Again, by legal enactment, we have prevented the overcrowding of our emigrant ships: the same thing should be done in our cities, to prevent the overcrowding of our tenement-houses. No house should be allowed to receive more than a fixed maximum of dwellers in proportion to its size and accommodations. These are simple propositions, but, if properly carried out by enactment, they would secure an incalculable good. [Footnote: Since writing the preceding sentences, we have been gratified to see that a bill proposing the creation of a Metropolitan Board of Health has been introduced into the Legislature of New York. If the bill becomes a law, as we trust it may, the board will be invested with power "to enact ordinances for the proper government and control of buildings erecting or to be erected, ... to compel the lessees or owners of dwellings to put the same in proper order, and to provide sufficient means of egress in case of fire." The New-York Evening Post of March 23, in giving an account of this bill, says,--and there is no exaggeration in its statements,-- "The nearly one million of souls of this great city are left to take care of themselves,--to be crowded mercilessly by landlords into houses without light, air, or water, and without means of egress in case of fire; and the street filth is allowed to accumulate till the city has become as the famous Pontine Marshes, to breathe whose exhalations is certain disease. All this results, as is proved by comparison with other cities, in the unnecessary loss of five thousand to eight thousand lives annually, and of many millions of dollars expended for unnecessary sickness, and the consequent loss of time and strength,--all of which might be saved, as they are actually saved in other and larger cities, by the application of sanitary laws by intelligent and efficient officers. "And yet our Common Council are unmoved to apply the corrective, and the Legislature postpones action upon the numerous petitions of the people upon the subject. How long these bodies will be suffered to abuse the patience of our citizens we cannot tell; but the breaking out of a pestilence which shall sweep a thousand a week into the grave, and bring this city to financial ruin, will be but a natural issue of the present neglect. The Health Bill now before the Legislature has been prepared under the auspices of the Sanitary Association. Its provisions are sweeping; but the importance of the subject, the uniform filthy condition of our streets, and the wretched and unsafe condition of our tenement-houses imperatively demand changes of the most radical nature. The general provisions of the bill seem to cover the points most requiring legislation; and while in some of its details it could probably be improved, it is difficult to imagine that the present state of sanitary regulations could be made worse, and certain that the proposed reforms, if carried out, would be of great advantage."