The toast which I have to propose, The Board of Health, is entitled
to all the honour which can be conferred upon it. We have very
near us, in Kensington, a transparent illustration that no very
great thing can ever be accomplished without an immense amount of
abuse being heaped upon it. In connexion with the Board of Health
we are always hearing a very large word which is always pronounced
with a very great relish--the word centralization. Now I submit
that in the time of the cholera we had a pretty good opportunity of
judging between this so called centralization and what I may, I
think, call "vestrylisation." I dare say the company present have
read the reports of the Cholera Board of Health, and I daresay they
have also read reports of certain vestries. I have the honour of
belonging to a constituency which elected that amazing body, the
Marylebone vestry, and I think that if the company present will
look to what was done by the Board of Health at Glasgow, and then
contrast those proceedings with the wonderful cleverness with which
affairs were managed at the same period by my vestry, there will be
very little difficulty in judging between them. My vestry even
took upon itself to deny the existence of cholera as a weak
invention of the enemy, and that denial had little or no effect in
staying the progress of the disease. We can now contrast what
centralization is as represented by a few noisy and interested
gentlemen, and what centralization is when worked out by a body
combining business habits, sound medical and social knowledge, and
an earnest sympathy with the sufferings of the working classes.
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