“The poor, we are told, we shall always have with us, and so with disease and death. Yet the evils, both of poverty and disease, come in very different measures to different communities. As there is a poverty that is self-inflicted, and may be self-removed, so there is a certain amount of disease and annual mortality in every city that is self-inflicted; and the community that does not strive, by every available means, to reduce its disease and mortality bills to the lowest sum of human suffering, and the lowest rate of annual mortality, is as guilty of suicide as the individual who, Judas like, takes with his own hands the life God has given, and hurries unbidden into the presence of his Judge. The fever bills of the Scottish towns, contrasted with those of the English commercial towns, declare too plainly that man has not yet done his part in Dundee to avert this scourge of society; and, while fever is undoubtedly to be regarded as the visitation of God, it is also to be regarded as the visitation of God for the sin of neglecting a population fallen in character and habits. In the following table are given the deaths in Dundee in seven years, and the rate to the population,—supposing the inhabitants in 1831 to have been 45,355 souls, and to have increased about 2000 annually, until 1839, when from bad trade the increase was checked:— Years. Deaths. Population. Proportion of Deaths to the Population. 1833 1,482 49,355 1 in 33·3 1834 1,650 51,355 1 in 31·1 1835 1,673 53,355 1 in 31·9 1836 1,923 55,355 1 in 28·8 1837 1,963 57,355 1 in 29·2 1839 1,511 59,355 1 in 39·3 1839 1,763 59,355 1 in 33·7 —————— ——————— ————————— 11,965 385,485 1 in 32·2 —————— ——————— —————————