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classes must embark in it themselves. It is to them we now turn, and to their efforts we now trust, for remedying this great social defect. But in turn

ing to them, it is not with the feeling with which one turns to a forlorn hope. On the contrary, it is with the strong conviction that if they will but throw their energies into this cause, and gird themselves for its accomplishment under wise and persevering leaders, success, with God's help, will be sure to crown their efforts.

In treating of this subject, let us, in the first place, state some facts regarding the influence of the ordinary kind of dwellings on the welfare of the working classes; and thereafter notice the leading efforts that have been made to improve them, especially those which have been made by workmen themselves.

As to the influence of dwellings on the welfare of their inhabitants, the subject may be viewed in four aspects. We may consider their influence, 1st, on health; 2d, on morality; 3d, on social feelings and habits; and, 4th, on their religious welfare. The facts we may bring forward are certainly not new; but it is most desirable to lose no opportunity of giving them the widest possible circulation. It is most desirable to enlist the working classes in a sort of crusade on this subject, in order that not a

handful of officers merely, but whole regiments of rank and file may be mustered to give battle to the enemy, and bring to a triumphant issue that cause whose object is to provide not hovels but houses for the habitations of our people. We have always felt a peculiar interest in this subject, because it is here that the lot of the poor man is most painfully contrasted with that of the rich. It has been well said, that the man who dines for sixpence, and clothes himself during the year for £5, is probably as healthily fed, and as healthily clad, as if his dinner cost two guineas a day, and his dress £200 a year. But this is not the case with respect to habitation. Every increase of accommodation, from the corner of a cellar to a mansion, renders the dwelling more healthy; and to a certain extent, the size and goodness of the dwelling tend to render it more civilized. We are aware that some have exaggerated the importance of improved dwellings, fancying that nothing else was needed to regenerate the worst classes' of society. We have no fancy for such an extreme. The true light in which to view the matter is this— that while the people live in filthy, ill-ventilated, crowded dwellings, huddled together like pigs, neither the efforts of the physician, nor of the magistrate, nor of the city-missionary, nor of the minister, nor of the schoolmaster, nor of the tem

perance agent, nor of the lady-visitor, nor of any one else, can, ordinarily, avail to reclaim them to sobriety, or to elevate their condition. It is all, or nearly all, good labour wasted and thrown away; whereas, if you can get them into decent, healthy, and cheerful abodes, you may work all these agencies with delightful encouragement, and with the best hopes, through the blessing of God, of rearing a sober, happy, and pious population.

All

1. Influence of dwellings on health. It is perfectly well known that cholera, typhus, and other epidemics, commit their most fearful ravages in districts where the labouring classes are crowded in filthy and unventilated dwellings. Chest-diseases and scrofula follow much the same course. have heard the appalling assertion, that the annual slaughter by typhus fever of persons in the vigour of life, in England and Wales, exceeds double the slaughter in the allied armies at Waterloo ! Facts here are so numerous and appalling, that one hardly knows how to select them. A very interesting volume appeared lately under the title, Ragged Homes, and How to mend Them. It details the energetic labours of Mrs. Bayly in "the Potteries" near Kensington,-a place which a graphic pen thus sketched in Mr. Dickens' Household Words: “In a neighbourhood thickly studded with elegant villas.

and mansions, viz., Bayswater and Notting Hill, in the parish of Kensington, is a plague-spot, scarcely equalled for its insalubrity by any in London; it is called the Potteries. It comprises some seven or eight acres, with about 260 houses (if the term can be applied to such hovels), and a population of nine hundred or one thousand. The occupation of the inhabitants is principally pig-fattening. Many hundreds of pigs, ducks, and fowls are kept in an indescribable state of filth. Dogs abound, for the purpose of guarding the swine. The atmosphere is still further polluted by the process of fat-boiling. In these hovels, discontent, dirt, filth, and misery are unsurpassed by anything known even in Ireland. Water is supplied to only a small number of houses. There are foul ditches, open sewers, and defective drains, smelling most offensively, and generating large quantities of poisonous gases; stagnant water is found at every turn; not a drop of clean water can be obtained; all is charged to saturation with putrescent matter. Nearly all the inhabitants look unhealthy. . . . Small-pox is ten times more fatal than in any of the surrounding districts. . . The general death-rate varies from 40 to 60 per annum ; of these, the very large proportion of 8.5 per cent. are under five years of age. . . . The average age at death is under twelve years." Contrast this with a

healthy rural district like Rutlandshire, where the average age of the working classes at death is thirtyeight!

One is not surprised to learn that one night in September 1849, a row of houses called Crafton Terrace, distant twelve or thirteen hundred feet from the Potteries, was visited by cholera, the wind blowing directly from the Potteries. In less than a fortnight, no less than twelve persons in that terrace lost their lives by this fatal malady.

Mrs. Bayly remarks, that "the materials used in the buildings are so bad, and the workmanship so inferior, that the floors are always loose, and everything seems constantly getting out of order. We have whole streets of small six-roomed houses let out entirely to the poor; so that three families frequently live in one house. There is no outlet to the air at the back of these dwellings, either by door or by window. One long blank wall is all that is to be seen. Frequent illness prevails among the inhabitants of these streets, and I can never forget the scenes presented there during the visitation of the cholera. I cannot bear to dwell upon them, but for the sake of my subject, I must mention one case. In a small bedroom on the top floor of one of these dwellings, I found one morning that a woman and a child had died during the night;