Chapter XVIII: Appendix (8)

One most important result of such investigations would be to disabuse the popular mind of much prejudice against particular branches of industry arising from the belief that causes of ill health really _accidental_ and removable, and sometimes unconnected, are _essentials_ to the employment itself. By pointing out the real causes, warning will be given for their avoidance, and indications extended for the application of more certain remedies. Medical men who see only a few patients of the same occupation at distant intervals; who see them in their own dispensaries or in the hospitals, and who have no opportunities of observing such patients under the varied circumstances in which the disease may have been contracted, are left to mere guesses as to its cause. A working person of any of the classes whose condition I have described, presenting himself with the symptoms of a consumption, the medical man has no means of detecting _the_ one of many causes by which it may have been occasioned, and the individual patient himself is more likely to mislead than to inform him. Unless his attention were accidentally directed to it, or unless the medical investigator had himself the means of observing the different personal condition of the different sets of persons following the same occupation in town and in country, it is highly probable that the evidence that the disease is not essential to the occupation would escape him. Thus, between different sets of workmen who work at the same descriptions of work during the same hours, and in the same town, but in well or in ill-ventilated factories a marked difference in the personal condition and general health of the workpeople has been perceived. Great differences are perceptible in the general personal condition of persons working during the same hours in cotton-mills in town, and in cotton-mills in rural districts, where they have not only a purer atmosphere, but commonly larger and more commodious places of abode. The factory superintendents generally state that the workers in the country mills are distinguishable at sight by their more healthy appearance, and by the increased proportions amongst them who have florid complexions. Very lately the attention of the Austrian government was called to the labour of the persons working in the cotton-factories in the neighbourhood of Vienna.[14] One half, perhaps, of the mills are of the ordinary construction of the cotton-mills in England of from thirty to forty years’ date, and they work on the average as much as fifteen hours per diem. But it appears that the houses in which the workers live belong to the capitalists who own the mills, many of whom have displayed a desire to ensure, as far as the state of the private residences can ensure, the comfort of those whom they employ, and they have accordingly built for them a superior description of tenements. It is stated that the result of the inquiry conducted by the government physicians was, that the average health enjoyed by the workers in those mills is greater than that of any other class of workpeople in the neighbourhood where the mills are situate, and where the general condition of the population is deemed good; the difference in the general health of the two classes (indicated by the proportions of death—of 1 in 27 of the general population, and 1 in 31 of the manufacturing population), was ascribed to the difference of the residences. My colleagues and myself of the central board of the Factory Commission of Inquiry were fully sensible that the effect of one cause on the health of the working population could not fairly be judged of unless its operation was observed under various circumstances, and unless amongst them the influence of the domestic circumstances, as well as the nature of the work and the place of work, were duly examined. We could not but deem it important that the state of the dwellings of the workpeople, who were the subject of inquiry, should also be investigated; and we gave instructions with that view to the district medical commissioners; but the limited time allowed by Parliament for the investigation, prevented its being made as we desired, a circumstance that, for the sake of the workpeople, is much to be regretted, as great injury is done to them by attention being diverted, as it commonly has been, from the real means of prevention.[15]

M. Parent Du Châtelet and M. d’Arcet having presented to the Board of Health of Paris a report on an investigation with a view to discover the physical or medical means by which particular sorts of work might be ameliorated, observe—

“Perhaps it will be said that the task has been already performed, and
that several celebrated men, whose works are in the hands of all the
world, have preceded us in this career, without leaving to their
successors the hope to add anything to what they have published.

“We are assured beforehand that this objection will not be made by our
colleagues, who have penetrated into manufactures and have studied
their influence with a mind free from prejudice. It is because we have
studied the works which treat of the maladies of artisans, and have
seen a great number of these workmen in their shops; it is because we
have compared books with actual observation; it is, finally, because
we have not believed authors on their word, and have subjected them
all to a severe verification, that we have seen the insufficiency, nay
more, the inaccuracy of the greater part of their assertions.

“This method of proceeding has demonstrated to us that the works of
which we speak, far from being the fruit of long observation, have
been composed in the silence of the cabinet by men who have only had a
casual view of artisans and manufactures; and who, generalizing a few
facts presented to them by accident, have singularly exaggerated the
inconveniencies of some professions, and attributed to others
influences which they are far from exercising.”—_Mémoire sur les
Véritables Influences du Tabac sur la Santé des Ouvriers._ Par M.
Parent Du Châtelet.

