THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. No. LXXXV.-MARCH 1884. A SOCIETY FOR THE ENFORCEMENT OF SANITARY LAWS AND THE IMPROVEMENT OF DWELLINGS. COMMITTEE. THE BARONESS BURDETT COUTTS. MISS OCTAVIA HILL. THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURY. THE EARL OF DUNRAVEN. THE RT. HON. SIR R. ASSHETON CROSS, M.P. SAMUEL MORLEY, M.P. THOMAS BURT, M.P. REV. SAMUEL A. BARNETT. H. O. ARNOLD-FORSTER. JAMES KNOWLES. It is admitted by all acquainted with the subject that very many of the evils suffered by the poor in the matter of their dwellings could be reached and dealt with by the existing law if it were properly known and applied. It is believed also that volunteer action might do much in spreading a popular knowledge of the law, and in helping to enforce it. A Society having these especial objects, and acting in harmony and correspondence with all other public bodies concerned with improving the dwellings of the poor, is accordingly proposed, and the above-mentioned names have been agreed to as its Committee. By taking charge, on the principle of the division of labour, of one department of a huge subject, such a Society may hope to relieve other bodies of part of their work, and to assist the common cause by cooperation.1 A limited number of members will be invited by the Committee to join the Society, and will be expected to contribute personal effort, influence, advice, or information, rather than money. The object of this public notice is to make known the existence of the Society to all whom it may concern, and to invite information, authenticated by names, dates and addresses, as to any particular cases of hardship or misery (in London) which are traceable to evasion or neglect of the existing law. Communications may be addressed to the Honorary Secretary, at 17 Albert Mansions, Victoria Street, S.W. JAMES KNOWLES (HON. SEC.) The Committee, which was constituted before the formation of the Mansion House Council, proposes to act in full correspondence with it, as well as with previously existing organisations. OUR PROTECTORATE IN EGYPT. THE windows of the room in which I write look out upon a view on which, for many years past, I, for one, have never been tired of gazing. The gardens of an Egyptian Princess skirt the southern side of Shepherd's Hotel, the side where in the crisp Cairene winter season I always elect my abode. The sounds of the great city are unheard here the modern buildings of new Cairo are shut out from view. The whole expanse, on which I gaze, is filled by a vast garden park, in which a forest of lofty palm trees grows in a sort of orderly confusion. In the intervals between the palms over-shadowed by their feathery foliage there are orange groves, ripe just now with their golden fruit, trellises laden with clustering vines, stunted gnarled olive trees, with here and there a huge live oak rising in their midst, huge fernlike shrubs with broad fan-shaped branches-all the rich, luxuriant vegetation of the Nile-watered soil. And about and around it all there hangs the air of calm, still repose which to me forms the special charm of the East. High mud walls shut out the gardens from the outer world. Even when the Princess dwelt within her palace, hard by the hotel, visitors tell, palm groves were few and far between. Every now and then I have caught glimpses, between the trees, of the swathed waddling figures of the Harem ladies flitting to and fro. But nowadays, as a rule, the garden is deserted, save by the lizards which dart across the sandy sunlit walks, and the great falcon hawks which swoop in stately flight amidst the palm trees. The scene is the same always, changing only as the sun-light flits from side to side, and the shadows rise and fall, and deepen from the grey hues of the early morn to the coal-black darkness of the eventide. Such is, in as far as my halting words can depict it, the scene on which for many and many a day I have looked with a pleasure which never palls. But yet-though I am writing with the gardens full in view the picture I have thus feebly essayed to convey in words is drawn rather from my recollection of bygone days than from the outlook I have before me. The landscape is the same as of old, but it has lost its glamour. Everything is sad, limp and cheerless. For days, almost for weeks, past, we have had a spell of chill rainy weather |