash their courts down in rotation. It is pleasant to find that there is an administrator left in England, though we fear in London even Mr. Davies would be beaten.