They give, as an illustration, the exaggerated accounts of the manufacture of tobacco, of which the supposed evils are proved to be entirely fictitious, or at best an erroneous application to the manufacture,—of effects which, though incidentally met with in the workmen, were equally common to others of their station. In an abstract of their paper, inserted in the Appendix, there is even an enumeration, by eminent physicians, of specific cases of death from the fancied agency of tobacco, but they only show the extent of error produced in this and kindred instances by the previous conviction of the noxious influence of particular circumstances, and by referring all existing maladies to these without further inquiry. If I might add my testimony on this point, derived from my own observations on two of the commissions of inquiry on which I have had the honour to serve, it would be entirely in corroboration of the above statement. On comparing the actual condition of workmen with the medical descriptions of these diseases, and the causes, we commonly found that the results of a cluster of causes are commonly ascribed to one; and in respect to several classes of workmen the real cause, the invariable antecedent, such as defective ventilation, is unnoticed. No persons were frequently more surprised than the intelligent workmen, by the frequent exaggerated accounts of the operations of particular causes upon them, and the erroneous association of effects to causes with which they were known to have no real connexion. For example, in the work of M. Patissier, one which is the chief work, and of European authority, on the diseases of artisans, he adverts to the diseases of tailors. His description was read to _Mr. Brownlow_, the tailor, examined upon the subject of the overcrowding of places of work, and the observations of that witness on the statement of M. Patissier are given in answer:—

_M. Patissier._ “The employment of tailor is one of the most
sedentary: seated constantly on a board, his legs crossed, his body
stooping forward, this class of labourers exercises not part of the
body but the arms, and that only the right one.”

_Witness._ “That is not so: there is a good deal of action with the
left arm in holding and sewing: in using the iron also there is a good
deal of action with the arms and knees, and with the rest of the body.
Journeymen tailors are remarked as being full breasted, as compared
with other workmen; they carry themselves higher, and the chest is
more fully developed; so that the labour has, as compared with much
other labour, the effect of opening the chest.”

_M. Patissier._ “Their position is particularly injurious to the
functions of the viscera of the abdomen and chest. It produces
difficulty of digestion, injures the gastric juices, brings on
constipation, hemorrhoides, chronic catarrhs of the bladder, and
obstructions of the bowels.”

_Witness._ “I have never heard complaints beginning with the bowels.
The stomach may be out of order; they eat very little solid food, and
of course the action of the bowels will not be very good; but as to
the effect of the tailors’ work on the chest, we do not consider it at
all injurious.”

_M. Patissier._ “I attended a tailor who every time that he applied
himself diligently to his work, was attacked with nausea, colic,
jaundice, and symptoms that denoted irritation of the liver. I have
known, says Stoll, a great number of tailors who have suffered more
particularly from diseases of the lungs.”

_Witness._ “The only complaints I have ever heard are those arising
from the foul air, perhaps the dust arising from cloth is injurious. I
have already said that men coming from the country to a town shop will
faint, and be obliged to leave it in the afternoon.”

_M. Patissier._ “As they are almost constantly in a sitting posture,
the body bent, with the head stooping forward, the blood is unequally
distributed, and too large a quantity accumulates in the lungs, either
because the bowels of the abdomen, compressed by the position of the
body, admit of less blood, and which is therefore forced back into the
vessels situated above, or because the short respirations of those who
are sedentary, prevents the blood which enters the lungs from passing
out with sufficient rapidity, by which local plethora in the heart and
lungs is produced. In short, tailors are very liable to pulmonary
phthisis, hydro-thorax, and hæmoptysis, which often accompanies them
to a very advanced age. M. Corvisart has observed that diseases of the
heart and of the larger vessels are not less frequent amongst this
class of artisans. As the posture of the tailor causes the blood to
flow into the upper part of the body, the circulation in the lower
members is consequently much less active, which explains the
emaciation and feebleness of the legs and thighs of this class of
artisans, and the peculiar walk which distinguishes them.”

_Witness._ “As to the circulation of the blood, I should say that it
was more free than amongst persons sitting at a desk; as soon as the
journeyman tailor begins to feel warm and swell, he loosens everything
that he has on; his coat is off, and his shirt neck is open; if he
wears a handkerchief it is very loose; a tailor wears no garters,
nothing that can stop the circulation of the blood: the only
confinement that arises is from the position, which is certainly
sedentary, but he frequently changes it, and puts one leg over the
other when they are tired; they also stretch their legs out. Their
breathing even in the close shops is not noticed as short.”

_M. Patissier._ “Ramazzini says they are very subject to numbness of
the thighs, neuralgic sciatica, and lameness.”

