“Knowing,” say the Commissioners, “that little sanitary improvement had been effected in the interval, and consequently that the inhabitants must be in as great danger as before, we called the attention of the authorities to the special regulations of the Board. To our recommendations the parochial board paid no regard. The disease, meantime, went on committing its former ravages. Thus, within the first twenty-nine days after its outbreak, there occurred 269 deaths out of a population of 10,000. No efforts being made on the part of the local authorities to check this great mortality, it appeared to us that this was a case requiring a stringent enforcement of the regulations of the Board, and we sent one of our medical inspectors (Dr. Sutherland) to organise a plan of house-to-house visitation, to open dispensaries for affording medical assistance by night as well as by day, and to provide houses of refuge for the temporary reception of persons living in filthy and overcrowded rooms, where the disease was prevailing, and who, though not yet attacked, were likely to be the next victims. The result of the adoption of these measures was, that, on the second day after they were brought into operation, the attacks fell from 27, 38, and 23 daily, to 11; on the fifth day they diminished to eight; on the ninth day no new case occurred, and _in another week the disease nearly disappeared_.” Surely, there was great want of knowledge or culpable neglect, on the part of the local authorities, in this case. In other cases similar conduct has been displayed. It appears we have yet to learn that the care of the public health is a branch of social economics; that it involves more than mere pecuniary considerations. We have not summed up the evils of this immense pressure of disease when we have estimated the number of those attacked, or the number of those who die. The money cost, though heavy, is a mere trifle to the various afflictions that follow in the dark train. Neither does the bodily suffering—the physical pain—complete the amount of evil. The more we look at it, the more intense does the feeling of awe and sorrow become. We find, as we look abroad on the face of society, a fearful retribution for sins of neglect, and for opportunities unemployed. We find ample proof that the ordinations of Divine Providence cannot be violated with impunity:—if we sever the links of duty and of kindness which unite us to our fellow-men, we cannot separate ourselves from the guilt, the suffering, and the loss, such alienation may induce.