of better
clothing, being better fed, more attention paid to the cleanliness of
their dwellings, and less congregated together."

Mr. Thomas H. Smith, the medical officer of the Bromley Union, states:

"My attention was first directed to the sources of malaria in this
district and neighbourhood when cholera became epidemic. I then
partially inspected the dwellings of the poor, and have recently
completed the survey. It is almost incredible that so many sources
of malaria should exist in a rural district. A total absence of all
provisions for effectual drainage around cottages is the most
prominent source of malaria; throughout the whole district there is
scarcely an attempt at it. The refuse vegetable and animal matters
are also thrown by the cottagers in heaps near their dwellings to
decompose; are sometimes not removed, except at very long intervals;
and are always permitted to remain sufficiently long to accumulate in
some quantity. Pigsties are generally near the dwellings, and are
always surrounded by decomposing matters. These constitute some of
the many sources of malaria, and peculiarly deserve attention as
being easily remedied, and yet, as it were, cherished. The effects
of malaria are strikingly exemplified in parts of this district.
There are localities from which fever is seldom long absent; and I
find spots where the spasmodic cholera located itself are also the
chosen resorts of continued fever."

It appears from the Sanitary Report, from which I have made the above
extracts, and which was presented to Parliament in 1842, that there were
then 8000 inhabited cellars at Liverpool; and that the occupants were
estimated at from 35,000 to 40,000. Liverpool is called a prosperous
town. People point with admiration to its docks, and its warehouses, and
speak of its wealth and grandeur in high terms. But such prosperity,
like the victory of Pyrrhus, is apt to suggest the idea of ruin.
Thirty-five thousand people living in cellars! Surely such things as
these demonstrate the necessity there is for making great exertions to
provide fit habitations for the poor. Each year there is required in
Great Britain, according to the Sanitary Report, an increase of 59,000
new tenements, "a number equal to that of two new towns such as
Manchester proper, which has 32,310 houses, and Birmingham, which has
27,268 houses." In these