_Witness._ “The tailors are frequently subject to rheumatism, but that
is from going from a hot to the cold open air in the way described.
Men who are generally emaciated will have their legs emaciated too:
the whole frame goes together, but I have never heard young men or
tailors in the middle of life being remarked as deficient in that part
of bodily capability. Those whom I have known to be emaciated have
been spirit drinkers; the emaciation has been more from
spirit-drinking than from the heat of the shop, though one brings on
the other. Some years ago there used to be much racing at about five
o’clock in the morning in the parks, sometimes amongst the tailors
themselves, and sometimes with other runners who had celebrity. The
tailors were generally good competitors and more active than other
workmen in London. There was one of the country tailors at Faversham
who some years ago was considered the first runner in England for a
hundred yards. The tailors have certainly a peculiar walk, but all
whom I have known to be lame were lame originally. When a lad has
anything the matter with him, which occasions him not to be strong
enough for anything working on his feet, it is a common thing to say,
‘Then we must make him a tailor.’ It is a very frequent thing to send
weakly children to be tailors, though it is a bad choice, for the lad
has little chance of recovering himself in the town shops, and a more
open trade would be better for him. Many tailors go for sailors and
soldiers, and they are always thought to be good men. I should think
there are many tailors in the guards.”

_M. Patissier._ “There is sometimes to be observed on the surface of
their skin a psoriform eruption, which by some writers is ascribed to
the irritation of the woollen cloth which these artisans are
continually handling. Guldner, however, considers that this eruption
is produced by their mode of living.”

_Witness._ “I never saw or heard of any peculiar eruption on the skin
of the tailors, though they perhaps do not attend sufficiently to
personal cleanliness. The dye of cloth is sometimes bad, but I never
observed any effects from it.”

_M. Patissier._ “Tailors are apt to prick themselves with their
needles, and these wounds often bring on festerings.”

_Witness._ “That is certainly the case; the needle may carry with it
some of the dye, and the festering may also be occasioned by the bad
state of the body.”

_M. Patissier._ “They almost all have decayed teeth, which are
destroyed by the habit of biting their thread with them. It is very
rare to see a tailor of advanced age with any front teeth.”

_Witness._ “That is certainly so: they have many of them bad teeth,
but I have not noticed any deficiency of the front teeth.”

_M. Patissier._ “Their sight is soon enfeebled by the fine work which
they have to execute, often at night by the light of candles. When
they work in the evening at open windows, they are liable to be
affected by earache, tooth-ache, cold in the head, and sore eyes.”

_Witness._ “That is very correct with respect to the tailors in town,
but it is not noticed so much with tailors in the country.”

_M. Patissier._ “The sedentary life which they lead produces heavy,
soft flesh, that has no firmness; they generally are thin in body,
legs are spare and feeble, and their complexion rather jaundiced.”

_Witness._ “Almost all this will be found to be the effect of habits
that have nothing to do with the trade.”

_M. Patissier._ “Tailors ought to walk in the open air every evening
when their work will admit of it, rub their limbs well with flannel,
abstain from all food difficult of digestion, avoid all excesses, and
generally every kind of debauchery.”

_Witness._ “The men when they leave their shop-boards do not begin
rubbing their legs, and do not appear to feel the least want of it.
The appetites of men working in shops being bad, they do commonly take
food that is easy of digestion, as they cannot do with the coarser
food. When a tailor comes from the country he will eat a twopenny loaf
and take a pint of coffee for breakfast; but after three or four
months working in the close shop getting exhausted, then taking beer
and then spirits, his appetite fails him, and I have seen him eat only
a small slice of bread and butter, and take half a pint of coffee for
breakfast, and his appetite generally fails him. The young men on
going back to their work in the country, generally recover their
appetites unless disease has taken such root that they cannot
recover.”

The evidence of Mr. Brownlow was read to Dr. Weber, who has had under his care between 200 and 300 cases of journeymen tailors who were treated by him, as physician to the St. George’s Dispensary, which is much resorted to by those of that class of workmen who reside at the west end of the metropolis. Dr. Weber confirms the general tenor of the evidence as to the medical facts, and especially the general conclusion that the greatest proportion of the diseases to which they are subject arise from circumstances separable from their occupation. The evidence as to the personal condition and habits of the workmen is generally corroborated by several master tailors, who state that the journeyman tailor in the rural district who works singly, or in a well-ventilated apartment, is in person commonly the opposite of the one described by M. Patissier; he is described as being a hard worker, but at times a man who is in most village foot races, and not unfrequently the foremost runner, and in games of foot-ball not the last. The journeymen tailors are found amongst the best men in the life guards. In consequence of a strike of tailors, one dragoon regiment had a troop chiefly enlisted from them, and military men state that they greatly distinguished themselves.

