That of all these problems health, in the widest sense, was the ...

That of all these problems

health, in the widest sense, was the most important, had been realized at the time of the cholera visitation, and the lesson was constantly hammered home by Chadwick from the Poor Law Commission.

All that the science of the day could discover or suggest-and the discoveries were as awful as the suggestions were drastic'-was embodied in his Report Of 1842. In 1848 the results were brought together. The principal were: municipal water supply, scientific drainage (land and town), an independent health service (with large summary powers for dealing with nuisances), and a national interment service.

Why this last was regarded as important will be understood by anyone who looks at Walker's Gatherings from Graveyards. In the early Poor Law administration, the Commissioners had no representative in Parliament, so that the Tyrants of Somerset House were without a Minister either to control or to defend their masterful proceedings: they really were bureaucrats, as Palmerston explained the new word to Queen Victoria, from bureau an office and kratos power.

The defect was made good in 1847, and the Commission was provided with a Parliamentary President.

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