the report of a dozen years ago. It was pitiable
to talk with these poor people, to hear of the
shifts and struggles of their poverty, to see the
wife patiently waiting for night in the bare and
squalid room, and only anxious as to whether
the water-side had given John a job, or whether
he would perforce come home empty-handed,
as on the night before; to mark their uncomplaining
attitude and the cheerfulness with which
they met their lot; and then to leave them, with
the certainty that they were being as surely
poisoned as any victim of the Borgias who smelt
the fatal bouquet, or touched the deadly ring.

Up dark courts with pastoral names, down foul
alleys which babbled foolishly of green fields, by
streets every one of which were as familiar to the
hospital physician as the commonest drug he
prescribes—streets he had never seen, but which had
sent him crop after crop of patients through long
years, each crop heavier than the last; past rows
of houses where people lay dying, and where the
whole population is, as was aptly said, "in such
a tindery condition that the least spark of
disease would spread among them like wildfire,
and carry off thousands in its train."

Leaving the bustle, glare, and noise of
the leading thoroughfare, we come upon an
alley where naked children disport themselves
upon the flagstones, and where every house
door bears token of the teeming life within.
On entering one of these, we find its closet
within a few feet of the front door, inside
the threshold of which is an open sink, stopped
up at the time of our visit, and ankle deep
in ill-smelling water. The little girl with the
wan cheeks, the bright eyes, and gentle smile,
has just come home from the hospital, and,
recognising the physician, follows us meekly
from house to house, silently looking up at her
friend, as if his presence reminded her that
light, and air, and cleanliness, are existent in
the world. Publicity having been recently given
to the shameful condition of the first house we
entered, efforts have been made to patch up or
gloss over its most glaring evils. The closet has
been mended, and the oozings which made the
bedrooms on each side of it common cesspools,
have been checked. Yet nothing has been done
to the rooms themselves, and they remain with
their flooring sodden and their walls saturated
with filthy exhalations of the foulest refuse.

There is a ghastly monotony about such
experiences as these. Kennels in which no sane
man would allow the least valuable of his
animals to sleep, filled night and day with men,
women, and children; rooms seven feet by five,
with four women working, living, and sleeping
in them; a yard with a disused pigsty
converted into a sleeping box, in which an old
creature huddles herself every night between a
reeking closet and an open water-butt; houses
where the waterspouts are consistently broken,
and the rain trickles down walls, and forces its
way into beds and clothing; pipes which will
not act, and water which will never come when
wanted; make up the dreary round. In one
street, which, like the whitened sepulchre of
old, is fair without (for it is comparatively wide
and well kept), we found that a house notoriously
infected with fever, a house where a man
and his wife and children died not very many
weeks ago, was already full of new tenants, and
that no steps had been taken to purify or
disinfect it. The yard was ankle-deep in fœtid
slime, which formed its only pavement; the
water-butt was so foul that its contents could
not be swallowed, and a small wooden basin was
put over it to catch the produce of the pipe;
and the general condition of the property was
so filthy that even the poor people themselves
believed, that "something was going to be
done!" Twelve months ago, the vestry of Saint
Dragon's was persuaded by its medical officer
to send a deputation to examine into and report
upon these very houses. These gentlemen came
back horrified at what they saw. An inspector
must be forthwith appointed, and this dreadful
sin and crying scandal must be removed.
Parishioners, even poor parishioners, must not
be killed off with impunity; and, for the honour
of the vestry, it was essential that this matter
should be taken in hand at once. But the
meeting was adjourned; the vestrymen, who
themselves held small house property, said
to each other that "there was no knowing
where these new-fangled notions would end, if
the parish inspector were allowed to put people
to what expense he thought fit;" and the end
of all, is, that the houses remain in the exact
condition now, they were in then; and while one
set of tenants have been fatally thinned, their
successors in the same rooms are being ripened
for a similar fate, even while they are hoping
with touching simplicity that "something will
be done." What that something is, and how
far it is likely to be effectual, will be readily
estimated when we know it depends upon the
liberality of a landlord who is to do as much and
as little as seems right in his own eyes, and who
has neither fear of parish interference nor dread
of inspection before him. Among the vestrymen
of Saint Dragon's are eight or ten owners
of houses such as this; houses with an
allowance of two and a half gallons of water for
each person per day, are plentiful in the
parish; houses where even this supply is
irregular and uncertain are far from rare; and
on Sunday, the only day, in many cases,
when there is time for a thorough cleansing,
the water is not turned on at all! From
Monk-street, where there were some forty deaths
from cholera in 1854, eighteen cases of fever
have been sent to the hospital within the last
few months; from Saint Dragon's New Town,
the houses of which are built upon wet ground,
without any provision against the rise of damp,
and with filthy undrained yards, one hundred
and twenty fever patients were sent from July,
1864, to September, 1865. The rule in this
parish seems to be, to admit fresh tenants as
soon as the late tenants have been finished off,
and to do this without cleansing or other sanitary
precaution. The result is what I have shown.
Disease and premature death are accepted as a