Government aid, by rates levied on the people - a huge attempt at legal pauperization, a further extension of the modern system that tends to debase a large mass of the people to rely upon the State, and do nothing for themselves; well, the remedy will be worse than the disease, the only permanent cure for which is, the desire for, and resolve to have, improved dwellings, by their becoming more industrious and intelligent, more self-reliant, and more thrifty men. But although there are things that it is wiser to let remain as they are, rather than sap at the vitality of the nation, there are things the Government should do. Sanitary precautions that the Legislature has decreed should be done, it has yet permitted to remain undone; even although by such neglect, they have endangered the moral and physical health of the people, and allowed to remain in our midst a danger to the welfare of the State it is their duty to protect. There are in every parish courts and houses that are a disgrace not only to the poor who inhabit them, but to the local authorities, who have had the power since 1866 to alter things.

Mr. Sims tells us what he found in some of the houses and courts which he visited: "You have to ascend rotten staircases, which threaten to give way beneath every step, and which in some places have already broken down. You have to grope your way along dark and filthy passages, swarming with vermin. . . . Eight feet square; that is about the average size of very many of the rooms; walls and ceilings are black with the accretions of filth which have gathered upon them, through long years of neglect."