“Miss Brewster,” said a gray-bearded man whose name I did not learn, “as to the question whether the charities and sanitary improvements of the city have amounted to anything in the last twenty-five years, it seems to me it is not well for us to rely wholly on personal impressions. There are figures at command which can abundantly show that in two respects at least—the lessening of the rates of mortality and the reduction of arrests for crime—we have made an immense advance on twenty-five years ago, in spite of the fact that the population has nearly doubled. Permit me to state a few facts.” “Good; this is just what I want,” said Mildred with keen attention. He continued: “In 1864, when the sanitary examination of the city was made, some wards were found to be peopled at the rate of 290,000 persons to the square mile, while in the most densely populated part of London the number was less than 176,000 to the square mile. To show what sanitary regulations will do, let me say that the number of deaths in London previous to a good sanitary government was one in twenty, and in New York one in thirty-five, while after such regulations the number in London was reduced to one in forty-five, and in New York to one in thirty-eight and a half. “We think our tenement houses now are bad enough, but let me read you a report of the condition of things in 1866. ‘At this time the cities of New York and Brooklyn were filled with nuisances, many of them of years’ duration. The streets were uncleaned; manure heaps, containing thousands of tons, occupied piers and vacant lots; sewers were obstructed; houses were crowded and badly ventilated and lighted; stables and yards were filled with stagnant water, and many dark and damp cellars were inhabited. The streets were obstructed, and the wharves and piers were filthy and dangerous from dilapidation. Cattle were driven through the streets at all hours of the day in large numbers. Slaughter houses were open to the streets, and were offensive from the accumulated offal and blood, or filled the sewers with decomposing animal matter. Gas companies, shell-burners, and fat-boilers pursued their occupations without regard to the public health or comfort, filling the air with disgusting odors; and roaming swine were the principal scavengers of the streets and gutters!’