6 TlMEHRl. 
expeft respectable law-abiding citizens to be raised 
therein. Rents in this city are very high, and there is a 
class of landlords who seem to think that their duty is 
only to wring out of their wretched tenants as much 
money as they can get and yet that they have no obliga- 
tions to meet in return. It is a common thing to find 
the rent of one wretched room opening on to a yard full 
of slush and mud, undrained, permeated with foul odours, 
to be two dollars a month and more. To meet this 
sum the tenant takes in as many people to lodge 
with her as she can get, who pay her perhaps 1/ a week 
each ; and so half a dozen people of both sexes and all 
ages sleep together in a place whose cubic capacity 
would hardly supply enough air for two adults. It is 
horrible to see, as I have seen, the dense population 
which exists in some of the yards I have mentioned. In 
such places, in such a manner of life, is it to be wondered 
at that all decency is openly disregarded, that the most 
violent rows, the most filthy language are the daily 
pabulum of the inhabitants both young and old. Surely 
the Corporation of Georgetown, composed as it is of 
practical, clear-headed and philanthropic men, should 
turn their attention to these foul cesspools, and insist 
that landlords should be compelled to make their yards 
and houses well drained and habitable, and should pre- 
vent the over-crowding of houses, by such regulations as 
are in force in the large towns of England. Surely 
some of our great planters and merchants who have 
made fortunes out of this colony might imitate on a 
smaller scale the noble Peabody and ere6t some 
model lodging houses for our poor people. I could name 
six or seven gentlemen who have died within the last 
