I December I. 
! lioalthy: the only safety consisting in preventive mea- 
^ sures, and early attention to tlie slightest ailments. 
Principus obsta sero medicina parata est 
Morbi per nimias quando crevere moras. 
Vaccination and the small-pox have proved, excep- 
j tionally, the thing sought to be established,—that pre¬ 
vention is better than cure : poor town’s children being ■ 
saved by vaccination, only to be thinned-out by other 
infantine epidomics; and among those who struggle on 
to a more advanced age, consumption, or typhus, steps 
in in due course to claim its own. 
More than twelve millions of our people live in the 
country, where there is often not more than one man 
to every five acres. Eight millions exist in towns, 
where there are too often a hundred persons to every 
acre. One-third of all children born in the country, 
and one-half of all horn in towns, die under twenty-one 
years of age. One-half of the children of the very poor, 
in most towns, die under five years of age; and under 
one year of age in a few towns. The children of the 
more wealthy, who reside in spacious houses, in wide 
streets or squares, with lofty rooms, and every attention 
to nursing, medical treatment, food and drink, warmth 
and cleanliness, escape with about the same mortality 
as country farmers’ and labourers’ families. 
Some of our large towns’ mortality may he prevented; 
certain means being, to some extent, available against 
the consequences of our infringement of the natural 
laws of life. This is inferred from observations like 
the following:—The great fire, after the plague in 
London, destroyed many bad, dirty, old, “leprous” 
houses. The fire at Hamburgh, between the first and 
second attacks of cholera, took effect in the same way: 
and in both instances, the laying-out of better streets, 
and loftier houses, resulted in a great improvement of 
the health of the inhabitants. The Metropolitan Lodg¬ 
ing Houses were built to try what could be done for 
the health of the poor, by properly-constructed dwell¬ 
ings, with all appliances for cleanliness and ventilation; 
and so far, the health of the inmates has actually reached 
the country average. 
There is as much difference between living a simple 
j country life, and leading a more artificial existence in 
j town, as there is between the healthy requirements of a 
! wild plant, and a garden or hothouse flower; or between 
1 a wholly domesticated animal and one allowed the 
freedom of the open fields. Slight curable natural 
: disorders, likewise, when transplanted into those lo- 
I calities tormed the hotbeds and forcing-grounds of 
epidemics, assume new and monstrous forms, capable 
of being perpetuated under due cultivation—permanent 
varieties, in fact, differing from their former selves as 
much as prize Pansies, Geraniums, or Magnum Bo- 
j nums, differ from their wild congeners. 
| More than a hundred persons cannot dwell together 
on each acre of ground without risk, especially when 
hardly raised above the level of a dirty river, or arm 
of the sea. Thirty or forty yards of elevation alone 
confers comparative immunity from cholera, even in 
15$ 
London.* In a large city, over-crowding begins when 
the houses are higher than the street is wide. In low, 
bad situations, the streets, or courts, should be twice 
as wide as the houses are high. The ground-floor 
should be only used for lumber and warehouse-rooms, 
or stores; the next floor for shops, places of business, or 
domestic offices; only the highest parts of the house 
being occupied as dwellings. The inhabitants of such 
places should be, as much as possible, only persons in 
the prime of life, and in the very thick of the animating 
occupations there going on, with the means to procure, 
and the spirit to enjoy, occasional recreation; and 
children born in such places should get a country 
bringing-up. 
Certain exceptional rules require to be remembered 
for the drainage of populous low districts. Sewerage 
cannot be thrown in any quantity into the next river, 
nor spread by irrigation over the marsh lands adjacent : 
all attempts at inodorising and precipitating the essen¬ 
tial manures on a largo scale have /ailed. In the 
present state of our knowledge, or ignorance, all that 
we can do, is to limit the pipe-sewerage to liquid refuse 
only, removing, by vigorous scavenging operations* 
week by week, or even day by day, all solid or half-solid 
offensive matters by means of closed boxes, covered 
carts, and such-like contrivances. Where the basement 
stores are not used for dwellings, a saving of fall may 
be effected by not sinking the tubular drainage more 
than a few feet in the ground; thus, altogether, flushing 
operations may be facilitated, and the sewage carried to 
a great distance, where it will be more manageable in 
the end. The diameter of the tubular sewers may he 
diminished, if we allow the mere surface-waters of the 
housetops, and well-scavenged streets, to be conducted 
directly into the nearest river. But the main sewers, 
from higher adjoining districts, should be diverted at a 
higher level, and so carried clear off to some distant 
point. 
The work of purifying the animal system is wisely 
accomplished by a three-fold division of the task: by 
defecation, diuresis, and by diaphoresis. Practical agri¬ 
culturists adopt a like three-fold division of the work of 
keeping their farm-yards clean and healthy: having one 
process for collecting solid manure, with all the sweep¬ 
ings of their premises; another process for simply im¬ 
pounding by itself all valuable liquid-manure, and 
nothing else; and a third, separate arrangement for dis¬ 
posing of the rain-water from roofs of buildings and 
mere surface-drainage. The puzzle of dealing with solid- 
manure, liquid-manure, surface-drainage, and the enor¬ 
mous body of water required for flushing, all at a low 
level, is a difficulty of our own malting. 
There is a saying, that muck should go up the hill, and 
stock should move down hill. Farmers know that the 
richest alluvial soils are not the best for rearing young 
* “ London is situated in a basin, through which the Thames flows ; 
and it was discovered, during the epidemic of 1848—1849, that the rate 
of mortality from that disease was nearly in the inverse proportion of 
the elevation of the ground. The same relation has hitherto been ob¬ 
served in the present epidemic. The danger of dying of cholera, and of 
all plagues, diminishes within certain limits, in proportion as the dwell¬ 
ings of the population are raised above the level of the sea. ,, [Recent 
Report of the Registrar General.'] 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER,. 
