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56 SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE POOR.
either favourably or unfavourably, on districts
which lie within another jurisdiction than that of
the Commission which I have the honour to address.
Simply, to guard myself against the possibility
of being misunderstood, I again draw attention
to the fact that I studiously refrain from instituting
comparisons with other metropolitan localities.
Let me likewise observe that I am far from insinuating,
or suspecting, that a majority of the poorer
population of the City has fallen to that extreme
debasement which I have just illustrated as affecting
some portion (perhaps not an inconsiderable
portion) of the poorest; but I dare not suppress
my knowledge that such instances exist, nor can I
refrain from stating my belief, that ignorance and
poverty will soon contribute to increase them, if
sanitary and social improvement do not co-operate
against their continuance.
Contemplating such cases, I feel the deepest
conviction that no sanitary system can be adequate
to the requirements of the time, or can cure those
radical evils which infest the under-framework of
society, unless the importance be distinctly recognized,
and the duty manfully undertaken, of improving
the social condition of the poor.
Those who suffer under the calamitous sanitary
conditions which I have disclosed, have been led,
perhaps, to consider them as inseparable from
poverty; and after their long habituation to such
influences, who can wonder if personal and moral