University of Virginia Library

See paper read at the Congress of the Social Science Association Edinburgh, October 8, 1880.

It was tilt ultimately agreed not to appoint an officer of this hind till occasion should arise for his services ; none has been appointed.

Briefly stated, the points submitted in this prospectus were these: 1. That the proposed Association was a Society for the benefit of its members and the community that cannot be used for any purposes of profit. 2. The privileges of members include the annual inspection of their premises, as well as a preliminary report on their condition, with an estimate of the cost of any alterations recommended. 3. The skilled inspection from time to time of drains and all sanitary arrangements. 4. No obligation on the part of members to carry out any of the suggestions made by the engineers of the Association, who merely give skilled advice when such is desired. 5. The officers of the Association to have no interest in any outlay recommended. 6. The Association might be of great service to the poorer members of the community.

Healthy Houses, by Professor Fleeming Jenkin, p. 54.

It is perhaps worth mentioning as a curiosity of literature that the American publishers who produced this book in the States, without consulting the author, afterwards sent him a handsome cheque, of course unsolicited by him.

It is true, handsome tenements for working people have been ft, such as the picturesque group of houses erected with this object by a member of the Council of the Edinburgh Sanitary Association, at Bell's Mills, so well seen from the Dean Bridge, where every appliance that science can suggest has been made use of. But for the ordinary houses of the poor and the advice of the Association's engineers has been but rarely taken advantage of.