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Show i ' - THE 'CITY'S HEALTH. The rejwrt of the Sexton for the month of September is in. It is in no wise re-j re-j assuring as to the health of the city, and ? the number of deaths resulting from diphtheria is sixty per cent greater than . .. . for August. August is generally thought to be the most sickly month of the year, i j - while last month was exceptionally cool. To what, then, must be attributed the t increase of diphtheria? It must be at- tributed to a lax enforcement of quaran- tine regulations. During the summer , " " some "of the local 'papers, notably the I Tribune and the Democrat, were con tin- ' ' N; " ' " ually calling upon the city authorities to do something to prevent the spread of this dreadful disease. Were any efforts made to improve the sanitary condition of the city ? If any were made,' we never heard of them. About a week since the City Council passed a quarantine ordinance to satisfy the public demand that something be done. The Council passed it because public opinion compelled them to, thinking, think-ing, no doubt, that the great thing to be done was the stopping of public clamor and not the stopping of a public scourge. The City Council, judging from their acts, always act on the theory that the passage of an ordinance will cure an evil, and that it is not necessary to enforce it after its passage. They seem to think that there is some peculiar virtue in the ordinance j itself. ' To illustrate the manner in which city affairs are administered, we will cite, but one instance. For five weeks to our own knowledge there has been a dead dog lying on Sixth East street between First and Second South streets. During this time the Democrat has called the attention atten-tion of the City Marshal to the fact very frequently, - and he has ' taken no notice of the dead dog. Twice we have spoken to the Mayor of this city in person concerning the matter, and he told us it was the duty of the Marshal to have the dog removed, but the dead dog was on the street night before last. Sixth East street is a lead ing street, and one upon which some of the finest residences of the city are situated. situ-ated. Does anyone suppose that it is not injurious to the health of the city to allow dead dogs to lie in the streets and decay and send forth the terrible stench consequent conse-quent upon the decomposition of animal matter? The city officials seem to think there is nothing injurious about such things, and the city officials ought to know, because they are elected by the intelligence of a free people. Even the Herald, the sub-organ of the Mormon church and the People's party, has at last awakened to the necessity of doing something, some-thing, and this morning, through some remarkable re-markable process, rightly came to the conclusion something should be done. It saysi-egarding diphtheria : "Parents leave the sickbeds of their suffering suf-fering children, and without changing their clothing or doing anything .in the way of disinfection.'mingle with the public freely. All of which is most criminal in its disregard disre-gard of the rights and health of the community. com-munity. The regulations, if any can be said to exist, are not enforced, or if enforced, are applied with so much laxity as to furnish no protection whatever against the contagion. The terrible disease has assumed such alarming proportions that the public has become greatly aroused, and the authorities will not be held blameless if they longer refuse to make the quarantine mean something more than a harmless yellow flag." As was said above, the Tribune and Democrat tried to arouse the city author-ites author-ites to a sense of the danger, and this same solicitous Herald, on September 3d, said concerning that effort and the spread of diphtheria: "It is a singular thing, but one which our contemporaries refuse to recognize, that howl as much as they may about the filth of the city, and yell as they will that epidemir diseases are stalking through the town, the death rate continues low, and will not increase in-crease in answer to the appeals of the never happy newspaper man who has a grudge against Salt Lake. If some of our contemporaries had been believed, people would have expected the Sexton's report to show more deaths from diphtheria than occurred oc-curred from all causes combined." We would ask the Herald if the city was any. more filthy during September than during August, or if the death rate was any higher? During August, the death rate was nearly five percent, greater than during September. Yet the Herald mocked at the warnings sounded by its local contemporaries. What is its cause for alarm in September with a decreased de-creased death rate and the weather cooler when there was no cause for alarm in August? If the Herald has any influence in-fluence with the city officials, we trust that, seeing it has at last awakened to the danger, it will use it in behalf of a more healthy condition of things in our city. - '- - |