In the evidence of Mr. Oldfield, an experienced builder in the wealthy districts of the metropolis, will be found exemplifications of the mischiefs resulting from the defective modes of opening sub-drains or communications, even from houses of the first class, into the main drains.[7] The state of sewerage and drainage in the larger towns, as described in the medical reports, in its effects of frequent disease and death,—is much worse in the provincial towns. But every step in improvement is an advance in reduction of existing burdens; drainage, _per se_, will be found to be a reduction of an existing charge for the expenses of sickness and mortality; _science_, applied to the improvement of drainage, not only gives it efficiency, but reduces greatly the expense. The streets in the larger towns commonly display, from the want of science in their construction, similar waste, and equally admit of an improved and scientific arrangement, which will conduce to economy and to improved public health. The bad condition of the streets in many of the towns is very generally ascribable to pavement being commonly regarded as requisite solely for cart or carriage conveyance, and not as a means of cleanliness. The pavement has therefore been usually confined to the chief streets in which the carriage traffic is considerable. Some of the principal streets even in the metropolis almost justify the description of being “streams of mud and filth in winter,” and “seas of dust” in summer. But attention has of late been directed to the cleansing of the road as a means of removing damp and dirt or dust, which are each found to be injurious. So far as various experiments have yet proceeded in the metropolis, they are stated to be highly favourable to the use of wood as a substance for paving the streets, though perhaps in forms different from those at present in use, with improvements which further experience will suggest. Wood, when pinned together and laid on a firm substratum, appears to be less retentive of wet than most forms of stone pavement, and to possess very considerable advantages over the Macadamised roads for crowded thoroughfares. If it be brought into general use it will have an advantage in removing the granite dust, which medical authorities believe to be much more prejudicial to health, in exciting or aggravating lung diseases, than the public have been aware of. Where there is much dust in the working of close quarries, the effects of it are almost as destructive to the lungs of the operatives as the knife-grinding to the operatives of Sheffield who do not guard against the steel-dust. “It is scarcely conceivable,” Dr. Arnott states, “that the immense quantities of granite-dust pounded by one or two hundred thousand pairs of wheels working on Macadamised streets, should not greatly injure the public health. In houses bordering such streets or roads, it is found that, notwithstanding the practice of watering, the