House of Recovery. 6 3 



done at once on account of the expense ; we need not 

 attempt to prophesy the method, but one way may occur, 

 the people may go and leave the present crowded land 

 in such numbers as to render it cheap enough to be made 

 into parks, playgrounds, gardens, or still better into 

 deserts. When Ancoats and Hulme are made into parks, 

 some fresh air may pass through the town. This may 

 happen from decay, since the sheds in which the people live 

 do not stand long. Sanitary literature has been fashionable 

 for a full generation, and the writer of this has read much 

 of it, and finds that the amount of rubbish he has been 

 obliged to pass through his mind is appalling. He has 

 long sought to avoid the bewildering babble. Yet two or 

 three of the million haystacks have a needle in them. 



It was certainly interesting to the writer to inquire how 

 far the members of the Society were acquainted with the 

 laws of health, and it is hoped that it will be interesting to 

 the Society, because this is the strongest point with which 

 the intellectual and scientific life of Manchester began ; 

 but in the lifetime of a man it was all forgotten, and we 

 soon forgot that we in Manchester had once been great 

 * sanitary' teachers. In 1843 a Royal Commission inquir- 

 ing into the health of towns visited Manchester, and reported 

 on its condition. The condition in which the town was 

 found is one of the most melancholy proofs of that which 

 many wise men have imagined that the human race is 

 really incurable. Within a moderate lifetime the voluntary 

 commission spoken of had sat in Manchester, and the pre- 

 face to the volume from which we have already quoted con- 

 tains the following, which it is also of use to remember: 



' Painful to their feelings as were many of the produc- 

 tions in the controversy respecting the establishment of a 



