SOURCE: “The Sanitary Commission, and the Health of the Metropolis.” Fraser's Magazine 36, no. 215 (November 1847): 505-517.

In the following excerpt, Fraser's Magazine gives its support to the sanitary reform movement under Chadwick. The authors emphasize the importance of sanitary reform to solving many social problems, suggesting that sanitation could take the place of extensive charity efforts for the poor.

We look forward with much interest, and some impatience, to the appearance of the blue book which is to embody the labours of the new Sanitary Commission. As a general rule, we have little confidence in commissions, unless they contain one man qualified and determined to take the lead. However respectable and intelligent the individual members may be, the inquiry entrusted to them is too apt to degenerate into a series of conversations without aim or point, and the Report to possess too much of that quality which is familiarly...