A compromise between these two schemes has recently been arranged, and when the new Ministry of Health, which will combine public health, poor-law, insurance, and educational medical work in one department, has found time to do urgently needed work, the above indicated reform may be hoped for, along with the even more urgently needed reform of local public health administration, and the abolition of a large number of the smaller and less efficient sanitary authorities. With these reforms will come much needed de-centralization of poor-law work. Good work in all respects cannot be secured if the Central Authority concerns itself, as at present, in minutiae of local administration, and has no time to devote itself to the larger problems, and to the task of bringing indifferent, chiefly smaller authorities, up to the standard of efficient local authorities. A large portion of the expense of local poor-law administration is borne by the central exchequer, and this money if properly applied will give the necessary leverage for reform, while leaving progressive Authorities, and especially the Authorities of large towns, free to experiment and advance. _Reform in Industry_ The industrial revolution meant the subjection of large masses of working class families to evil conditions of housing and work in crowded and insanitary dwellings and factories. The public conscience first rebelled in regard to boarded out and apprentised pauper children; and the first Factory Act in 1802 concerned itself with them; and with this Act emerged the germ of machinery for securing compliance with the law, magistrates and clergymen being appointed as inspectors under the Act. The Act was largely futile; but it meant the beginning of the gradual breaking down of _laissez faire_ doctrines; and there followed a more widely operative Factory Act in 1833, restricting hours of labor of children, and initiating professional inspectors controlled and paid by the Government. In 1842 the underground employment of women in mines was forbidden; and at intervals since then numerous factory and allied acts have been passed, restricting the duration and conditions of work of women and children, improving rules as to sanitation, insuring systematic inspection by government inspectors, and constituting a far reaching system of supervision and control.