is spent in the propagation of these sentiments. But how few of such persons apparently turn aside to notice the thousands of lives that are unnecessarily sacrificed, the social murders and suicides that are daily occurring around us, on account of existing evils which might be removed! If the same zeal, labor and money were expended in diffusing correct sanitary information among the people, in removing the causes of disease which prey upon them, in propagating sound sentiments relating to life and health, and in elevating the physical, social and moral condition of man, how many more lives might be saved! In the one case, if capital punishment should be abol ished, an occasional wicked life might be saved from the gallows, though the removal of the terror of that instrument might lead to the loss of many more good lives by the hand of the murderer. In the other case, the philanthropist might count up the lives of thousands saved, and witness social elevation, an increase of sound morals among all classes, and a diminution of the number of murderers and other criminal offenders.

Several noble public institutions, for the removal, cure or relief of the imperfections of human organization, natural or acquired, have been established and patronized by this State. The State Lunatic Hospital has received from the State, during the nineteen years of its existence, $217,140 91, and in 1849 alone, $11,606 34. The Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb at Hartford, since 1830, has received $87,847 25, and in 1849 alone, $8,155 08. The Asylum for the Blind has received $150,773 91, and during last year, $11,500, including $2,500 for the School for Idiots. The Eye and Ear Infirmary, during the thirteen years of its existence, has received $44,000; and, for the last three years, $7,000 per annum. The State Reform School, during the three years of its existence, has received $115,648 94. And the private contributions and annual payments to these institutions have probably been as great or greater than those derived from the public treasury. would not lisp a word against these great charities, nor wish they had been smaller. They are honorable to the State, and useful to their beneficiaries. It may, however, be stated that the number of recipients of these charities is comparatively

We

few and limited. They comprehend a very small part only of the great masses of the people. And there is no doubt that the same amount of money, and even the per centage of it, which our measure might require, if applied to the careful ascertainment of the causes of insanity,-the causes of deafness and dumbness, the causes of blindness,-the causes of juvenile depravity, and to a vigorous prosecution of the means for the mitigation and removal of these causes, as great and even greater good might be effected,-a much greater number of beneficiaries might be assisted. The diseases which these institutions are established to relieve, would be diminished, and humanity would be more largely blessed.

A Humane Society has existed in Massachusetts since 1786, "for the purpose," says an early historian, "of restoring suspended animation, preserving human life, and alleviating its miseries." "Discreet and concise directions for the recovery

persons apparently dead, from drowning, strangling, suffocacation, electricity, or the use of poisons; judicious rewards to such as have jeoparded their lives for the preservation of others, and furnishing convenient shelters, on our sea coast, for shipwrecked mariners, have extensively diffused the benefits of this benevolent institution." Up to 1830, over $20,000 had been expended in promoting its objects. Medals and gratuities have been awarded to meritorious services in saving life. Similar rewards have been generously granted by the government of Great Britain for the aid afforded by American seamen to foreign seamen in distress. A very large number of other voluntary associations exist in this State; and the hand of private charity is widely opened for the cure of diseases, for relief in sickness, for the support of widows and orphans, and for various other similar objects of benevolence and charity. Too much cannot be said in praise of these noble institutions, from which flow so many streams of "oil and wine," to comfort and bless humanity; but it may be well to inquire whether there is not another and still more noble object of philanthropy.

The evils which it is the object of these institutions to relieve may be called the diseases of society. By them all our cities and towns suffer. The remedies lie deeper and farther

back. All along we have endeavored to prove that "prevention is better than cure;" and the distinction we have made between the curative and the preventive physician, might with great propriety be applied to these institutions as the curative measures, and to others which might be adopted as the preventive measures. These are the removal of the causes which produce the misery which these streams of benevolence are applied to alleviate. On this deep and broad foundation lie the measures we recommend; and they should be approved as the first, the greatest, and most important objects of philanthropy and charity. If we would relieve sickness we must remove the causes of sickness, and prevent it; if we would relieve insanity, and deafness, and blindness, we must remove the causes of insanity, and deafness and blindness; if we would prevent premature deaths, and premature old age, we must remove their causes; if we would provide against widowhood and orphanage, we must remove the causes of widowhood and orphanage; and so of every other evil which it is the object of these charities to alleviate.1

V. It should be approved because it is A MORAL MEASURE. "There is a most fatal and certain connection," says the Edinburgh Review, (Vol. XCI, for April, 1850, pp. 384, 386,) "between physical uncleanliness and moral pollution. The condition of a population becomes invariably assimilated to that of their habitations. There can be no sight more painful

