t to a stable-keeper,
whose eldest son, the son by a former wife, and a girl of 11 or 12
years of age, all sleep in the same bed! In another case which I am
attending in one room, there are a man and his wife, a grown up
daughter, a boy of 16, and a girl of 13; the boy has scrofulous
ulcers in the neck; the father, though only of the age of 49, suffers
from extreme debility and a broken constitution."

The medical officer of the Whitechapel Union says,

"I know of few instances where there is more than one room to a
family."

Mr. Austin, an architect, gives us the following description of Snow's
Rents, Westminster, which is but one instance "among many worse," of the
state of things produced simply by the want, as he expresses it, of
"proper structural arrangement and control."

"This court is of considerable width, upwards of 20 feet, but the
houses are mostly without yards, and the refuse, when become
intolerable inside the houses, is deposited in the court itself, the
whole centre being a pool of black stagnant filth, that accumulates
from time to time, and is left to decompose and infect the whole
neighbourhood. Ventilation, or rather a healthy state of the
atmosphere is impossible. What little disturbance of the air does
take place, would appear only to render its state more intolerable."

Being asked what the condition of this court is with regard to drainage
and the supply of water, he says,

"There are none whatever there. In wet weather, when the water
attains a certain height In the court, it finds its way into an open,
black, pestilence-breathing ditch in a neighbouring court; but in the
ordinary state of things the whole centre of this place is one mass
of wet decomposing filth, that lies undisturbed for weeks, from
which, so dreadful is the effluvia at times arising, that in the
tenants' own words, 'they are often ready to faint, it's so bad!'
The supply of water consists in this: that 16 houses are accommodated
with one stand pipe in the court! On the principal cleaning day,
Sunday, the water is on for about five minutes, and it is on also for
three days in the week for one half hour, and so great is the rush to
obtain a modicum before it is turned off, that perpetual quarrelling
and disturbance is the result."

If we go now from the Metropolis to some of the great towns, we find,