In some towns in the north—among others Preston, Oldham, Ashton, Bolton, Bury, and Manchester—the continuous water supply system has been in use for some time with manifest benefit to the inhabitants. The fire plug and jet, without engines, have, in these places, already done great execution. Under recent improvements, also, the same plans have been adopted in Hamburgh; Philadelphia and other American towns have, in their wisdom, “done likewise.” On one occasion, at Liverpool, a fire was extinguished by a hose which was promptly applied; a fire-engine arrived presently after, when the engine-man, finding the fire had been extinguished, knocked the hoseman down, as an impertinent fellow. In factories, and other large buildings, if an arrangement of the above kind were adopted, on the first alarm of fire a man would only have to unwind a hose, and turn a cock. This, with one of the Fire Annihilators at hand, would probably render the building quite secure. These improvements and precautions carry with them a variety of interesting consequences,—such as the check to incendiarism, the effect on insurances, the benefit to health by the plug and hose being used daily in washing the streets, and thus destroying foul exhalations after a storm, &c. While bringing this paper to a conclusion, we learn that Mr. John Diggs has determined to have a _self-acting_ Fire Annihilator fixed in a central position of his warehouse; so that if a fire should burst out in the night, the flames would melt one or other of a series of leaden wires, any one of which being thus divided, would liberate a heavy weight, which would instantly run down an iron wire leading to the knob and pin of his special Annihilator—ignite the contents of the machine, and destroy the flames in his sugar-bakery, while he slept soundly in his bed. THE SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF THE PEOPLE OF BLEABURN. IN THREE PARTS.—CHAPTER VIII.