In a country where sanitary regulations are ignored, it is not strange that such persons are allowed to marry and propagate their unfortunate progeny. Their marriage, like that of idiots and lunatics, should be treated by the government as a crime against humanity. Were marriages among them prohibited, this leprous race would soon become extinct, and society would be relieved of one of its worst maladies. In cases of spontaneous leprosy the victim is banished from his home, and, becoming a denizen of the infected quarter, he contracts matrimonial alliances, and perpetuates the evil. Though the continuance of the disease is mostly hereditary, yet occasionally it is contracted. While only the proximate cause of leprosy has been determined, the Scriptures assume it to be an evil inflicted upon the guilty for the commission of heinous offenses against the divine law; and, if modesty permitted, it could be easily shown that the unmentionable crimes too prevalent in the East justly merit such a condemnation. Retaining all its ancient characteristics, leprosy still infects the garments worn by leprous persons, and also the stones and mortar of the buildings they occupy. Two centuries ago, Calmet made the suggestion that the former was caused by vermin infecting clothes and skins, and the latter was caused by animalculæ which, like mites in cheese, erode the stones and mortar. Connected with Mount Zion on the north by a small isthmus is the Hill Akra. Though not mentioned in the Bible by a name at present known, it holds a conspicuous place in Jewish history as the scene of some of the most fearful struggles between the defenders and the assailants of the city. Called by Josephus the “Lower City,” to distinguish it from the “Upper City,” situated on Mount Zion, it is described by him as being separated from the latter by the Tyropean Valley, the buildings on the two hills facing each other, and terminating at the intervening ravine. At present Akra is a long, stony ridge of a gibbous shape. Extending from the Yâffa Gate to the northwest corner of the town, and including the site of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, it extends eastward to the western wall of the Haram. It is now the Christian quarter of the city, and the site of several fine convents. Though covered with buildings, its gibbous form is perceptible, both in ascending from St. Stephen’s Street, and also from the Yâffa Gate. Originally it was crowned with a lofty rock, which proved such a strong position that the Syrians under Antiochus Epiphanes successfully resisted the attacks of the Jews for twenty years, and, after the enemy had been dislodged, it “required the constant labor of all Jerusalem during three years to level it” to its present height.