If we thus find the crowding of unventilated places of work injurious—in which persons rarely pass more than 12 out of the 24 hours, being free during the remaining time to breathe what air they please—how much worse should we expect the consequences to be of the same fault in workhouses, hospitals, schools, and prisons, in which individuals often pass both day and night in the same apartments, or if in different apartments, still in the same crowd. Accordingly, since the attention of medical men has been sufficiently directed to the subject, the explanation has become complete of many deplorable cases of general ill health and mortality in such places, attributed at first to deficiency or bad quality of food, or to any cause but the true one,—want of ventilation. A striking illustration of this was afforded in the case of a large school for children during the years 1836 and 1837, as recorded in the second volume of the Poor Law Reports. Such general failure of health and such mortality had occurred among the children as to attract public notice and the animadversions of many medical men and others who visited the schools; but by most the evil was attributed chiefly to faulty nourishment; and it was only after the more complete examination, made by direction of the board, and of which the report is published, as above stated, that the diet was found to be unusually good, but the ventilation very imperfect. Suitable changes were then made; and now, in the same space where 700 children were by illness awakening extensive sympathy, 1100 now enjoy excellent health. The defective state of information on the subject of ventilation is frequently shown in reports which assume that apartments containing given cubic feet of space are all that is requisite for life and health, whereas if a spacious drawing-room be completely closed against the admission of air, an inhabitant confined to it would in time be stifled, whilst, by active ventilation or change of air, men working in connexion with diving-machines live in the space of a helmet, which merely confines the head.

In the majority of instances of the defective ventilation of schools, the pallid countenance and delicate health of the schoolboy, which is commonly laid to the account of over-application to his book, is due simply to the defective construction of the school-room. In the dame schools, and the schools for the labouring classes, the defective ventilation is the most frequent and mischievous.

_Mr. Riddall Wood_, an agent of the Manchester Statistical Society, thus describes some of the crowded schools found in the course of examinations, from house to house, of the condition of the town population in Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Hull, and York:—

“I may mention that in one school where the average attendance was, I
think, 36, not above eight children were present. Upon my inquiring of
the mistress as to the reason, she stated that the remainder of her
scholars had been taken with the measles. I perceived a bed in the
school-room, upon which lay a child much disfigured by that complaint.
Another child of the mistress had died of the measles. I had reason to
believe that the contagion had been communicated originally from that
child, because the cases of the scholars all occurred subsequently. In
a school in Liverpool, having above 40 scholars in average attendance,
I found the number diminished to somewhere about 10. On inquiring into
this case, I ascertained that it arose from the prevalence of scarlet
fever, and the master made this remark: ‘It is a very strange thing
how this fever should have attacked almost all the children coming to
my school, whilst none of my neighbours have got it.’ I attributed
that to the very crowded state of the school. The room was very low.
When the whole of his scholars were in attendance, it must have been
excessively crowded. There was no thorough ventilation.

“I found that in many of the schools there were from 20 to (in some
cases) nearly 100 scholars crammed into a dirty house or cellar,
without air or ventilation, the effluvia from whose breath and clothes
was exceedingly offensive, and must, I am sure, be very injurious to
the children’s health. In most of these places, too, I have found that
the ordinary household occupations have been carried on by the old
women.”

Another inquirer states, that in the neighbourhood of Bolton he saw 70 scholars cooped up in a badly ventilated room not 12 feet square.

_Bad ventilation and overcrowding of private houses._

The reports from the great majority of the new unions present evidence of the severe overcrowding of the cottages in the rural districts, and the tenements occupied by the working classes in towns.

From the returns as laid before the public from the commissioners appointed to take the last census, it would appear, however, that the number of houses has more than kept pace with the increase of the population.

From these returns it would appear that the increase of houses even in Scotland has more than kept pace with the increase of population. But this result was so much at variance with the reports and communications from all parts of the country relating to the dwellings of the labouring classes, that if any increase of the proportions of houses to the population had taken place, it must have been in the houses of the middle and higher classes of the community. I learn, however, the fact to be, that whilst in obtaining the previous census, merely the heading was given without any instruction for the officer to fill up the “number of houses” on the occasion of taking the last census, the commissioners ordered each separate occupation under the same roof to be returned as a house. In the Scotch towns, and in many of the English towns where it is the custom to let off as separate tenements the flats or floors under the same roof, there will, unless it be explained, appear to have been, as compared with the numbers in the last census, when the buildings and not its subdivisions were returned, an increase of accommodation, when, in reality, there may only have been an increased subdivision of tenements in consequence of an increased pressure of population. The evidence received from every part of the country, from rural districts as well as from towns, attest that the dwellings of large numbers of the labouring population are overcrowded, and from many districts that the overcrowding has increased.

For example, the report of _Dr. Laurie_ from Greenock states, that such is the crowding of the population in the town that—

“Toward the east or old part of the town the amount of population
crowded into a small space can hardly be credited, the rapid increase
of the population has so far overstepped the means of accommodation
that not the meanest outhouse remains without its tenants.”

_Dr. Walker_, one of the senior surgeons to the Greenock Infirmary, also states that,—

“The rooms are in most instances small, and frequently far too much
crowded. It is not unusual to see ten or twelve human beings occupying
a room not as many feet square. The lower classes in these districts
are grossly filthy in their persons and dwellings; and even many of
our operatives who receive good wages are extremely inattentive to
cleanliness, both in person and dwelling.”

