The onerous task of setting on foot and superintending the
inquiry throughout,--of sifting the evidence, and classifying and
condensing it for the purposes of publication,--devolved upon Mr.
Chadwick.
The first Report on the Health of Towns was ready for publication in
1842. It _ought_ to have appeared as the Official Report of the Poor-Law
Board; but as the commissioners (some of whom were at variance with Mr.
Chadwick with respect to the New Poor-Law) refused to assume the
responsibility of a document that contained much that must necessarily
offend many influential public bodies, Mr. Chadwick took the
responsibility upon himself, and it was published as _his_
report,--which indeed it was,--and accepted from him as such by the
commissioners.
The amount of dry, hard work encountered by Mr. Chadwick in the
preparation of this and his other reports can scarcely be estimated,
except by those who know anything of the labour involved in extracting
from masses of evidence, written and printed, sent in from all parts of
the empire, only the most striking results bearing upon the question in
hand, and such as are deemed worthy of publication. The mountains of
paper which Mr. Chadwick has thus bored through in his lifetime must
have been immense; and could they now be presented before him in one
pile, they would appal even _his_ stout heart!
The sensation excited throughout the country by the publication of Mr.
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