daily reminder of the urgent need for help-of the necessity for taking practical steps to diminish it.

In 1837 the opportunity came for pressing forward in the cause. That year a frightful epidemic fever broke out in London, arousing general alarm, and demanding special inquiry. The pressure on the poor-rates became excessive, and my grandfather was appointed by the Poor Law Commissioners to report on the eastern districts of London, Drs Arnott and Kay being appointed to other districts.

The title of the

is at once striking.

Report presented by him

He called it,

He called it, "Report on

the Physical Causes of Sickness and Mortality to which the Poor are particularly exposed, and which are capable of prevention by Sanitary Measures." Its opening words are,

"Some of the severest evils at present incident to the condition of poverty, which have a large share in inducing its high rate of sickness and mortality, are the consequences of improvidence. Such evils are capable of being remedied only by bringing the poor under the influence of the inducements to forethought and prudence.

"But there are evils of another class, more general and powerful in their operation, which can be avoided by no prudence, and removed by no exertion, on the part of the poor. Among the gravest, and at the same time the most remediable, of these latter evils, is the exposure to certain noxious agents generated and accumulated in the localities in which the poor are. obliged to take up their abode, and to the pernicious influence of which they are constantly, and for the most part unconsciously, subjected.

"It is the object of the present Report to direct attention to the nature and extent of this evil, and to show how important it is that its mitigation, and, as far as may be found practicable, its entire removal, should form a part of every exertion that is made for improving the physical condition of the poor."

These words would seem to strike the keynote of Sanitary Reform.

In order to make the Report more full and impressive, Dr Southwood Smith writes an exact account of what he saw. He went personally over the greater part of the Bethnal Green and Whitechapel districts. "I traversed," he

says, "a circle of from six to seven miles in extent. I wrote the account of the places I am about to notice on the spot; I entered many of the houses and examined their condition as to cleanliness, ventilation, as well as the state of the people themselves, who were at the time labouring under fever."

The descriptions that follow are too dreadful to be dwelt upon in detail here. We are shown individually the houses of Whitechapel they are piled storey above storey, and are teeming with people; the streets, courts, and alleys are so built that all current of air is blocked out, and no measures whatever are taken to secure cleanliness. We are shown Bethnal Green, flat, low, damp, wasted. Here the houses are not so closely packed there are open spaces; but these are for the most part undrained marshes, and the air coming across them is poisonous rather than life-giving. Straggling rows of rickety cottages look out upon stagnant swamps; their miserable gardens are scattered over with uncleared dust and refuse of all kinds, and are surrounded with black and overflowing ditches, to cross which you must pass over rotting planks used

as bridges there are houses which contain only two rooms, the larger being 9 feet by 7 and 7 feet high, the smaller not able to contain an ordinary-sized bed.

If the house has more rooms, it probably contains many families, and a state of overcrowding is produced nearly as fatal as that which prevails in the parts of London where the houses stand more thickly.

The picture comes vividly before us of the dismal homes, with their melancholy gardens where the pale children play by the black ditches; their green damp walls; the rags stuffed into the broken windows to keep out the tainted outside air; and the crowds huddled together breathing the suffocating air within doors. It is easy to realise the hopeless efforts of the poor inhabitants to fight against the dirt and disease which all those efforts are powerless to overcome!

No wonder then, that, in the words of his Report, we are told that "in many parts of both these districts fever of a malignant kind and fatal character is always more or less prevalent; that in some streets it has recently pre

vailed in almost every house; in some in every house; and, in some few instances, in every room of every house. Cases are recorded in which every member of a family has been attacked in succession, of whom, in every such case, several have died: some whole families have been swept away. Instances are detailed in which there have been found, in one small room, six persons lying ill of fever together: I have myself seen this-four in one bed and two in another."

He once more enforces the preventibleness of this dreadful state of things-how entirely it was within the power of man to change it by wise attention to the laws of health. He points out parts of the districts which had always remained comparatively healthy, and some, formerly haunts of fever, where during the last epidemic no single case had occurred, owing to sanitary improvements.

The necessity for providing in some way for the airing of streets and courts in densely populated neighbourhoods, by the knocking down of houses or other expedients, is insisted upon. Its difficulty is admitted, but still it is urged.

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