n eighteen in a thousand; and in many parts the
most recent statistics show that it has been brought down to fourteen
or fifteen in a thousand. A quarter of a century ago the death rate from
disease in the Royal Guards at London was twenty in a thousand; in 1888
it had been reduced to six in a thousand. In the army generally it
had been seventeen in a thousand, but it has been reduced until it now
stands at eight. In the old Indian army it had been sixty-nine in a
thousand, but of late it has been brought down first to twenty, and
finally to fourteen. Mr. Chadwick in his speech proved that much more
might be done, for he called attention to the German army, where the
death rate from disease has been reduced to between five and six in a
thousand. The Public Health Act having been passed in 1875, the death
rate in England among men fell, between 1871 and 1880, more than four in
a thousand, and among women more than six in a thousand. In the decade
between 1851 and 1860 there died of diseases attributable to defective
drainage and impure water over four thousand persons in every million
throughout England: these numbers have declined until in 1888 there died
less than two thousand in every million. The most striking diminution
of the deaths from such causes was found in 1891, in the case of typhoid
fever, that diminution being fifty per cent. As to the scourge
which, next to plagues like the Black Death, was formerly the most
dreaded--smallpox--there died of it in London during the year 1890 just
one person. Drainage in Bristol reduced the death rate by consumption
from 4.4 to 2.3; at Cardiff, from 3.47 to 2.31; and in all England and
Wales, from 2.68 in 1851 to 1.55 in 1888.

What can be accomplished by better sanitation is also seen to-day by a
comparison between the death rate among the children outside and inside
the charity schools. The death rate among those outside in 1881 was
twelve in a thousand; while inside, where the children were under
sanitary regulations maintained by competent authorities, it has been
brought down first to eight, then to four, and finally to less than
three in a thousand.

In view of statistics like these, it becomes clear that Edwin Chadwick
and his compeers among the sanitary authorities have in half a century
done far more to reduce the rate of disease and death than has been done
in fifteen hundred years by all the fetiches which theological reasoning
could devise or ecclesiastical pow