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54
are never opened at all. Beds and linen that are
once washed and cleansed are allowed to become
dirty and not cleaned for months till the Sanitary
Inspector calls again. The drains that are repaired
and cleansed are not again thought of till disease or
death brings inspection, and reveals the fact of
negligence alike on the part of landlord and tenant,
these things are not alone observed among the
poor. Occasionally disease occurs with unprecedented
severity amongst the more opulent. It is
then found that they too have neglected the most
obvious means of obtaining health and life. The
fact is, poor and rich are alike ignorant of the laws
which govern the life of their households. The
legislator and the poor artisan, and the classes that
exist between them, are all untaught with regard to
the great facts of their physical existence. They
have all been more or less educated, but whether
that education has been received in our wealthily
endowed universities, our high or middle-class
schools, our National, or British and Foreign schools,
they have all failed to be taught the elements of
that knowledge by which disease and death
may be prevented. The cost of the preventible
diseases and death of the population in Great
Britain cannot be estimated at less than ten
millions of pounds annually, a loss that cannot
be represented by a capital of less than