Troublesome as these nuisances are, there is such an inaptitude to new plans, that they might go on for ever, if an interference should not come in from some external quarter. It matters little whence the interference comes, so that the end be effected. We cannot, however, view the proceedings of a Board of Health in ordering cleanly arrangements, or those of a municipal council putting down factory smoke, without great interest, for we think we there see part, and an important one too, of the great battle of Civilisation against Barbarism. And this interest is deepened when we observe the benefits which Barbarism usually derives from its own defeats. The factory-owner, for instance, will find that, in applying an apparatus by which smoke may be prevented, he will not merely be sparing his neighbours a great annoyance, but economising fuel to an extent which must more than repay the outlay. By repressing nuisance, he will be in the same measure repressing waste.[2] Were there, in like manner, a general measure for enforcing the removal of refuse from the neighbourhood of human habitations, the rate-payers would in due time see blessed effects from the compulsion to which they had been subjected. Their groans would be succeeded by gladness, and they would thank the legislators who had slighted their remonstrances. When the cholera approached in 1849, our British Board of Health ordered a general cleaning out of stables, and a daily persistence in the practice. It was complained of as a great hardship; but the Board ascertained that owners of valuable race-horses cause their stables to be thoroughly cleaned daily, as a practice necessary for the health of the animals; the Board, therefore, very properly insisted on forcing this benefit upon the proprietors of horses generally. Can we doubt that a similar policy might be followed with the like good consequences at all times, and with regard to the habitations of men as well as horses?