1 After the above was written, and while this sheet was passing through the press, the able notice of Edwin Chadwick, Esq, the distinguished sanitary reformer, in the North British Review, for May, 1850, arrested our attention. We extract from page 26, (Am. Ed.) the following passage, coinciding with the views we have expressed-The principle, though apparently so simple that no one could miss it, is in reality a discovery. It may be stated thus-In every case of a social wrong that it is desired to remedy, get at the antecedents, and apply the legislative or administrative interference at that point or at those points, in the chain of antecedents, where such interference may be either most easy or most radical and effective. These phrases, Get at the antecedents, Mount to the sources, appear to be stereotyped maxims in the mind of Mr. Chadwick-secrets in his mode of dealing with all questions of social disease whatever. Whether it is into the means of preventing crime that he inquires, or into the means of preventing pauperism, or lastly, as he has more than once proposed, into the means of preventing insanity, his method is still the same; namely, by a rigorous examination of numerous individual cases, to ascertain the most common antecedents of the evil under notice, and out of these antecedents to select that one or those few, on which the rap of a legislative enactment or an administrative precaution may most easily and surely come down. Even in cases of what seems inevitable and hopeless evil, at which society must just gaze with pity and shake its head, he has commonly found that a little inquiry will reveal at least one antecedent that may be destroyed, one source that may be dried up. Thus as regards lunacy, it is his firm belief, announced more than once in his more recent communications with the public, that were all the cases of lunacy in the country to be undertaken by the state in such a manner that the antecedents in each case should be rigorously traced out, causes of that fearful malady would be expiscated perfectly within the range of general regulation and statute."

than that of a healthy, rosy, active country woman brought to one of these dwellings. For a time there is a desperate exertion to keep the place clean; several times in the forenoon is the pavement in the front of the house washed, but as often does the oozing filth creep along the stones, and she feels, at length, that her labor is in vain. The noxious exhalations infuse their poison into her system, and her energies droop. Then she becomes sick. Cleanliness becoming impossible, she gets accustomed to its absence, and gradually sinks into the ways of her neighbors. The art of concealing dirt is substituted for the habit of cleanliness; she becomes a dirty, debilitated slattern, followed by sickly, scrofulous, feverish children; and she falls through successive stages of degradation, till, physical wretchedness having done its worst, she reaches the lowest of all, that in which she has ceased to complain. The fate of the children is, if possible, more heart-breaking. All idea of sobriety, all notion of self-respect, all sense of modesty, all instinct of decency, is nipped in the bud; they congregate in masses, and mix with the worst vagrants. At last some dreadful fever forces on the notice of the public the existence of their squalid dens of misery; such as those in the Saffron Hill district, where twenty-five people were found living in a room sixteen feet square,-where a man and his wife and four children, occupying one room, took in seven lodgers,—and where one house contained a hundred and twenty-six people, and only six or seven beds. These people save nothing, but invariably spend all they earn in drink; and with that precocious depravity too surely evinced by human beings when herded together like beasts, the young of both sexes live together from the ages of twelve and thirteen years."

"The indirect effects of sickness are far more hurtful, though less observable, than the direct effects of mortal disease. Those who merely suffer from fever are about twelve times as many as those who perish. The poison arising from animal or vegetable decomposition acts as a sedative; it lowers the tone, unstrings the nerves, and brings on physical languor and mental apathy. Persons affected by it become unfit for, and have a hatred of, labor. There is no expedient they will not seek

in

in order to escape from toil. Under this depression, and as a relief from a peculiar inward sinking feeling, they have a craving for the stimulus of ardent spirits to an extent inconceivable by persons in happier circumstances; it amounts to a passion, and these debilitated beings are sometimes almost unable to control it. The same poison, by deranging and weakening the digestive organs, produces complaints of a scrofulous and consumptive character, generally accompanied by a feverish and nervous irritability, constantly urging them to the unrestrained gratification of their appetites; and so the process of degradation goes forward. The effort to struggle against the surrounding mass of filth and wretchedness, is given up sheer hopelessness, and the man's best energies are sapped by the irresistible poison, even while he is endeavoring to resist its influence. The laborer comes home tired, and is glad to escape from the dirt and discomfort,-the poisonous atmosphere of his home, to a pothouse. In the morning there is no refreshing meal for his support,-again he is driven to the beershop; overpowered by the internal craving and external temptations, he becomes a drunkard, and, in time, unequal to hard work. Soon the comforts of life are gone; then its decencies are neglected; the moral feelings, one after the other, are broken down before the most sordid appetites, alike ungovernable and insatiable: he is crushed by drunkenness, profligacy, and poverty, and sinks from one stage of vice and misery to another, till the intellectual faculties become dimmed, all moral and religious feeling expires, the domestic affections are destroyed, all regard for law or property is lost, and hope is quenched in desperate wretchedness: so that at last, owing to these withering causes, families have been found, even in London, huddling together like animals, the very instincts of humanity obliterated, and, like the brutes, relieving every want, and gratifying every passion in the full view of the community. These are the reasons why the districts of filth are not only the districts of fever, scrofula, consumption, and cholera, but also of crime. Habits are early formed of idleness and dishonesty,-of brutality, inexpressible profligacy, and sensual indulgence; and here are educated the irreclaimable malefactors."