Southwood Smith in 1838, and by evidence by Mr. Slaney, M.P., for Shrewsbury, who obtained a select committee to enquire into the circumstances affecting the health of the inhabitants of large towns, with a view to improved sanitary regulations for their benefit, in 1840, that the knowledge gained enabled medical men successfully to grapple with the epidemic when it again threatened to spread itself over the country in 1848. THE SEVERN. The Severn at present is of little service to the parishioners of Madeley, either as a source of food or a means of transit, compared with what it was in former times. Yet washing as it does the whole of the western side of the parish, from Marnwood brook to the brook which separates Madeley and Sutton parishes, it deserves notice. There was a time when it supplied a considerable portion of food to those living upon its banks; and when, whilst other parts of the country, less favoured, were labouring under the disadvantages of land conveyance, over roads scarcely passable, and by machines but imperfectly constructed, its navigation conferred superior privileges; both by the importation of hay, corn, groceries &c., and the exportation of mines and metals produced along the valley through which it runs. The river, inconsiderable in its origin, is indebted for its navigable importance to physical peculiarities of country that constitute its basins. An extensive water-shed of hills, whose azure tops court the clouds, brings down a large amount of rain to swell the volume of its stream. From its source to its estuary in the Bristol Channel it gathers as it rolls from rivers and brooks, which, after irrigating rich pasture lands along their banks, pour their waters into its channel. The Teme, augmented by the Clun, the Ony, the Corve, the Avon, and the Wye, having each performed similar pilgrimages through flower-dotted fields, also pay tribute of their waters. Here weaving its way through a carpet of the richest green it visits sheep-downs, cattle-pastures, orchards, hop-plantations, and hay-producing fields, as it sweeps along, conferring benefit upon the soil, increasing the fertility of fields, aiding in the development of mines, linking important wealth producing districts, bringing materials for manufacturing purposes together, and transporting their products to the sea.