"The physical condition of the poor cannot be viewed as separated from the moral. The want of a proper dwelling place for the working man is one of his greatest trials, and is as injurious to his spiritual as to his bodily health. The crowding together of a whole family in one room weakens domestic virtue, destroys all self-respect, modesty, and delicacy of feeling, and utterly removes all opportunities for self-improvement. A home which is miserable from physical or moral causes is the half-way house to the gin-palace or beer-shop." The inquiry might be opportunely raised, whether the _habits_ of life which constitute such a social state as is here described, are not formed long before the state itself is entered. A girl or boy accustomed to street-associations either in the pursuit of some trading employment, as selling papers, matches, &c., &c., or from mere neglect and idleness, will soon fall into habits which no degree of loathsome infamy or social degradation will shock. The origin of the evil, in such cases, lies far back of its present stage and locality. It dates from the _childhood_ of those who now act as the head of this filthy and brutalized little community. Of the penny theatres, it is truly remarked, that "they present almost irresistible attractions;" and the annals of juvenile delinquents are full of cases of petty thefts committed in order to procure the penny or twopence required for admission. Even if the price of admission be honestly obtained, as one of the reports says, the scenes to which the youthful spectator is there introduced are understood to be of the most flagitious and depraving nature, calculated only to inflame the passions, and deaden every virtuous feeling. Singing-rooms and dancing-rooms, too, are represented as training up boys and girls to familiarity with vice in every shape. A magistrate sent two of his officers to visit one of them. Their report describes seven hundred boys and girls collected together to have their bodies poisoned with smoke and drink, and their minds with ribaldry and obscenity! Can any one have a doubt that the evil wrought in such a singing-room in a single night, outweighs all the good that can be effected by a dozen Sunday-schools in a whole year? And finally the part played by the receivers of stolen goods is described as a profession. So much for causes, and now as to remedies. These are emphatically _preventive_ in their nature, "lying at the very foundation of our social arrangements, and until very recently, wholly disregarded and uncared for, viz., 'organized and adequate means for EDUCATION and INDUSTRIAL TRAINING.'"