In a paper on the causes of destitution in Scotland, by _Professor Alison_, read before the Statistical Society of London, it is stated that—

“From a report on the late census, made to the Lord Provost of Glasgow
by Mr. Strang, Chamberlain, (19th July, 1841,) it appears that in the
most densely peopled part of the town, (Blackfriars’ parish,) the
population since 1831 has increased 40 per cent., while the number of
inhabited houses has not increased at all; and again, in the Gorbals,
‘there is an increase in the population of 20 per cent, since 1831,’
though no new buildings have been erected, and where the great
majority of the houses are of the smallest class.”—(Watt’s Report, p.
11.)

_Dr. Scott Alison_ in his report on Tranent, states,—

“In many houses in and around Tranent, fowls roost on the rafters and
on the tops of the bedsteads. The effluvia in these houses are
offensive, and must prove very unwholesome. It is scarcely necessary
to say that these houses are very filthy. They swarm likewise with
fleas. Dogs live in the interior of the lowest houses, and must, of
course, be opposed to cleanliness. I have seen horses in two houses in
Tranent inhabiting the same apartment with numerous families. One was
in Dow’s Bounds. Several of the family were ill of typhus fever, and I
remember the horse stood at the back of the bed. In this case the
stench was dreadful. In addition to the horse there were fowls, and I
think the family was not under ten souls. The father died of typhus on
this occasion. The families of most of the labouring people are
crowded, in consequence of the smallness of the apartment. Where there
are many children, it is common for 10 or 12 people to inhabit one
apartment, and for four children to lie in one bed, both in health and
sickness. When a collier has few or no children, he sometimes takes
single men and women as lodgers.”

_Dr. Keith_ says the—

“Crowding is fearful. I have seen six or eight sleeping in one
apartment, with every crevice stopped, and have more than once been
nearly suffocated by entering the apartment even after several of them
were up and out.”

As the information sought from the medical officers and witnesses in the course of this inquiry was chiefly as to the sanitary condition of the population, they might, naturally be expected only to notice the overcrowding as one of the causes of ill health; and they do frequently notice the fact in that sense; but the overcrowding is also frequently noticed as a cause of extreme demoralization and recklessness, and recklessness, again, as a cause of disease. The following may be given as examples of the statements in respect to overcrowding in the rural districts in England.

_Mr. T. P. J. Grantham_, medical officer of the Sleaford union, in reference to the typhus fever in the family of an agricultural labourer, gives the following instance of the overcrowding which is frequent in the rural districts:—

“The domestic economy in this house was deplorable; eight persons
slept in one small ill-ventilated apartment, with scarcely any
bed-clothing; the smell arising from want of cleanliness, and the
dirty clothes of the children being allowed to accumulate, was most
intolerable. Considering the situation of the house, its filthy state,
and the vitiated air which must have been respired over and over
again, by eight individuals sleeping in one confined apartment, it is
not surprising that this family should have been afflicted with fever,
and that of a very malignant type; the mother and one child fell
victims to it in a very short time.”

_The want of separate apartments, and overcrowding of private
dwellings._

The following extract from a communication from the clerk to the Ampthill union, pourtrays the effects of this overcrowding on the morals of the population.

“A large proportion of the cottages in the Union are very miserable
places, small and inconvenient, in which it is impossible to keep up
even the common decencies of life. I will refer to one instance with
which I am well acquainted:—A man, his wife, and family, consisting in
all of 11 individuals, resided in a cottage containing only two rooms.
The man, his wife, and four children, sometimes five, slept in one of
the rooms, and in one bed, some at the foot, others at the top, one a
girl above 14, another a boy above 12, the rest younger. The other
part of the family slept in one bed in the keeping-room, that is, the
room in which their cooking, washing, and eating were performed. How
could it be otherwise with this family than that they should be sunk
into a most deplorable state of degradation and depravity? This, it
may be said, is an extreme case, but there are many similar, and a
very great number that make near approaches to it. To pursue a further
account of this family: the man is reported to be a good labourer, the
cottage he held was recently pulled down, and being unable to procure
another, he was forced to come into the workhouse. After being in a
short time, they left to try again to get a home, but again failed.
The man then absconded, and the family returned to the workhouse. The
eldest, a female, has had a bastard child, and another, younger, also
a female but grown up, has recently been sentenced to transportation
for stealing in a dwelling house. The family, when they came in, were
observed to be of grossly filthy habits and of disgusting behaviour; I
am glad to say, however, that their general conduct and appearance is
very much improved since they have become inmates of the workhouse. I
without scruple express my opinion that their degraded moral state is
mainly attributable to the wretched way in which they have lived and
herded together as previously described. I have been thus particular
in my account of this family, knowing it to be a type of many others,
and intending it to apply to that part of your letter inquiring
respecting the comparative character of the female inmates and
children of the two descriptions of cottages in question.”

