which governmental interference with private property is regarded in this
country, it is a manifest dereliction of duty on the part of our city
authorities not to exercise a strict supervision over these houses. The
interests which are chiefly affected by their condition are not private,
but public interests. There are legal means for abating nuisances; and
there is no reason why houses which affect the health of whole districts
should not be treated in the same way as nuisances which are more
obtrusive, though less pernicious. In some of the cities of Europe, in
Nuremberg, for instance, there is a public architect, to whom all plans for
new buildings are submitted for approval or rejection according as they
correspond or not with the style of building suitable for the city. What is
done abroad to secure the beauty of a city might well be done here to
secure its health. Again, by legal enactment, we have prevented the
overcrowding of our emigrant ships: the same thing should be done in our
cities, to prevent the overcrowding of our tenement-houses. No house should
be allowed to receive more than a fixed maximum of dwellers in proportion
to its size and accommodations. These are simple propositions, but, if
properly carried out by enactment, they would secure an incalculable good.

[Footnote: Since writing the preceding sentences, we have been gratified to
see that a bill proposing the creation of a Metropolitan Board of Health
has been introduced into the Legislature of New York. If the bill becomes a
law, as we trust it may, the board will be invested with power "to enact
ordinances for the proper government and control of buildings erecting or
to be erected, ... to compel the lessees or owners of dwellings to put the
same in proper order, and to provide sufficient means of egress in case of
fire." The New-York Evening Post of March 23, in giving an account of this
bill, says,--and there is no exaggeration in its statements,--

"The nearly one million of souls of this great city are left to take care