any other class of labourers? There was
the workhouse: let them go there." And so on. It is easy to find a stick
to beat a sick dog. As for the original projector, he recovered his
health, he forgot to subscribe for "The Navvy's Home," and the scheme
fell to the ground.

"The devil was sick, the devil a saint would be:
The devil grew well, the devil a saint was he.'

[Footnote 1: With one admirable exception. A noble-hearted man, still
living volunteered a very large subscription towards the establishment
of "the Navvy's Home."]

CHAPTER XV.

HEALTHY HOMES.

"The best security for civilization is the dwelling. "--_B. Disraeli_.

"Cleanliness is the elegance of the poor."--_English Proverb_.

"Sanitas sanitatum, et omnia sanitas."--_Julius Menochius_.

"Virtue never dwelt long with filth and nastiness."--_Count Rumford_.

"More servants wait on Man
Than he'll take notice of: in every path
He treads down that which doth befriend him
When sickness makes him pale and wan."--_George Herbert_.

Health is said to be wealth. Indeed, all wealth is valueless without
health. Every man who lives by labour, whether of mind or body, regards
health as one of the most valuable of possessions. Without it, life
would be unenjoyable. The human system has been so framed as to render
enjoyment one of the principal ends of physical life. The whole
arrangement, structure, and functions of the human system are
beautifully adapted for that purpose.

The exercise of every sense is pleasurable,--the exercise of sight,
hearing, taste, touch, and muscular effort. What can be more
pleasurable, for instance, than the feeling of entire health,--health,
which is the sum-total of the functions of life, duly performed?
"Enjoyment," says Dr. Southwood Smith, "is not only the end of life, but
it is the only condition of life which is compatible with a protracted
term of existence. The happier a human being is, the longer he lives;
the more he suffers, the sooner he dies. To add to enjoyment, is to
lengthen life; to inflict pain, is to shorten its duration."

Happiness is the rule of healthy existence; pain and misery are its
exceptional conditions. Nor is pain altogether an evil; it is rather a
salutary warning. It tells us that we have transgressed some rule,
violated some law, disobeyed some physical obligation. It is a monitor
which warns us to amend our state of living. It virtually says,--Return
to nature, observe her laws,