Even after the Factory Commission had finished its work, and had ceased to exist, my grandfather continued to watch with interest the results of what had been done. Five years afterwards, the House of Commons having ordered a Return showing the working of the educational provisions of the Act, he went down himself to various mills, and I find his copy of the Return thickly pencilled with marginal notes like the following:—

"I visited this mill myself with a view to examine the school." "The whole neighbourhood was opposed to the direction of the mill. They now consider it a great blessing." "The children of the higher class of people are anxious to get employment in the mills."

It must have given him great delight to feel that, as was said by a writer eleven years later—

"The present Act has led to an amelioration of the treatment, and an improvement in the physical and moral character, of the vast juvenile population, such as was never before effected by an Act of Parliament; while the benefits resulting from it to all parties, the employers no less than the employed, are not only rapidly multiplying and extending, but are becoming more and more the subjects of general acknowledgment and gratulation. There is reason to believe that the total number employed in factory labour in the United Kingdom is little short of 1,000,000.[[15]] In one district, not by any means one of the largest, the number of children attending school was increased from 200 to 2316."

CHAPTER V.
RISE OF THE SANITARY MOVEMENT, 1837.

Perhaps the most necessary and the most tried quality in a reformer is Patience. Notwithstanding the publication of the 'Treatise on Fever' in 1830, and the tribute paid by the scientific world to its masterly exposition of the treatment and causes of the disease, notwithstanding the constant and ardent endeavours of the author to propagate his views, yet seven long years passed away before he was able to awaken the apathy of the public and the authorities.

Year after year went by, and the wards of the Fever Hospital continued to be supplied from the same districts, from the same courts and lanes—even from the very same house—as before. The preventible suffering, thus daily brought before my grandfather's eyes, was a daily reminder of the urgent need for help—of the necessity for taking practical steps to diminish it.

In 1837 the opportunity came for pressing forward in the cause. That year a frightful epidemic fever broke out in London, arousing general alarm, and demanding special inquiry. The pressure on the poor-rates became excessive, and my grandfather was appointed by the Poor Law Commissioners to report on the eastern districts of London, Drs Arnott and Kay being appointed to other districts.

The title of the Report presented by him is at once striking. He called it, "Report on the Physical Causes of Sickness and Mortality to which the Poor are particularly exposed, and which are capable of prevention by Sanitary Measures." Its opening words are,—