ot sanitary science universally adopted and enforced? We
fear it is mainly through indifference and laziness. The local
authorities--municipalities and boards of guardians--are so many Mrs.
Maclartys in their way. Like that dirty matron, they "canna be fashed."
To remove the materials of disease requires industry, constant
attention, and--what is far more serious--increased rates. The foul
interests hold their ground, and bid defiance to the attacks made upon
them. Things did very well, they say, in "the good old times,"--why
should they not do so now? When typhus or cholera breaks out, they tell
us that Nobody is to blame.

That terrible Nobody! How much he has to answer for. More mischief is
done by Nobody than by all the world besides. Nobody adulterates our
food. Nobody poisons us with bad drink. Nobody supplies us with foul
water. Nobody spreads fever in blind alleys and unswept lanes. Nobody
leaves towns undrained. Nobody fills gaols, penitentiaries, and convict
stations. Nobody makes poachers, thieves, and drunkards.

Nobody has a theory too--a dreadful theory. It is embodied in two
words--_Laissez faire_--Let alone. When people are poisoned by plaster
of Paris mixed with flour, "Let alone" is the remedy. When _Cocculus
indicus_ is used instead of hops, and men die prematurely, it is easy to
say, "Nobody did it." Let those who can, find out when they are cheated:
_Caveat emptor_. When people live in foul dwellings, let them alone. Let
wretchedness do its work; do not interfere with death.

"It matters nothing to me," said a rich man who heard of a poor woman
and her sick child being driven forth from a town for begging. The
workhouse authorities would have nothing to do with her, and sent her
away. But the poor woman went and sat down with her child at the rich
man's door; the child died there; the contagion of typhus was wafted
into the gilded saloon and the luxurious bed-chamber and the rich man's
child fell a victim to the disease.

But Nobody has considerably less power in society than he once had: and
our hope is, that he may ultimately follow in the wake of Old Bogie, and
disappear altogether. Wherever there is suffering and social depression,
we may depend upon it that Somebody is to blame. The responsibility
rests somewhere; and if we allow it to remain, it rests with us. We may
not be able to cope with the evil as individuals, single-handed; but it
becomes us to unite, and bring to bear upon the evil