infantile mortality, its gratuitous supply of anti-toxins and diarrhoea medicine, its gratuitous hospitals and sanatoria no longer confined to small-pox and fever. We need only notice here the gradual appreciation, by the Central Authority and the Poor Law inspectors, of the intimate connection between shortcomings in the public health service and an excess of pauperism. Even from the narrowest standpoint of Poor Law principles, the causal connection between disease and pauperism could no longer be ignored. "The effect of bad house accommodation on the health of the poor," writes Mr. Bagenal in 1902, "has often been demonstrated by experts in public health. Not only are serious illnesses more frequent, but damp and draughty dwellings lower vitality to such an extent that the bodily vigour and activity, as well as the spirits, are affected, and the system becomes unable to withstand actual disease. Families are often pauperised on account of sickness produced by living in unhealthy conditions. Labourers also often become permanently disabled, and fall upon the rates, owing to premature old age brought on by insanitary houses. To prevent sickness and to prolong the working term of a labourer's life must be a gain to the ratepayers, as well as to all classes of the community."[714] To take only one specific instance, in the Redruth Union the reason for a high average of pauperism in 1906 was found in the large amount of destitution produced by "miner's phthisis," and the great number of widows and orphans which it caused, "the total number of persons pauperised owing to this special cause being ... 333," besides other cases of infirmity of the miners themselves. "A substantial proportion of the excessive pauperism in the Redruth Union is thus accounted for."[715] [710] Sec. 131 of Public Health Act 1875 (38 & 39 Vic. c. 55). [711] Sec. 133 of _ibid._ This had been already included in the Sanitary Act of 1868 (31 & 32 Vic. c. 115, sec. 10). [712] Circular of 17th August and 12th November 1872, in Second Annual Report, 1872-3, pp. 19-20, 41-52. [713] _See_, _e.g._ the letters of Mr. Hedley, in September 1872, in MS. archives of Newcastle Board of Guardians. [714] Mr. Bagenal's Report, in Thirty-first Annual Report, 1901-2, p. 139. [715] Mr. Preston-Thomas's Report, in Thirty-fifth Annual Report, 1905-6, pp. 471-2. _F._--PERSONS OF UNSOUND MIND It does not seem necessary to trace the slight changes in the law relating to pauper lunatics, or in the orders and circulars of the Central Authority. There appears to have been no alteration in the relation of the Central Authority to the Lunacy Commissioners, practically no steps being taken to initiate policy except upon the suggestion of the latter, whose standard of accommodation and treatment continues steadily to rise for pauper as for non-pauper lunatics.