The problem before them is one much more of ways than of means. If poverty is depressing the lives of the people, the wealth by which it may be relieved is superabundant. On the one side, there is disease for the want of food and doctors; on the other side there is disease because of food and doctors. In one part of the town the women cease to charm for want of finery; in the other they cease to please from excess of finery. It is for want of money that the streets in which the poor live are close, ill-swept, and ill-lighted; that the ‘East Ends’ of towns have no grand meeting-rooms and no beauty. It is through superfluity of money that the entertainments of the rich are made tiresome with music, and their picture galleries made ugly with uninteresting portraits. There is no want of means for making better the condition of the people; and there has ever been sufficient good-will to use the means when the way has been clear. To discover the way is the problem of the times. Some way must be found which, without pauperising, without affecting the spirit of energy and independence, shall give to the inhabitants of our great towns the surroundings which will increase joy and develop life. The first need is better dwellings. While the people live without adequate air, space, or light in houses where the arrangements are such that privacy is impossible, it is hopeless to expect that they will enjoy the best things. The need has been recognised, and, happily without going to Parliament, Town Councils may do much to meet the need. It is in their power to enforce sanitary improvements, to make every house healthy and clean, and to provide common rooms which will serve as libraries or drawing-rooms. If it is not in their power to reduce rents, it is possible for them to pull down unfit buildings, and sell the ground to builders at a low price, on condition that such builders shall provide extra appliances for the health and pleasure of the people. Insanitary conditions and high rents are the points to which consideration must be directed. Builders to-day build houses on the fiction that each house will be occupied by one family. The fact that two or three families will at once take possession is kept out of sight, while the parlour, drawing-room, and single set of offices are finished off to suit the requirements of an English home. The fiction ends in the creation of evils on which medical officers write reports, and of other evils which, like Medusa’s head, are best seen by the shadow they cast on Society.