The _relieving officer_ of the Leighton Buzzard union states that, in Leighton,—

“There are a number of cottages without sleeping-rooms separate from
the day-rooms, and frequently three or four families are found
occupying the same bed-room, and young men and women promiscuously
sleeping in the same apartment.”

_Mr. Blick_, the medical officer of the Bicester union, states that:—

“The residences of the poor in that part of the district are most
wretched, the majority consisting of only one room below and one
above, in which a family of eight or ten (upon an average, I should
say five), live and sleep. In one of these rooms I have witnessed a
father, mother, three grown-up sons, a daughter, and a child, lying at
the same time with typhus fever: but few of the adjacent residents
escaped the infection.”

Mr. _L. O. Fox_, the medical officer of the Romsey union, states:—

“There is not only a great want of cottages, but also of room in those
which now stand. In the parish of Mottisfont I have known 14
individuals of one family together in a small room, the mother being
in labour at the time, and in the adjoining room seven other persons
sleeping, making 21 persons, in a space which should be occupied by
six persons only at most. Here are the young woman and young man of 18
or 20 years of age lying alongside of the father and mother, and the
latter actually in labour. It will be asked what is the condition of
the inmates?—Just such as might be expected.”

_Dr. Gilly_, the canon of Durham, whose appeal on behalf of the border peasantry, and description of the sheds into which they are placed have been cited, observes, upon the crowding of these small places, 24 feet by 16, with 8, 10, or even 12 persons:—

“How they lie down to rest, how they sleep, how they can preserve
common decency, how unutterable horrors are avoided, is beyond all
conception. The case is aggravated when there is a young woman to be
lodged in this confined space who is not a member of the family, but
is hired to do the field-work, for which every hind is bound to
provide a female. It shocks every feeling of propriety to think that
in a room, and within such a space as I have been describing,
civilized beings should be herding together without a decent
separation of age and sex. So long as the agricultural system in this
district requires the hind to find room for a fellow-servant of the
other sex in his cabin, the least that morality and decency can demand
is that he should have a second apartment where the unmarried female
and those of a tender age should sleep apart from him and his wife.
Last Whitsuntide, when the annual lettings were taking place, a hind,
who had lived one year in the hovel he was about to quit, called to
say farewell, and to thank me for some trifling kindness I had been
able to show him. He was a fine tall man of about 45, a fair specimen
of the frank, sensible, well-spoken, well-informed Northumbrian
peasantry—of that peasantry of which a militia regiment was composed,
which so amazed the Londoners (when it was garrisoned in the capital
many years ago) by the size, the noble deportment, the soldier-like
bearing, and the good conduct of the men. I thought this a good
opportunity of asking some questions. Where was he going? and how
would he dispose of his large family (eleven in number)? He told me
they were to inhabit one of these hind’s cottages, whose narrow
dimensions were less than 24 feet by 15, and that the eleven would
have only three beds to sleep on; that he himself, his wife, a
daughter of 6, and a boy of 4 years old, would sleep in one bed; that
a daughter of 18, a son of 12, a son of 10, and a daughter of 8 would
have a second bed; and a third would receive his three sons of the age
of 20, 16, and 14. ‘Pray,’ said I, ‘do you not think that this is a
very improper way of disposing of your family?’ ‘Yes, certainly,’ was
the answer; ‘it is very improper in a Christian point of view; but
what can we do until they build us better houses.’”

_Mr. Riddall Wood_ was examined as to the effects of overcrowded tenements on the moral habits observed in the course of his visits from house to house in the various towns he was engaged to examine:—

“In what towns did you find instances of the greatest crowding of the
habitations?—In Manchester, Liverpool, Ashton-under-Lyne, and
Pendleton. In a cellar in Pendleton, I recollect there were three beds
in the two apartments of which the habitation consisted, but having no
door between them, in one of which a man and his wife slept; in
another, a man, his wife and child; and in a third two unmarried
females. In Hull I have met with cases somewhat similar. A mother
about 50 years of age, and her son I should think 25, at all events
above 21, sleeping in the same bed, and a lodger in the same room. I
have two or three instances in Hull in which a mother was sleeping
with her grown up son, and in most cases there were other persons
sleeping in the same room, in another bed. In a cellar in Liverpool, I
found a mother and her grown-up daughters sleeping on a bed of chaff
on the ground in one corner of the cellar, and in the other corner
three sailors had their bed. I have met with upwards of 40 persons
sleeping in the same room, married and single, including, of course,
children and several young adult persons of either sex. In Manchester
I could enumerate a variety of instances in which I found such
promiscuous mixture of the sexes in sleeping-rooms. I may mention one;
a man, his wife and child sleeping in one bed; in another bed, two
grown up females; and in the same room two young men, unmarried. I
have met with instances of a man, his wife, and his wife’s sister,
sleeping in the same bed together. I have known at least half-a-dozen
cases in Manchester in which that has been regularly practised, the
unmarried sister being an adult.

