But Nobody has considerably less power in society than he once had:  and our hope is, that he may ultimately follow in the wake of Old Bogie, and disappear altogether.  Wherever there is suffering and social depression, we may depend upon it that Somebody is to blame.  The responsibility rests somewhere; and if we allow it to remain, it rests with us.  We may not be able to cope with the evil as individuals, single-handed; but it becomes us to unite, and bring to bear upon the evil the joint moral power of society in the form of a law.  A Law is but the expression of a combined will; and it does that for society, which society, in its individual and separate action, cannot so well or efficiently do for itself.  Laws may do too much; they may meddle with things which ought to be “let alone;” but the abuse of a thing is no proper argument against its use, in cases where its employment is urgently called for.

Mere improvement of towns, however,—­as respects drainage, sewerage, paving, water supply, and abolition of cellar dwellings,—­will effect comparatively little, unless we can succeed in carrying the improvement further,—­namely, into the Homes of the people themselves.  A well-devised system of sanitary measures may ensure external cleanliness,—­may provide that the soil on which the streets of houses are built shall be relieved of all superfluous moisture, and that all animal and vegetable refuse shall be promptly removed,—­so that the air circulating through the streets, and floating from them into the houses of the inhabitants, shall not be laden with poisonous miasmata, the source of disease, suffering, and untimely death.  Cellar dwellings may be prohibited, and certain regulations as to the buildings hereafter to be erected may also be enforced.  But here municipal or parochial authority stops:  it can go no further; it cannot penetrate into the Home, and it is not necessary that it should do so.

The individual efforts of the community themselves are therefore needed; and any legislative enactments which dispensed with these would probably be an evil.  The Government does not build the houses in which the people dwell.  These are provided by employers and by capitalists, small and large.  It is necessary, therefore, to enlist these interests in the cause of sanitary improvement, in order to ensure success.

Individual capitalists have already done much to provide wholesome houses for their working people, and have found their account in so doing, by their increased health, as well as in their moral improvement in all ways.  Capitalists imbued with a benevolent and philanthropic spirit can thus spread blessings far and wide.  And were a few enterprising builders in every town to take up this question practically, and provide a class of houses for workpeople, with suitable accommodation; provided with arrangements for ventilation, cleanliness, and separation of the sexes, such as health and comfort require; they would really be conferring an amount of benefit on the community at large, and, at the same time, we believe, upon themselves, which it would not be easy to overestimate.