The Express.
London, England, 1848-06-15 00:00:00

ghe eppreoo.

MAILS.
The marls foe British North Monica, and the United States,
will be made up es am Mall" of the led June.
The West India Malts, exelndlog Bermuda, Nieman, Havana,
Honduras, New Orlecus, Vera Cruz, Tansies, and Porto Nisi, and
Whaling those for Ala-tetra, Jsomel, Garthagew, Santa M. elm.
Mame, Panama, West Coast of South America, and St. Juanwk-
Nicarepun, will he mad, up on the rimming of the 17th
and June Gibraltar
The malls for Vigo, Oporto, Lisbon, Madeira, Cadiz,
will be made uy on the morning of the 17th June.
The oterlud malls to Gibreltar, Malta, Greece, the lonian lolanda,
Egypt, Aden, Ceylon, India, Ilona-Kong, and China, ria Coothstilw
ton. will be wide up on the morning of the 90th Jude.
The overland eloqd h ectlc rue Murmilles, to the Moliteerdnean,
Egypt, Aden, Geyloit, In Ito, Hong-Kong, az., will be made tr, on the
evenlog of the 94th June.
The melte for New South Waite. Van Neese. TAM. and New
Zealand will be made up on the evening of the :leth June.
The nulls for the Wass ',snot of Africa and Maletm wIl: be made
up nu the evening of the 30th June.
The mails for the Ursie, the River Plat. Menlo Video, Pcen.tim.
bona Bahia, Maleire, and Buena Ayres, wilt ee made the
evening of the Ith July.

NOTICE TO ADVERTISERS.
The number of STAMPS issued by the authoritie. of the
Stamp-office, during 1847, to the
DAILY NEWS was 3.447.009
This, we believe, it within eight per cent. cm the number
issued to the Morrow Herald, Morning Chronicle, anti
Morning Post, ALL rur rooerulo,
In addition to the above, issued to the DAILY NEWS,
Monti* Asper, there were issued for the Roman? edition,
THE EXPRESS 778,714
Which was more, we believe, than were issued ether to
the Globe or Standard, Evening Papers.

HIGH WATER &T LONDON REIMS.
To
1.1•11—slorsiso. ...IPA I. Ltooooono. oolc
To soonow—Uorotoo. 2 Nn.poo 1: An•rieftlf. V too. rn :.

LONDON. THURSDAY. JUNE 15.
A r %TT SI. consequence of filet Mee that has elapeed
between the inquiries which were to be the founna-
lion of sanitary improvement, and the consideration
. of the suhject by the legislature is, that some of the most
serious evils formerly exposed have become less appall-
ing to the pet Idle mind from its increased familiarity with
them. In 1842 the crowded state of towns, as indi-
cated by the density of population in canfined arras,
was viewed with the most just alarm, and the atten-
tion of architects and engineers was directed to the
prevention of an evil which retarded not only all sani-
tary, but even all moral improvement. The expen-
siveness of builaing sites, the increase of po-
pulation, in a greater ratio than that of
dwelliegs fur their reception, the avarice of
small capitalists who invested their mono; in tene-
ments for the labouring classes, all combined in pio-
ducing an unnatural crowding of the pore r classes
into low and unhealthy localities. Parents, with their
adult male and female children, and nut 'infrequently
lodge's sleep indiscriminately in the same apartment
In several districts in the manufacturing towns,. there
arc not more than two square yards of surface for
each inhabitant to res;de on, and from four to eight
square yards is a common average in the narrow
streets of the poorer parts of towns. It has bee n fully
wove d over and over again, that the amount of fever
and of consumption in a population is in exact ratio
to its density. In some densely-crowded courts
nearly one halt of their inhabitants are annually
afflicted with 'ever, and they are thought compara-
tively healthy if only one-tenth receive the malady.
Narrow and confined streets are little b tter than
courts in their liability to this RJurge, from one-tenth
to one-twentieth of their popularise being attacked
with fever when the districts in which they are
situated are unhealthy.
The moral scourge of a thickly peopled locality is
even greater than that produced by epidemic.. The
indiscriminate mingling of the sexes in the same
apartment necessarily levels those harriers of modesty
which are so essential for the inneervation of virtue.
Statistics have proved beyond ail doubt that both
moral and physical diseases extend themselves widely
in dense populations. These are no new fees: they
are already familiar to the public, and it is their very
famtliarity which has divested them of their grave
importance. Tha framers of the Sanitary Bill
did not forget thtsc evils, and they included',
in it provisions to prevent in future this
mischievous crowding of populations. Streets were
to have a minimum wiehli, and houses were to have a
maximum height. The smallest breadth of a front
street destined for traffic was to be thirty•fire feet,
and that of a back street twenty feet ; ancl houses
were in no case to be higher than the width of the
street in which they were placed. These were
mast moderate and salutary restrictions. It
had been found that local acts proved in-1
efficient where the width of the street only
had been specified, for the cupidity of the owners of
property bad found vent in an increase of height M
the houses, and thus was frustrated the benevolent in-
tention of the legislature in providing proper ventila-
tion for narrow and confined streets. The Sanitary
Bill provided against this interfeience with the
intention of local acts. by proposing to limit
the height of houses to the breadth of the street.
This provision for a minimum width of streets and
maximum height of houses was one of the most im-
portant clauses iu the whole of the bill, as it was in
tact the only means of combating the growing evil
of an excessive population planting itself in a con-
fiirel area. 'Me restrictions imposed were, at the
same time, so extremely moderate and so well con-
ceived, that we supposed they would have passed by
acclamation. It wee this conviction alone that pre-
vented us urging their attention upon the legislature.
The amenc ad bill, however, no Niger contains these
salutary clauses, the committee having struck them
out in an evil hour.
Had we ever doubted that the real opponents of
the bill were, as a body, the interested class of cot-
tage owners, the truth would have forced itself upon
us. Under no other influence could such excellent
restrictions to cupidity have been withdrawn.
Public health and public morals have both been
sacrificed on this unholy shrine, and the act,
when it does conic into operation, will be wanting in
one of the most desirable of its proposed powers. It
is important that the government should again pro-
pose the adoption of these important clauses, which
onalit never to have been withdrawe. Unless they
are again introdeci a into the bill, the same evils which
pat experience his shown to be so injuri ins end so
costly, will still prevail. Narrow, unventilated streets,
will continue to rise, and, when the injury to the town
becomes insufferable, will have to be pulled down at
that enormous expense, which we exposed in a relent
article, and which is generally 'massed under the
captivating title of improvement. It is the old story
that vast sums are expended for cure, when a mere
fraction of their amount would have sufficed for pre-
vention. The legislature even now perceives that they
are perpetrating a grievous evil, for in another
part of the proposed act, powers of too dargernue and
arl..trary a nature are given to enable local boards to
pull down and widen these narrow and confined
streets, which, notwithstanding this admitted injure
to public health, the s-cry same act permits to ba built
with all their pernicious coneequecces. No private
emolument, however great, can justify the erec-
tion of houses in such manner as to form
the Ari of disease from which contagious dis-
orders ultimately spread over a whole town.
That this is the effect produced by a densely crowded
t no one deniee, !or not only is the fact verified
by individual instances, but is ehewn to be invariably
the case, taking towns as a whole, and comparing
these fever canes with the ratio of their population
to the builded area. The prevention of so great an
evil ought therefore to have been a primary object of
the Sanitary Bill, and it can only be from an igno-
rance of the extreme importance of the restrictive
provision, that government consented to its with-
drawal.