But it is in vain to expect any other result as long as our most deserving labouring population is worked in an inordinate degree,—so long as they labour beyond what their limited energies will, with impunity, permit—so long as they are often unable to obtain a diet sufficient for the maintenance, even of an idle person, and so long as their very breasts, from very want of clothing, are literally open and exposed to the fiercest blast that blows, and to the most searching and chilling rain that falls from Heaven. Observe the industrious labourer at his work; behold his powers are taxed to the utmost, his energies, his capabilities, are put upon the stretch, and the entire fabric, God’s most complicated and most delicate creation, is actually labouring and heaving with protracted exertion. His blood distils the dew of labour, and his clothes, such as they are, are moistened with perspiration bursting from a thousand pores. It frequently happens, that the labour of the poor man being over, sorely fatigued, too exhausted even to enjoy the consciousness that his hour of rest has arrived, with a heavy and unwieldy gait and hanging head, he seeks his comfortless abode, his scanty board, his dreary, dark, scarcely furnished apartment, with its faint and glimmering embers. He swallows his spare repast and falls asleep at his fireside, but having no change of clothes, and those which he has on being wet with perspiration or with rain, are allowed to dry upon him. In the mean time the heat of the fire proves sufficient to create a steam on the side next it, and the house of course being open to the wind, currents of air, chillingly cold, pervade the apartment, and strike upon that side of the poor inmate which is most remote from the fire, and thus he of a thousand misfortunes and privations is actually steamed on one side, and perished with cold on the other. Persons placed in such a situation can scarcely, for any length of time, escape disease, and it is consonant with my knowledge to say, that the condition of a great proportion of the labouring classes is not one tittle better. Fever and many other diseases will continue to assail our labouring population as long as their food is insufficient, as long as they are barely covered during the inclement season, and as long as their habitations scarcely own a roof or a door, as long as the wind and rain enter at a thousand crevices; and while the cheerful and salubrious light of heaven is denied admittance by the old hats, bunches of straw, and rubbish which so frequently, in the absence of glass, fill up the space originally intended for a window. Yes, so long as every energy is exerted, and every moment that can be cheated from rest, to obtain that wherewith a supply of the necessaries of life may be procured, and when every other consideration sinks and gives way to the more pressing wants of nature, will disease prevail.