REPORT TO HER MAJESTY’S PRINCIPAL SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT, FROM THE POOR LAW COMMISSIONERS, ON AN INQUIRY INTO THE SANITARY CONDITION OF THE LABOURING POPULATION OF GREAT BRITAIN; WITH APPENDICES. _Presented to both Houses of Parliament, by Command of Her Majesty, July, 1842._ LONDON: PRINTED BY W. CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET, FOR HER MAJESTY’S STATIONERY OFFICE. 1842. TO THE RIGHT HON. SIR JAMES GRAHAM, BART. HER MAJESTY’S PRINCIPAL SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT. _Poor Law Commission Office, Somerset House, 9th July, 1842._ SIR, On the 14th May, 1838, the Poor Law Commissioners presented to Lord John Russell a report “relative to certain charges which have been disallowed by the auditors of unions in England and Wales;” together with two supplementary reports; one a “Report on the prevalence of certain Physical Causes of Fever in the Metropolis, which might be removed by proper sanitary measures, by Neil Arnott, M.D., and James Phillips Kay, M.D.;” the other a “Report on some of the Physical Causes of Sickness and Mortality to which the Poor are peculiarly exposed, and which are capable of removal by Sanitary Regulations exemplified in the present condition of the Bethnal Green and Whitechapel Districts, as ascertained on a personal inspection by Southwood Smith, M.D., Physician to the London Fever Hospital.” (See Fourth Annual Report, App. A, No. 1.) On the 29th April, 1839, the Commissioners received from Dr. Southwood Smith a “Report on the prevalence of Fever in Twenty Metropolitan Unions or Parishes during the year ended the 20th March, 1838,” which they appended to their Fifth Annual Report. (App. C, No. 2.) In August, 1839, Lord John Russell addressed the following letter to the Commissioners:— _“Whitehall, August 21, 1839._ “GENTLEMEN,