t
satisfactory, power should be vested in the most eligible local
administrative body, which will generally be found to be that having
charge of cleansing and structural arrangements, to procure proper
supplies for the cleansing of the streets, for sewerage, for
protection against fires, as well as for domestic use."

It is possible that some of my readers may think that the wretched state
of ventilation, drainage, and building, which I have been commenting
upon, is mainly to be accounted for by poverty. It belongs, they may
say, to an old country; it is the long accumulated neglect of ages; it
embodies the many vicissitudes of trade which Great Britain has felt; it
is a thing which the people would remedy for themselves, if you could
only give them more employment and better wages. In answer to this I
will refer to an authority quoted by Mr. Chadwick in his Essay on the
"Pressure and Progress of the Causes of Mortality," read before the
Statistical Society in 1843.

"In abundance of employment, in high wages, and the chief
circumstances commonly reputed as elements of prosperity of the
labouring classes, the city of New York is deemed pre-eminent. I
have been favoured with a copy of '_The Annual Report of the
Interments in the City and County of New York for the Year_ 1842,'
presented to the Common Council by Dr. John Griscom, the city
inspector, in which it may be seen how little those circumstances
have hitherto preserved large masses of people from physical
depression. He has stepped out of the routine to examine on the spot
the circumstances attendant on the mortality which the figures
represent. He finds that upwards of 33,000 of the population of that
city live in cellars, courts, and alleys, of which 6618 are dwellers
in cellars. 'Many,' he states, 'of these back places are so
constructed as to cut off all circulation of air, the line of houses
being across the entrance, forming a _cul de sac_, while those in
which the line is parallel with, and at one side of the entrance, are
rather more favourably situated, but still excluded from any general
visitation of air in currents. As to the influence of these
localities upon the health and lives of the inmates, there is, and
can be, no dispute; but few are aware of the dreadful extent of the
disease and suffering to be found in them. In the damp, dark, and