The late Mr. Henry Jephson, L.C.C., published in 1907 an exhaustive work on "The Sanitary Evolution of London." He quotes Dickens's terrible description of one of the old intramural churchyards, but makes no mention of _Punch's_ services in the cause of London sanitation. They certainly deserved and deserve recognition, for he spared no effort to bring home to a wider public than that reached by Blue Books and Reports the intimate and deadly connexion between dirt and disease. As early as the year 1842 we find in his pages this gruesome but unexaggerated pen-picture of the Thames and its tributaries:-- Vauxhall contributes lime, Lambeth pours forth a rich amalgam from the yards of knackers and bone-grinders, Horseferry liberally gives up all its dead dogs, Westminster empties its treasures into the mighty stream by means of a common sewer of uncommon dimensions, the Fleet-ditch bears in its inky current the concentrated essences of Clerkenwell, Field-lane, Smithfield, Cowcross--and is, by means of its innumerable branches, augmented by the potent ingredients of St. Giles's, Somers-town, Barbican, St. Luke's, and the surrounding districts. The fluids of the Whitechapel slaughter-houses call in their transit through the Minories for the contributions of Houndsditch, Ratcliff Highway, Bevis Marks, and Goodman's Fields, and thus richly laden pour their delicious slime into the Thames by means of the Tower-ditch. Finally, the Surrey side yields the refuse of tar-works and tan-yards, and it is allowed by all, that the people of Deptford, Woolwich, and those situated in the lower course of the stream, get the Thames water (which here sustains six different characters) in the highest perfection. [Illustration: THE "SILENT HIGHWAY"-MAN]