if a population is to be maintained in a state of vigour, there are certain limits, both in respect to the contiguity of dwellings to each other, and the crowding of their occupants, which, be the counteracting influences what they may, cannot, with impunity, be transgressed.

There are districts in Manchester, and even populous districts, in which the death-rate is invariably far more favourable than in others which immediately adjoin; I refer especially to Broughton and Chorlton. The chief causes (so far as I have been able to discover) of this comparative immunity are to be traced to a less condensed and more prosperous population; straighter, wider, and lower streets, and a general absence of that labyrinthiform arrangement of courts and alleys, which fever and dysentery so continually haunt. In these quarters of the town, the lower strata of the atmosphere are not permitted to stagnate, while the streets, which in many cases intersect each other at right angles, are swept and purified by the passing winds. Now, if it be true that an efficient system of street ventilation is followed by such favourable results in these two quarters of Manchester, should we not be emboldened to open up those densely populated districts, which at present constitute such unfailing nurseries of disease, and to regulate, even by stringent measures, the height and width of all streets which may hereafter be constructed?

An important mode of relieving the extreme pressure which now weighs upon our great cities-a pressure which the clearances we have advocated might still further increase would be found in the establishment of an efficient system of emigration. In considering this question, however, we must never forget that the interests of the mother country and those of the colonies are directly opposed in respect to the class of persons whom it would be desirable to select. It is to the advantage of the colony to obtain men and women of high physical vigour, in the very prime of their strength. These, however, are the very persons whom the mother country can least afford to part with; to them she looks as to those on whose thews and sinews she must rely, to fight her battles and to increase her wealth. It is to her interest, on the contrary, to send out her used-up town population, those most enervated by the trying ordeal of a city life, and who, so long as they remain at home among the associates and temptations which led to their ruin, may be looked upon as fallen well-nigh beyond the hope of return. Nothing would be more calculated to infuse fresh blood into the veins of such persons as these, and to give them a fresh start in the battle of life, than the invigorating change of a sea-voyage, and the more healthy influences of a new world. The beneficial effects of emigration were strikingly manifested at the time when famine pressed heavily on certain portions of the Highlands of Scotland. During that season of distress, the landlords, in many cases, assisted their tenants to emigrate, while several of the colonies voted large sums of money towards defraying the expenses of those who might be willing to

select their shores as a future home. As might readily be anticipated, the agents of the latter sent out a far more valuable class of persons than those selected by the proprietors of the soil. It was soon found, however, that the improvement among the inferior emigrants was decided and rapid. And such is the marvellous elasticity of the human frame, that even in the case of the most abject outcasts of our great cities, we might anticipate with confidence a change for the better-a change which would in time render them a valuable acquisition to the colonies which might receive them. Would not the relief funds of a union be more profitably expended in encouraging emigration in persons of this class, and in giving them assistance of a permanent character, than in pensioning them at home, and thus making them the slavish recipients of pauper charity?

There is another direction, likewise, in which much might be done to curtail the catalogue of city diseases. I refer to the establishment of effective measures to check the spreading of infectious diseases. In investigating the outbreaks of several epidemics, I have been much struck by the manner in which disorders of this class radiate from centres-frequently at first from a single centre; after a while from many. This is especially true of typhus fever. Scarlet fever is another disease very largely attributable to direct contagion. But, though this is a fact very generally admitted, we neglect some of the most obvious precautions to check its diffusion. In the course of the last two years, this variety of fever has carried off, in Manchester alone, about 2,500 persons; while the total number of cases cannot have fallen short of 20,000. If we consider how numerous are the instances in which the after-consequences of this disease are both abiding and serious, we are well entitled to insist upon the extent of the evil; and yet, were special institutions for the reception of such cases established in various quarters of our populous cities, it is impossible to doubt that many valuable lives might have been saved, and a vast amount of sickness entirely avoided. The same remarks apply to small-pox. In a late report on the health of Manchester, I have estimated the number of persons who were attacked by this disease in that city and Salford, in the course of the last two years, at about 6,000. If we consider that small-pox and scarlet fever are affections of that class to which persons are only subjected once during their lifetime, we are forced to admit that the foregoing estimates are certainly striking. But, though striking, I am disposed to believe that, as compared with other great cities, they would not be found singular, were such statistics as Manchester possesses available for inquiry. My experience in analysing the disease returns of the Manchester and Salford Sanitary Associa tion, convinces me that, if we would enlarge our acquaintance with many interesting problems connected with the public health, we must no longer confine our inquiries to the registration of deaths, but extend them to returns of disease. Such statistics have for several years been successfully collected by the Manchester and Salford

Sanitary Association. No fewer than 28 members of the medical profession, connected with the Poor-Law unions, the hospitals, the workhouses, and gaols, unite in furnishing weekly returns respecting the number and nature of the new cases of disease which may come under their own personal observation. In addition to these tabulated statistics, they frequently specify the particular houses infected by contagious diseases, the causes which appeared to excite them, and other interesting points bearing on the public health. A return, with a summary, drawn up by the Honorary Secretary, is now published at the end of every week, and inserted in the daily papers. In this manner, the very first outbreak of an epidemic, and the quarter in which it may appear, are speedily noted; while the amount of sickness which prevails among a population of nearly half a million may be read at a glance. On the intensity which some of the more formidable diseases assume during different epidemics, and on the localities they select as their most congenial haunts, much interesting information is accumulating in these returns-the more interesting from the little attention these questions have hitherto received. They are valuable, likewise, as enabling us to compare the sanitary shortcomings of different places. To take an example: disease returns, corresponding to those of the Sanitary Association, were collected and tabulated by the late Dr. R. D. Thompson. On comparing the two sets of observations, it has been found, that the law of diffusion which characterises the distribution of some of the more ordinary maladies in London and in Manchester differs materially. Thus, while diarrhoea is invariably more general in the metropolitan parish of Marylebone, bronchitis, and kindred affections of the chest, predominate in the north. The impurity of the water distributed by the metropolitan companies, as compared with the Manchester supply, points to this important necessary of life as the probable cause of alimentary disturbance; while the bronchial irritation with which Manchester is affected seems referable, either to more trying climatic influences, or to the more extensive contamination of the air by the products of combustion.

