290 THE WONDERFUL CENTURY. CHAP. xvm. 



residence. Such were referred to, in the Report of the 

 Local Government Board for 1882 (p. 309), as constitut- 

 ing the bulk of the thirty-five thousand of defaults, 

 under the heading " Removed, not to be traced, or 

 otherwise accounted for." 



One of the Commission's official witnesses, Dr. Mac- 

 Cabe, Medical Commissioner for Ireland, distinctly 

 affirms this. He says (2d Report, Q. 3073) that he for- 

 merly had charge of the Dublin district, and that " out 

 of a population of a quarter of a million, 100,000 live in 

 tenement-houses, that is to say, houses that are let out in 

 single rooms for the accommodation of a family. It is 

 amongst that class, to a very great extent, that the de- 

 faulters exist. The relieving officer, when he goes to the 

 tenement-dwelling where the birth occurred, finds that 

 the parents have gone to some other tenement-dwelling 

 and there is no trace of them. . . A great number of 

 these defaults occur in this way." 



Now weekly tenants do not live in the best and most 

 sanitary parts of towns, and the records of every epi- 

 demic show that such insanitary districts have an enor- 

 mously greater proportion of the small-pox deaths than 

 the healthier districts. Yet the Commissioners declare 

 that there is " absolutely no difference between the vac- 

 cinated and the un vaccinated " except in respect of vac- 

 cination. Again we stand amazed at a statement so 

 contrary to the fact. But the Commissioners must of 

 course have believed it to be true, or they would not put 

 it in their " Final Report," upon which legislation may 

 be founded affecting the liberties and the lives of their 

 fellow-countrymen. 



I submit to my readers with confidence that this state- 



