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Sugar Loaf Court, Crown Court, Bromley's Buildings,
and Pennyfather's Rents, in the South-Middle
District; Plumtree Court, Plough Court, Union
Court, Holborn Buildings, Bear Alley, Ely Court,
and Robin Hood Court in the North-West District;
and Black Horse Alley, Harp Court, Crane Court,
Helmet Court, Crown Court, Elliott Square, and
Labour-in-Vain Yard, belonging to the South-West
District. All these are made up of the dwellings
of the poor; and such, in most cases, are their
wretchedness, their filth, and their squalor, that to
see them is to be sick at heart, and to be almost in
despair at the thought of ever being able to overcome
the difficulties which are opposed to sanitary
progress. Nevertheless, it is here that the powers
which you possess can be most beneficially exerted.
It is here that the efforts of Hygiene will tell most
advantageously in improving the health of the
population; for, by removing the unwholesome
influences which crowd about the habitations of the
poor, you not only remove the more immediate
causes of disease, but you give to nature the means
of recruiting her strength, and of making labour
sweet. You improve the tone and condition of the
poor man's body, and so make him less susceptible
of those minor influences which are inseparable from
our social condition; and when to this we add the
corresponding salutary change that must be effected
in the morals of such a community, we cannot fail
to be impressed with the importance of the subject,