“In the course of your own inquiry, how many instances, if you were to
look over your Notes, of persons of different sexes sleeping
promiscuously, do you think you met with?—I think I am speaking within
bounds when I say I have amongst my memoranda above 100 cases,
including, of course, cases of persons of different sexes sleeping in
the same room.

“Was it so common as to be in nowise deemed extraordinary or culpable
amongst that class of persons?—It seemed not to be thought of. As a
proof of this I may mention one circumstance which just occurs to
me:—Early in my visitation of Pendleton, I called at the dwelling of a
person whose sons worked with himself in a colliery. It was in the
afternoon, when a young man, one of the sons, came down stairs in his
shirt and stood before the fire where a very decently-dressed young
female was sitting. The son asked his mother for a clean shirt, and on
its being given to him, very deliberately threw off the shirt he had
on, and after warming the clean one, put it on. In another dwelling in
Pendleton, a young girl 18 years of age, sat by the fire in her
chemise during the whole time of my visit. Both these were houses of
working people (colliers), and not by any means of ill-fame.

“During your inquiries were you able to observe any further
demoralization attendant upon these circumstances?—I have frequently
met with instances in which the parties themselves have traced their
own depravity to these circumstances. As, for example, while I was
following out my inquiries in Hull, I found in one room a prostitute,
with whom I remonstrated on her course of life, and asked her whether
she would not be in a better condition if she were an honest servant
instead of living in vice and wretchedness. She admitted she should,
and on asking the cause of her being brought to her present condition,
she stated that she had lodged with a married sister, and slept in the
same bed with her and her husband; that hence improper intercourse
took place, and from that she gradually became more and more depraved;
and at length was thrown upon the town, because, having lost her
character, the town was her only resource. Another female of this
description admitted that her first false step was in consequence of
her sleeping in the same room with a married couple. In the instance I
have mentioned of the two single women sleeping in the same room with
the married people, I have good authority for believing that they were
common to the men. In the case which I have mentioned of the two
daughters and the woman where I found the sailors, I learned, from the
mother’s admission, that they were common to the lodgers. In all of
these cases the sense of decency was obliterated.”

_Mr. Baker_, in his report on the condition of the labouring classes in Leeds corroborates this statement:—

“In the houses of the working classes, brothers and sisters, and
lodgers of both sexes, are found occupying the same sleeping-room with
the parents, and consequences occur which humanity shudders to
contemplate. It is but three or four years ago since a father and
daughter stood at the bar of the Leeds Sessions as criminals, the one
in concealing, and the other in being an accessary to concealing, the
birth of an illegitimate child, born on the body of the daughter by
the father; and now, in November, 1841, one of the Registrars of Leeds
has recorded the birth of an illegitimate child born on the body of a
young girl, only 16 years of age, who lived with her mother, who
cohabited with her lodger, the father of this child, of which the girl
had been pregnant five months, when the mother died.”

The overcrowding of the tenements of the labouring classes is productive of demoralization in a mode pointed out by _Mr. Barnett_, the clerk to the Nottingham Union, who states—

“That the houses are generally too small to afford a comfortable
reception to the family, and the consequence is that the junior
members are generally in the streets. Girls and youths destitute of
adequate house-room, and freed from parental control, are accustomed
to gross immoralities.”

Hereafter, when considering the pecuniary means of defraying the expense of sanitary measures, it will be shown how much less of such consequences in most districts than may be supposed is ascribable to absolute poverty or real inability to pay for better accommodation. To obviate even immediate impressions of this description, I might adduce much evidence of the character of the following testimony of _Mr. J. Thomson_, of Clitheroe:—

“What is the number of persons whom you have in your employment?—Men,
women, and children, between 900 and 1000.

“Are you the owner of any of the tenements where they reside?—Very
few; not more than 12 or 15.

“What description of tenements are they?—Houses with two rooms above,
two rooms below, and a yard; and letting at a rent of from 7_l._ to
8_l._ per annum. These are occupied by foremen in various departments,
and the better description of artisans.

“What wages do this description of persons earn?—Various, from 30_s._
to 3_l._ weekly; averaging, perhaps, 2_l._ weekly; out of which they
pay 3_s._ per week for rent.

“What is your experience in respect to the habits of the workpeople in
these tenements?—The remark which I have to make is on the very low
state of feeling prevalent amongst even a high class of workmen as to
decency or propriety. The tenements sufficed for them when they were
young, but when the female children become young women, and the boys
advance to puberty, and decency requires them to have separate rooms,
the usual practice of the parents is to take the young women into
their own sleeping-rooms. I have one highly respectable foreman who
has one daughter aged 20, and another aged 22, sleeping on each side
of the bed in which himself and his wife sleep. The next bed-room is
filled with the younger children of both sexes, boys and girls, up to
16 years of age. The earnings of this family must have been 50_s._ per
week. The rent they paid was 3_s._ weekly, which was little more than
the interest on the money invested. I have remonstrated on the
indecency of such habits, and on their bad effects, but the expense of
the extra shilling a-week for a house with another bed-room was
considered a sufficient answer to my remonstrance. In my own tenements
I have built the additional room, and notwithstanding the
remonstrances, I have required the additional rent. When they have
remonstrated, I have told them of the fact, that the cost of the
additional room would only be a beneficial deduction from the money
spent in liquor.”

