verpool a town which has a considerable quantity of land which
may be made available for the purpose of erecting houses?--There is a
good deal of land in the suburbs.

"The corporation possess a good deal of land?--They do.

* * * * *

"Have you had under your consideration the provisions of what is
called Lord Normanby's Act, by which it is forbidden to build houses
back to back?--Yes.

"What were the reasons which induced the Corporation of Liverpool not
to object to houses being so built?--If houses were not to be built
back to back there would be a great sacrifice of land."

I do not bring this evidence forward to censure that corporation, but
rather to excuse private persons in some measure, by showing the general
unconcern and ignorance about the subject. It appears that even a
corporate body, who might be expected to discern the value of public
health and morals, and not to be subdued by the prospect of immediate and
apparent gain, have at least not made any endeavour to introduce a good
system of building cottages for the poor of their own town. Not that
they, probably, were in the slightest degree, more mercenary than other
men; but it is only an instance to show how little attention has hitherto
been given to this subject.

There is at present in the metropolis, a Society for "improving the
dwellings of the industrious classes;" but what is one society? This is
a matter which ought to interest the owners of property, and the
employers of labour, throughout the country. Such a society as the one
named may do great good by building model houses, making scientific
investigations, and frequently laying before the public information on
the subject. But the proper division of labour, as it seems to me, would
be that the state should give every legislative facility for contemplated
improvements in the way of building, should encourage all researches into
the subject, and be ready to enforce by law such regulations as, without
any great intrusion upon private property, might secure for small houses
those primary requisites without which it cannot be expected that they
will be anything but nests of disease. In fact the state might,
eventually, so order the matter that builders should not merely build
such houses as the poor would take, for there is nothing in the way of a
shelter which they will refuse to occupy, but such as ought to be let