I have been favoured by M. Ducpetiaux, the Inspector-general of prisons in Belgium, with the copy of a report on an inquiry similar to the present, into the condition of the labouring population in Brussels. I have submitted an extract from it in the Appendix, descriptive of the general condition in which their residences were found. When the proportion which the well-conditioned houses of that city bear to the great mass is considered, it will not excite surprise to those who have traversed the poorer districts to find that the average mortality amongst the whole population was, in the year 1840, 1 in 24. In 1829, it appears to have been 1 in 21. In illustration of the moral and social effects to be anticipated from measures for the removal of the causes of pestilence amongst the labouring classes, and for the increase of their duration of life, concurrently with an increase of the population, I refer to the effects experienced in Geneva from the like improvements effected during the lapse of centuries. That city is, so far as I am aware, the only one in Europe in which there is an early and complete set of registers of marriages, births, and deaths. These registries were established in the year 1549, and are viewed as pre-appointed evidences to civil rights, and are kept with great care. This registration includes the name of the disease which has caused the death, entered by a district physician who is charged by the State with the inspection of every person who dies within his district. A second table is made up from certificates setting forth the nature of the disease, with a specification of the symptoms, and observations required to be made by the private physician who may have had the care of the deceased. These registries have been the subject of frequent careful examinations. It appears from them that the progress of the population _intra muros_ of that city has been as follows:— In the Year Inhabitants. Proportionate rate of Increase as compared with 1589. 1589 13,000 100 1693 16,111 124, or 24 per cent. 1698 16,934 130, or 30 per cent. 1711 18,500 142, or 42 per cent. 1721 20,781 160, or 60 per cent. 1755 21,816 168, or 68 per cent. 1781 24,810 191, or 91 per cent. 1785 25,500 196, or 96 per cent. 1789 26,140 201, or 101 per cent. 1805 22,300 171, or 71 per cent. 1812 24,158 186, or 86 per cent. 1822 24,886 191, or 91 per cent.