comparatively few and prominent, but they appear to have a concurrent effect in producing consumption."

The results of good ventilation in the prevention or alleviation of disease are clearly manifested in our hospitals. In a badly ventilated house-the Lying-in Hospital in Dublin-there died in four years 2944 children out of 7650; whereas, after this establishment was properly ventilated, the deaths in the same period, and out of a like number of children, amounted only to 279.

Glasgow supplies a striking example of the beneficial effects of giving pure air to a factory. In a range of buildings, called "the Barracks," five hundred persons were collected; and all attempts to induce them to ventilate their rooms having failed, the consequence was that fever was scarcely ever absent. Sometimes there were seven cases in a day; and in the last two months of 1831 there were fifty-seven. On the recommendation of Mr. Fleming, a surgeon, there was fixed in the ceiling of each room a tube of two inches in diameter, communicating with a large pipe, the end of which was inserted in the chimney of the factory furnace, which, by producing a strong draught, forced the inmates to breathe fresh air. The result of this simple contrivance was that, during the ensuing eight years, fever was scarcely known in the place!

It would be a task infinitely more easy than pleasing to show the havoc annually created among the manufacturing masses by defective ventilation and overcrowding. We will however only observe that in the case of milliners and dress-makers in the Metropolitan

Unions during the year 1839, as shown by the mortuary register, out of 52 deceased, 41 only had attained the age of 25; the average age of 33, who had died of disease of the lungs, was 28. In short, it is but too true that among these poor work women, as in the case of the journeymen tailors, one-third at least of the healthful duration of adult life is sacrificed to our ignorance or neglect of ventilation. Alas! how little do the upper classes, who fancy that the cheque on their banker completely settles the account, reflect on the real cost of the beautiful dresses they wear!

With respect to "the want of separate apartments, and the overcrowding of the private dwellings of the poor," a very small portion only of the evidence adduced will suffice. The clerk of the Ampthill Union states that, in his district, a large proportion of the cottages are so small, that it is impossible to keep up even the common decencies of life. In one of them, containing only two rooms, there existed eleven individuals; the man, his wife, and four children (one a girl above fourteen, another a boy above twelve) slept in one of the rooms and in one bed; the rest slept all together in the room in which their cooking, working, and eating were performed. The medical officer of the Bicester Union has witnessed a father, a mother, three grown-up sons, a daughter, and a child, all lying at the same time with typhus fever in one small room. The medical officer of the Romsey Union states that he has known fourteen individuals of one family (among whom were a young man and young woman of eighteen and twenty

years of age) sleeping together in a small room; the mother being in labour at the time.

The Rev. Dr. Gilly, whose able Appeal on behalf of the Border Peasantry' is cited in the Report, describes a fine, tall Northumbrian peasant of about forty-five years of age, whose family, eleven in number, were disposed of as follows. In one bed he, his wife, a daughter of six, and a boy of four years, had to sleep ;—a daughter of eighteen, a son of twelve, a son of ten, and a daughter of eight, had a second bed ;—and in the third were three sons, aged twenty, sixteen, and fourteen.

The greatest instances of overcrowding appear however, as may naturally be expected, at Glasgow, Manchester, Liverpool, etc. In Hull, a mother about fifty had to sleep with a son above twenty-one, a lodger being in the same room. In Manchester more than half-adozen instances were given of a man, his wife, and his wife's grown-up sister habitually occupying one bed. Mr. Baker, in his Report on Leeds, states, "In the houses of the working-classes, brothers and sisters, and lodgers of both sexes, are found occupying the same sleeping-room with the parents, and consequences occur which humanity shudders to contemplate."

Our readers will probably by this time have arrived with us at the conclusion, that there exists no "savage" nation on earth in which more uncivilized or more demoralizing scenes could be witnessed than in the heart of this great country. Should however any doubts remain, we will subjoin one short extract from the evidence of Dr. Scott Alison :

"In many houses in and around Tranent, fowls roost on the rafters and on the tops of the bedsteads. The effluvia in these houses are offensive, and must prove very unwholesome. It is scarcely necessary to say that these houses are very filthy. They swarm likewise with fleas. Dogs live in the interior of the lowest houses, and must, of course, be opposed to cleanliness. I have seen horses in two houses in Tranent inhabiting the same apartment with numerous families. One was in Dow's Bounds. Several of the family were ill of typhus fever, and I remember the horse stood at the back of the bed. In this case the stench was dreadful. The father died

of typhus on this occasion."

One fatal consequence of the want of ventilation in the houses and workshops in which our labouring classes are too often confined, is the disposition it creates among them to dispel by drink that depressing effect on their nervous energies, which is invariably the result of breathing impure air. In Dumfries, for example, where the cholera swept away one-eleventh of the population, Mr. Chadwick inquired of the chief magistrate, "How many bakers' shops there were?" "Twelve," was the answer. "And how many whisky-shops may your town possess?" The honest Provost frankly replied, "Seventy-nine!" Another consequence is the rapid corruption, in such unwholesome air, of meat, bread, and other food, which, by preventing the poor from laying in any store, forces them to purchase their provisions on the most disadvantageous terms.

66

'Here, then," says Mr. Chadwick, "we have from the one agent (a close and polluted atmosphere) two different sets of effects one set here noticed engendering improvidence, ex

pense, and waste-the other, the depressing effects of external and internal miasma on the nervous system, tending to incite to the habitual use of ardent spirits; both tending to precipitate this population into disease and misery."

In lamenting over the picture, but too clearly delineated, of the demoralization and disorganization of our labouring classes, caused by the removal of those domestic barriers by which Nature, even among savages, protects modesty and encourages decency, Mr. Chadwick maintains that no education, as yet given, appears to have availed against such corrupting circumstances whereas, per contrà, he cites numerous instances of the moral improvement of a population from street-cleansing, land-draining, and alterations in the external and internal condition of their dwellings. Indeed it is but too clear, that it is mere mockery to talk of elevating by education, classes whom we allow to be perpetually acted upon by physical circumstances, of deeply degrading tendency, which we neglect to remove. How striking are these words of Mr. Walker, the magistrate of the Thames Police Office, who, after deprecating the practice of building for the poor miserable hovels, instead of comfortable and respectable, welldrained, well-ventilated dwellings, says :—

"From what I have observed, I am fully convinced that if shambles were built upon any spot, and all who choose were allowed to occupy them, they would soon be occupied by a race lower than any yet known. I have often said, that if empty casks were placed along the streets of Whitechapel, in a few days each of them would have a tenant, and these tenants would keep up their kind, and prey upon the rest