THREE STEPS IN RACE IMPROVEMENT 197 



with its hundred and thirty-three miles of dwellings, was 

 intrusted to thirteen decrepit old men," and that it took these 

 men about three months to go over the ground each time. 



Since disease microbes had not been discovered in those 

 days, and since prevention was unknown, it is not strange that 

 the people in Bethnal Green were attacked by these disease 

 microbes and swept away by devastating epidemics. Ignorance 

 explained it all ; yet ignorance does not weaken the power of 

 the microbe nor interfere with the relation of cause and effect. 



At last, knowledge about the need of cleanliness took the 

 place of ignorance. Cities began to clean up. They paved 

 their streets, cleared the rubbish away, built sewers, tried to 

 get clean water, thought about getting clean air, and, in one 

 way and another, took what was really the first step * in the 

 modern movement toward race improvement. 



Nowadays this step has become a giant stride. London, 

 New York, Chicago, Boston, and all other large cities are 

 doing more or less in pulling down old tenements and putting 

 up new ones that can be kept clean. They widen their streets 

 and keep them not only swept but washed. For the sake of 

 health and cleanliness some of them filter their drinking 

 water, others bring it from distant lakes in the mountains. 

 At the same time each city demands clean food as well as 

 clean air, clean citizens as well as clean houses. Cleanliness 

 has indeed become a modern health motto, although from 

 the looks of some of our cities it is hard to believe this. 



Protection by Law 



But even from the start those" who strove for race improve- 

 ment saw that cleanliness could not do everything. They saw 



1 Dr. Ellis writes of these steps in his book " The Problem of Race- 

 Regeneration." 



