“We cannot wonder at the rapidity with which contagion often spreads. Both in and out of doors, it seems facilitated in every way; within doors every article of furniture and wearing apparel is disfigured with filth; every spot seems encrusted with its layers, and the foulest odours abound everywhere. Out of doors, at least in warm seasons, our churchyards, slaughter-houses, and the masses of filth and offal with which our streets and lanes are disgraced, contribute no less to the propagation of contagion. In the larger and better streets, the cleansing is very well attended to, but in the narrow and crowded ones, where the necessity of its removal is infinitely greater, the heaps of filth are truly disgraceful. In some of my visits I have been obliged to wade through masses of filth enough to sicken the stoutest and strongest—masses which have remained undisturbed for months, perhaps for years, and thus generating the most putrid effluvia. We know that vegetables are very dear in our markets. Why? Because our gardens are not sufficiently manured; this manure lies in our lanes and alleys, and only wants collecting; but what would this be compared with the benefits from the purification of our atmosphere which its removal would produce?” The condition of large rural districts in the immediate vicinity of the towns, and of the poorest districts of the towns themselves, presents a singular contrast in the nature of the agencies by which the health of the inhabitants is impaired. Within the towns we find the houses and streets filthy, the air fœtid, disease, typhus, and other epidemics rife amongst the population, bringing, in the train, destitution and the need of pecuniary as well as medical relief; all mainly arising from the presence of the richest materials of production, the complete absence of which would, in a great measure, restore health, avert the recurrence of disease, and, if properly applied, would promote abundance, cheapen food, and increase the demand for beneficial labour. Outside the afflicted districts, and at a short distance from them, as in the adjacent rural districts, we find the aspect of the country poor and thinly clad with vegetation, except rushes and plants favoured by a superabundance of moisture, the crops meagre, the labouring agricultural population few, and afflicted with rheumatism and other maladies, arising from damp and an excess of water, which, if removed, would relieve them from a cause of disease, the land from an impediment to production, and if conveyed for the use of the town population, would give that population the element of which they stand in peculiar need, as a means to relieve them from that which is their own cause of depression, and return it for use on the land as a means of the highest fertility. The fact of the existence of these evils, and that they are removable is not more certain than that their removal would be attended