services to the country. Lord Lansdowne amply concurred in the statement by his cheers. But such things are never reported. Had you given a vote or an opinion on a contested party matter, all the papers would have chronicled your merits and our eulogies of you.-Ever yours truly, "H. BROUGHAM."

Another of the subjects which the Board of Health took up was that of quarantine. Their first report on that subject, issued in 1850, was considered of sufficient importance to be translated into various foreign languages, and was ordered to be presented to the Parliaments of France and Italy. I think that, even if recent discoveries have modified some of the opinions there advanced, all the progress which has been made in the prevention of disease by quarantine regulations has been in the direction there indicatedthat is, in plans for cleanliness, for the letting in of light and air, and for the isolation of infected persons in pure air, thus diluting the poison— rather than in plans for shutting them into confined quarters as was formerly done, thereby concentrating the poison.

The question of putting a stop to burials in overcrowded churchyards was also taken up by

the Board.

Their report on "A General Scheme for Extra-mural Sepulture" was published also in the same year (1850), and proved very clearly the evils arising from the crowded state of churchyards at that time.

The Board proposed that a Government department should be established which should be intrusted with the care of the whole question of the burial of the dead; that, in future, interment should take place only in ground remote from large towns; and that everything should be arranged decorously and reverently. My grandfather, personally, was much interested in adding an element of beauty in the form of exquisite and appropriate cemetery churches and chapels. But only the preventive part of the scheme was carried out. What was actually achieved was the closing of the overcrowded churchyards; the provision of other grounds has been left for private enterprise.

Thus, for six years, earnest men, at the head of a Health Department, spread information and gave advice. The newspapers of the period con

tained many notices of the various practical measures devised by this department, together with comments and leading articles on its reports on such large and pressing questions as cholera, quarantine, extra-mural sepulture, and water-supply.

The newspapers, indeed, began

to devote much space to the discussion of health questions in all forms, so that at last a widespread interest was aroused.

Then came a time when the chief question was, not as to the principles, but as to what machinery could best be employed to carry out those principles.

The fear of "centralisation," and the desire for local self-government, which is strong in the English people, caused opposition in Parliament to the continuance of any Government department having such large control over the expenditure of public money on local objects; so that in 1854 the original Board of Health ceased to exist, but did not cease til sanitary principles and sanitary science, once unknown or despised, were acknowledged throughout the country, and recognised as one of the fundamental needs lying at the root of all efforts to benefit the community.

From a

With the ending of this department my grandfather's official life came to a close. personal point of view this cessation of his public work was somewhat softened by the following letter, written at the desire of the Prime Minister :

WHITEHALL, 12th August, 1854.

SIR-I am directed by Viscount Palmerston to inform you that he cannot allow you to quit the Board which this day ceases to exist by the expiration of the Act of Parliament by which it was constituted, without conveying to you the full approbation of her Majesty's Government of the zealous, able, and indefatigable manner in which you have performed the important duties which have belonged to your official situation; and his Lordship desires me to express to you the great regret which he feels, that an adverse decision of the House of Commons as to an arrangement which his Lordship had proposed for the reconstruction of the Board of Health has led to so abrupt a cessation of your employment. -I am, sir, your obedient servant,

HENRY FITZROY.

Dr SOUTHWOOD SMITH.

According to the rules of the service, my grandfather was not entitled to a retiring allowance, because so much of the work he had done had been unpaid. A few years afterwards, however, a Government pension was awarded him in consideration of the services which he had rendered to the country.