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encouraged by the constant erection of new and suitable
dwellings for all except the working and poorer classes.
For these classes, it must be stated with regret, that there
continues such a deficiency of accommodation as to lead to
much over-crowding, and to most of its attendant evils.
The great majority of houses that have been recently erected
appear to be for the accommodation of the rich and well-to-do
classes; indeed, it is now frequently remarked by those who
are well acquainted with the locality and its requirements,
that building operations have been of late rather in excess
of such requirements, and this is seemingly proved by the
number of middle class houses remaining vacant at the
present time. It is much to be feared that the absence of
good approaches to rows of newly erected dwellings is the
main cause of their failing to attract suitable tenants. To
build houses, and to render them approachable only through
mud and filth, is surely a mistaken policy, and it is
submitted that local authorities should be vested with quite
as sufficient legal powers of compelling owners of rateable
house property to properly construct the first roads and
footways, as they now have of compelling the formation of
the first drains and water courses in connection with such
property.
The following detailed table of mortality, especially if it
be read in connection with those in previous reports,
will afford, inter alia, much information on a point of considerable
importance, viz.:—the comparative frequency with
which certain diseases have proved fatal in certain years;
a kind of knowledge which will always give its possessor the
means of forming a tolerably correct judgment as to whether,
in a sanitary point of view, the locality is advancing or
retrograding.