1868. | The Public Health. 289 
thing like sacrificing one or two of the inhabitants by preventible 
disease daily. It is sincerely to be hoped that Sir James Simpson’s 
statistics are wrong, and that Edinburgh is better than it is painted. 
From one of the reports read at the meeting, the following data re- 
garding the mortality and density of the population are taken :— 
Districts. Deaths per 1000. 
Lower New Town rete de Ae Al 
Broughton oma coin aeeEL: 
Guise Aired oth of.venid Ta Saphenis 
Grissmarketyeck 2s. eb 52 
Mraacethirge Orato 0s eG inlecreee Ae 
and in some tenements in the last-mentioned districts, the mortality 
amounts to 60 per 1,000 of the population. 
Districts. Population per acre. 
Lower New Town : 
New Town Nad ee 5 Sem gael wc 
(Te PET "aaa yg, 
GTassIGATKGh 2 es poke h en 1 ee OD 
Canongate Sebo s Fie oe Ue 
SG hens sites Fe stole 
and it is confidently affirmed that in some of the districts of Edin- 
burgh the density of the population is so great as to be unequalled 
in any town in Britam. Is it any wonder that Mr. Chambers 
should have determined to mark his magisterial reign by an Im- 
provement Act, to root-out the fever-haunted dens and other plague- 
spots that form such a hideously foul blot on the boasted piety and 
refinement of Edinburgh? The Act secured powers in the last 
session of Parliament for borrowing 350,000/., and for laying on as 
the maaimum annual assessment fourpence per pound for twenty 
years, the same to be paid in equal proportions by the owner and 
the occupier. The Act is now being put in force by the Improve- 
ment Commissioners, and a sum of 50,000/. is to be placed at their 
disposal this year. When the report referred to is published, it 
will doubtless excite much surprise beyond the limits of the city 
with which it deals. 
The thriving and important town of Dundee acquired an un- 
enviable notoriety during the cholera epidemic of 1866, owing to 
the ravages made amongst the people in the district of Lochee. 
Hitherto this district has been proverbial for its periodical visita- 
tions of epidemic disease, and it has practically been a separate 
district from Dundee in respect of drainage and drainage rates. 
Indeed it has hitherto had neither the one thing nor the other. 
While Dundee proper has been most completely and effectually 
drained, the effects of which were seen in its almost total exemption 
from cholera at the last visitation, and have for some years been 
