The inspectors, on whom falls the burden of ensuring compliance with the Factory Laws and regulations made under them, are controlled by the department of the central government known as the Home Office; their work on the whole has been well done, and the conditions of factory and workshop life have greatly improved. Some portion of the sanitary supervision of these work-places falls on the local Sanitary Authority; but in the main the system is one of absolutely centralized government control. This secures almost complete absence of improper influence of interested local persons, whether masters or workmen; but it is arguable that this system should be replaced by a localized system, the inspectors being officers of the 144 larger authorities. These local officers could be placed in direct touch with the Home Office or the Ministry of Health and with the central staff of inspectors having expert knowledge in the different branches of industrial work. _Public Health Reform_ Public health reform was a direct consequence of the Poor-Law Amendment Act, 1834. Anxious to diminish the enormous expense of the existing Poor Law, and realizing that a large share of this sickness was due to fever and other illnesses, surveys and inquiries were set on foot by the commissioners administering this Act, and the reports which followed revealed a state of things urgently calling for sanitary reform, in the interest of national economy as well as of health. “An Act for Promoting the Public Health” was passed in August, 1848, which created a General Board of Health consisting of four members and a secretary. These Commissioners, among whom was Edwin Chadwick, former Secretary of the Poor Law Board, initiated a system of procedure which was largely on the lines of poor-law action, and which involved constant pin-pricking by the Central Authority of the grossly indifferent local authorities. The commissioners were more zealous than discreet; and after six years they were no longer tolerated. At that time centralization was as much a bogie as socialism has become in more recent years. Parliament and the localities represented by its members doubtless feared the reforming activity of Chadwick and his colleagues, though they sheltered themselves behind their exaggerated fears of bureaucracy and centralization.