The materials used in buildings are so bad, and the workmanship so inferior, that the floors are always loose, and everything seems constantly getting out of order. We have whole streets of small six-roomed houses let out entirely to the poor; so that three families frequently live in one house. _There is no outlet to the air at the back of these dwellings_, _either by door or by window_. One long, blank wall is all that is to be seen. Frequent illness prevails among the inhabitants of these streets, and I can never forget the scenes presented there during the visitation of the cholera. I cannot bear to dwell upon them, but, for the sake of my subject, I must mention one case. In a small bed-room on the top floor of one of these dwellings I found, one morning, that a woman and a child had died in the night; and another woman in the same room, though still living, appeared in a dying state. I shudder when I think of that room; no pen can describe its horrors. It was a close, hot morning in July, not a breath of air was stirring. The window was thrown up at the bottom; it could not be opened at the top; and as there was no draught through the house to draw the air into the room, very little relief could be obtained. The dying woman was the mother of little children, and I would have given anything to save her. The only possible expedient that suggested itself to me was to have some of the bricks forced out of the back wall. This was done; but all was in vain, the poor mother died, surviving her husband only a few days; and the little children either cried in the street, or were cared for by a neighbour, till they were taken away to the workhouse. As I left that street, I could think only of the words—“It is of the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed.” The contrivances of men seemed so fraught with destruction, that, if it were not for the interposition of God, the consequences would be still more disastrous. I sat down as soon as I reached home, and wrote a letter to the editor of the _Times_, describing the scenes I had witnessed that morning, calling his attention particularly to the construction of those houses; and then asked, in the bitterness of my heart, if, with all our extensive and costly paraphernalia of government, nothing could be done to stop this awful waste of comfort, health, and life. The importance of the subject at once commended itself. The narrative not only appeared, but was backed by every argument and appeal that the talented pen of the editor could bring to bear upon it. But there it ended: no steps have been taken to make the construction of such dwellings contrary to the law of the land. Many fathers, mothers, and children, too, have since died in those streets; only, in these cases, by lingering fever, instead of by sudden cholera. Surely the cries of distress must have ascended again and again, and have “entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth!”