It would be thought, that such a state of things could not have been permitted to remain undisturbed, but merely required to be brought to light to be remedied. The medical officers have, time after time, reported the condition of the place to the Board of Guardians. Fifteen medical men have testified to the unhealthy state of the Potteries. The inspector of nuisances has done the same. The magistrates have repeatedly granted orders for the removal of the pigs. The General Board of Health have given directions that all the nuisances should be removed, yet nothing, or next to nothing, has been done. The inspector of nuisances has been dismissed, the guardians have signified their intention to inspect the districts themselves, yet things remain in _statu quo_. Is there then no possibility of cleansing this more than Augean stable? None: the single but insurmountable difficulty being that some of the worst parts of the district are the property of one of the guardians! Surely the force of self-government can no farther go. Another word in defence of centralisation—the great bugbear of the self-conceited parish orator—would be wasted. In conclusion, we earnestly call on the public to second and support the efforts of the Metropolitan Sanitary Association to get the evils we have adverted to lessened or wholly removed. The rapid increase of the population demands additional exertion and additional arrangements for their well-being. At present, retrogression instead of improvement assails us. It is an appalling fact, that the number of persons dying of the class of diseases called preventible has been steadily increasing. Mr. Farr, of the Registrar-General’s office, has declared there could be no question that the health of London is becoming worse every year. In 1846, the number of persons dying of zymotic or epidemic diseases was about nineteen per cent. of the total mortality; in 1847, it was twenty-eight per cent.; in 1848, thirty-four per cent.; and last year it increased to forty-one per cent.; thus showing that nearly one-half of the mortality of London was more or less owing to preventible causes. To reverse this state of things the people of this country must not wait for another great and fatal Fright. We know that typhus fever and consumption, like open drains and stinking water, are mean, commonplace, unexciting instruments of death, which do not get invested with dramatic interest; yet they kill as unerringly as the knife or the bullet of the assassin; only they murder great multitudes instead of single individuals. If, therefore, he will only fix his eyes on the victims of the diseases which can be easily prevented, it is well worth John Bull’s while to consider whether substantially it is not as sound a policy to save a million or two of lives per annum, as to hang the hero and heroine of a Bermondsey murder. WHAT THERE IS IN THE ROOF OF THE COLLEGE OF SURGEONS.