females of three several families of fellow-lodgers in a single room; an adult son sharing his mother’s bed during her confinement;--such are instances recently within my knowledge (and I might easily adduce others) of the degree and of the manner in which a people may relapse into the habits of savage life, when their domestic condition is neglected, and when they are suffered to habituate themselves to the uttermost depths of physical obscenity and degradation. Here again, as in an earlier part of my Report, I think it requisite to remark, that I do not mean in any degree to suggest that the evils adverted to present themselves within the City to a greater extent than in sundry other parts of the metropolis. My sphere of duty lies within the City boundary, and it would be an impertinence in me to comment, either favourably or unfavourably, on districts which lie within another jurisdiction than that of the Commission which I have the honour to address. Simply to guard myself against the possibility of being misunderstood, I again draw attention to the fact that I studiously refrain from instituting comparisons with other metropolitan localities. Let me likewise observe that I am far from insinuating, or suspecting, that the majority of the poorer population of the city has fallen to that extreme debasement which I have just illustrated as affecting some portion (perhaps not an inconsiderable portion) of the poorest; but I dare not suppress my knowledge that such instances exist, nor can I refrain from stating my belief, that ignorance and poverty will soon contribute to increase them, if sanitary and social improvement do not co-operate against their continuance. Contemplating such cases, I feel the deepest conviction that no sanitary system can be adequate to the requirements of the time, or can cure those radical evils which infest the under-framework of society, unless the importance be distinctly recognised, and the duty manfully undertaken, of improving the social condition of the poor.