To sum up the foregoing suggestions, we may say that, on some subjects, accurate and more general observations are urgently called for-such are those relating to the composition and temperature of the atmosphere, not taken in airy suburbs, but in centres of industry, where men and women are congregated together. So, likewise, in addition to what the registrars tell us, respecting the result of every man's last illness, we require to know the nature and extent of the invaliding which precedes it; and such information we can only obtain from disease returns. So, too, if we would set a check on those maladies which are truly preventible, we should organise special wards for the reception of sufferers from contagious diseases, and retain our patients until convalescence is established. We must likewise supply more accommodation at our Lock Hospitals, and adopt stringent measures for preventing the class of patients who attend from becoming a general source of infection. The employ.

ment of married women also, more particularly when they are mothers of young children, should in every way be discouraged. Schemes of emigration, specially calculated for the relief of the mother country, should be brought into operation. Settlements along the railways should be established for the working classes, with special cheap trains at early hours in the morning and at breaking-up time in the evening. Cellar dwellings should be closed up, courts and alleys cleared out, and the sites which they occupied left open to serve the double purpose of air-shafts and play-grounds. Streets also should be widened. Factories and workshops, instead of being piled up in the centre of our towns, should be scattered over the country in airy and healthy localities. If these suggestions are in any degree practicable, and if the importance I have attached to them is not overdrawn, it will be admitted that they can neither be too often nor too urgently pressed on those who have the power of enforcing them.

The Local Government Act, 1858, and the necessity of extending its usefulness to the suburbs of large towns. By JOSEPH JONES.

So patent are the advantages conferred by the Local Government Act, that no attempt will be made in this paper to enumerate them. The following remarks will be confined exclusively to two points,First, as to what the Act is accomplishing in the widening and improving of streets by means of provisional orders, confirmed by parliament, for putting in force the Lands Clauses' Consolidation Act, 1845; and, second, how the benefits of the Act generally may be advantageously extended to the outlying suburbs of populous places. I. Until August, 1858, when the Local Government Act came into operation, and, together with the unrepealed portions of the Public Health Act, 1848, formed as it were one important measure, of which towns might avail themselves for the purposes of health and improvement, local authorities could not purchase lands and premises compulsorily for widening streets and other sanitary purposes, unless armed with a special Act of Parliament, which had probably been obtained at considerable cost. Such purchases cannot now be compulsorily effected without legislative permission, but the process of obtaining these powers has been simplified and cheapened to a marvellous extent. Any place to which the Public Health Act, 1848, was applied before 1858, or by adopting subsequently the Local Government Act, may now, through its local representative board, present a petition to the Home Secretary, praying for powers to put in force the Lands Clauses' Consolidation Act with regard to the purchase of premises defined in such petition, and in respect of which the usual parliamentary notices have been inserted in the local papers in November (insertion in the London Gazette being dispensed

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with), and have been served during the month of December on the parties interested in such premises, service by means of registered letters being allowed in the case of persons residing at a distance. The merits of the petition being then duly inquired into, and no serious objection urged against the scheme of improvement therein set forth, the Home Secretary issues his provisional order for granting the required powers, and afterwards brings in a bill for its confirmation by parliament, the same bill generally including provisional orders for other purposes, granted on petition, and applicable in the whole to six, eight, or perhaps a dozen towns, as the case may be. So great, in fact, has been the extent to which local boards have availed themselves of these new powers, that since 1859 to the end of last session, no less than 16 Local Government Supplemental Acts have been passed, confirming provisional orders, which affect in one way or another not fewer than 122 different towns and places. Of these provisional orders confirmed since 1859, the earliest session in which this feature of the Local Government Act could be carried out, 49 relate to putting in force the Lands Clauses' Consolidation Act, 31 to an extension of borrowing powers, 41 to a repealing or altering of parts of local Acts, and 16 to an alteration of boundaries and of former provisional orders. The average cost to the government of these orders, as charged to local boards, is about £6 each.

These arrangements, it will be understood, are altogether independent of what has been done in the cotton manufacturing districts, under the Public Works' Act, passed in 1863 for the purpose of granting loans of money, and thereby giving employment to thousands of distressed operatives during the cotton famine, when at one time half a million of people had to be saved from starvation, to whom had been paid when at work £170,000 a week. The report of the central relief committee at Manchester, who concluded their labours in June last, announced the very gratifying fact that during the two years this Act had been in operation, no less a sum than £1,000,000 was expended; £10,000 a week was on an average paid in wages; 35,000 men had been employed, and as only a part of what had been accomplished, 200 miles of streets had been sewered, formed, paved, and channelled, and had had foot-walks constructed.

II. The second point on which a few suggestions will be offered relates to large towns, more particularly corporate districts, which enjoy the advantages of the Local Government Act, but whose immediate suburbs, just beyond the municipal boundary, claim an immunity from proper sanitary control as to drainage and other regulations. The most serious results may be anticipated from a continuance of this state of things in some quarters. Railways and manufacturers are causing an increasing population to spring up close to many of our old towns, thus giving an augmented value to the land around, for which the owners eagerly claim the rights, but are apt to overlook the duties of such property, because there is no recognised authority, as in the adjoining borough or town, to enforce