Note 25 — IV.—COMPARATIVE CHANCES OF LIFE IN DIFFERENT CLASSES OF THE COMMUNITY.

An English military officer, who has had much practice as an engineer, and who has done much to protect the health of the population of one of the South American towns, by drainage, whose opinion I took on the efficiency of measures for cleansing inferior districts, recently informed me that he should take advantage of a favourable change which had occurred in one of the recent revolutions, to return to South America, and try what he agreed was the most efficient course of proceeding, commencing with the middle classes, by inducing the new government to undertake works for bringing water into the houses of the inhabitants, and adopt the self-acting system of cleansing the poorest districts, and the use of the refuse for distant production, on the principles established in this Report.

The authorities in Hamburgh have applied to Mr. Lindley, the engineer, for a plan for the drainage of that town, and he has recommended for adoption the same principles, and the application of the refuse for agriculture, at a distance from the houses, instead of discharging it into the water which washes the town.