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HOUSES PERMANENTLY UNFIT FOR HABITATION. 49
the destruction of such districts, that the Great
Fire of the following year rendered the utmost
conceivable service to the sanitary progress of the
people, and completed their emancipation from the
horrors of an unparalleled pestilence. Long intervening
years have sufficed to reconstruct these
miserable habitations almost after their first type,
and to re-exemplify all the evils which belong to
them; so completely, indeed, that if the infection
of that same plague should light again amongst us,
I scarcely know why it might not traverse the
City, and decimate its population, as quickly and
as virulently as before. Meanwhile, however,
typhus with its kindred disorders, and the occasional
epidemics of influenza and cholera, maintain
their attachment to the soil, and require no further
re- inforcement from the pestilence of other climates.
From these fatal diseases we no longer hope to be
rescued by a recurrence of the former casualty.
The two centuries which have almost elapsed since
the period referred to, have taught men better
methods than a general conflagration for remedying
such evils; and it is a satisfaction to believe
that the wisdom and humanity of the Corporation
of the City of London will apply those methods
with effect.
As a palliative measure, applicable in many of
the least aggravated instances, I may suggest the
removal of unnecessary walls which intercept the
current of air from place to place; the formation
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