Surely, it is no common epoch in the history of the metropolis when you are appealing to the Legislature, on behalf of the Corporation, for the grant of additional powers towards the accomplishment of so great a beneficence. To me it has always been an act of the deepest and most anxious responsibility to address you; and it would ill have become me now, in the attempt to discharge so grave a duty, if I had spared any pains or withholden any conviction. While endeavouring in this, and in my previous Report, faithfully and in detail to depict for you the actual condition of human life within the City, and while seeking to deduce for you, from reason and experience, those sanitary principles which are applicable for its improvement, I have had no trivial or easy task; and you will pardon me, I hope, both if I have incompletely surmounted the difficulties of so large a subject, and if, by the length of my Report, I have made too great claims on your indulgence. I have the honour to remain, &c., &c. Note to Column I. Speaking generally, this column may be taken to express the number of houses in each Ward. Exception must be made, however, in respect of the four wards marked with asterisks; for in them the real number of houses somewhat exceeds the number of assessments. This discrepancy depends on the fact that, in the specified wards, a court containing several houses is often assessed by composition as a single property. Mr. Daw informs me that in order to correct on this score the numbers which stand opposite the Wards in question, addition should be made as follows:--to Bishopsgate Without, 80--raising its number to 1100; to Cripplegate Without, 150--raising its number to 1112; to Farringdon Without, 100--raising its number to 3633; to Portsoken, 150--raising its number to 1408. This would raise the total number to 16,384, which is about the estimated number of houses in the City. From the results of the last census it appeared that the population of the City was distributed as follows:--within the district of the City of London Union on an average of 7·1 persons to each house; within the district of the East and West London Unions on an average of 8·8 persons to each house. _Comparative prevalence, in the several Wards of the City, of such Deaths as particularly depend on local circumstances._