"In the mean time all preparations are going on in London, just as if the disorder was actually on its way to the metropolis. We have a Board at the Council Office, between which, and the Board at the College, some civilities have passed, and the latter is now ready to yield up its functions to the former, which, however, will not be regularly constituted without much difficulty and many jealousies, all owing to official carelessness and mismanagement. The Board has been diligently employed in drawing up suggestions and instructions to local boards and parochial authorities, and great activity has prevailed here, in establishing committees for the purposes of visiting the different districts of the metropolis, and making such arrangements as may be necessary, in the event of sickness breaking out. There is no lack of money or labour for this end, and one great good will be accomplished, let what will happen, for much of the filth and misery of the town will be brought to light, and the condition of the poorer and more wretched of the inhabitants can hardly fail to be ameliorated. "The reports from Sunderland exhibit a state of human misery, and necessarily, of moral degradation, such as I hardly ever heard of, and it is no wonder, when a great part of that community is plunged into such a condition (and we may fairly suppose that there is a gradually mounting scale, with every degree of wretchedness, up to the wealth and splendour which glitter on the surface of society), that there should be so many who are ripe for any desperate scheme of revolution. At Sunderland, they say, there are houses with 150 inmates, who are huddled five and six in a bed. They are in the lowest state of poverty. The sick in these receptacles are attended by an apothecary's boy, who brings them (or, I suppose, tosses them) medicines, without distinction or inquiry." It spread to Newcastle early in December, and thence to other neighbouring places, until the returns were, on December 30th, as follows:-- Total cases from commencement Deaths. of disease. Sunderland 528 197 Newcastle 286 99 North Shields and Tynemouth 16 9 Gateshead 143 55 Houghton le Spring and Pensher 29 14 Haddington 6 4 Walker Colliery 7 1