It would require much time and various opportunities of observation to attempt to make an exact analysis of the combined causes, and an estimate of the effect of each separate cause which operate to produce the masses of moral and physical wretchedness met with in the investigation of the condition of the lowest population. But it became evident, in the progress of the inquiry, that several separate circumstances had each its separate moral as well as physical influence. Thus tenements of inferior construction had manifestly an injurious operation on the moral as well as on the sanitary condition, independently of any overcrowding. For example, it appears to be matter of common observation, in the instance of migrant families of workpeople who are obliged to occupy inferior tenements, that their habits soon become “of a piece” with the dwelling. A gentleman who has observed closely the condition of the workpeople in the south of Cheshire and the north of Lancashire, men of similar race and education, working at the same description of work, namely, as cotton-spinners, mill hands, and earning nearly the same amount of wages, states that the workmen of the north of Lancashire are obviously inferior to those in the south of Cheshire, in health and habits of personal cleanliness and general condition. The difference is traced mainly to the circumstance, that the labourers in the north of Lancashire inhabit stone houses of a description that absorb moisture, the dampness of which affects the health, and causes personal uncleanliness, induced by the difficulty of keeping a clean house. The operation of the same deteriorating influences were also observable in Scotland, and it may be illustrated by several instances which I have met with in the course of my own personal inquiries.

One of the circumstances most favourable to the improvement of the condition of an artisan or an agricultural labourer, is his obtaining as a wife a female who has had a good industrial training in the well regulated household of persons of a higher condition. The following instance of the effect of the dwelling itself on the condition of a female servant when married, was brought to my notice by a member of the family in which they had been brought up. One was of a young woman who had been taught the habits of neatness, order, and cleanliness most thoroughly as regards household work.

“Her attention to personal neatness,” says a lady who is my informant,
“was very great; her face seemed always as if it were just washed, and
with her bright hair neatly combed underneath her snowwhite cap, a
smooth white apron, and her gown and handkerchief carefully put on,
she used to look very comely. After a year or two, she married the
serving man, who, as he was retained in his situation, was obliged to
take a house as near his place as possible. The cottages in the
neighbourhood were of the most wretched kind, mere hovels built of
rough stones and covered with ragged thatch; there were few even of
these, so there was no choice, and they were obliged to be content
with the first that was vacant, which was in the most retired
situation. After they had been married about two years, I happened to
be walking past one of these miserable cottages, and as the door was
open, I had the curiosity to enter. I found it was the home of the
servant I have been describing. But what a change had come over her!
Her face was dirty, and her tangled hair hung over her eyes. Her cap,
though of good materials, was ill washed and slovenly put on. Her
whole dress, though apparently good and serviceable, was very untidy,
and looked dirty and slatternly; everything indeed about her seemed
wretched and neglected, (except her little child,) and she appeared
very discontented. She seemed aware of the change there must be in her
appearance since I had last seen her, for she immediately began to
complain of her house. The wet came in at the door of the _only room_,
and when it rained, through every part of the roof also, except just
over the hearth-stone; large drops fell upon her as she lay in bed, or
as she was working at the window: in short, she had found it
impossible to keep things in order, so had gradually ceased to make
any exertions. Her condition had been borne down by the condition of
the house. Then her husband was dissatisfied with his home and with
her; his visits became less frequent, and if he had been a day
labourer, and there had been a beer-shop or a public-house, the
preference of that to his home would have been inevitable, and in the
one instance would have presented an example of a multitude of cases.

“She was afterwards, however, removed to a new cottage, which was
water-tight, and had some conveniences, and was built close to the
road, which her former mistress and all her friends must constantly
pass along. She soon resumed, in a great degree, her former good
habits, but still there was a little of the _dawdle_ left about her;
the remains of the dispiritedness caused by her former very
unfavourable circumstances.”

I visited some other dwellings not far from the one above described, and met with another instance of a female who had been brought up as a servant in a well-ordered house, and who, for her station, had received a very excellent religious and moral education. Before her marriage she had been distinguished by the refinement with which she sung national airs, and for her knowledge of the Bible and of the doctrines of her church. Her personal condition had become of “a piece” with the wretched stone undrained hovel, with a pigsty before it, in which she had been taken. We found her with rings of dirt about her neck, and turning over with dirty hands Brown’s Dictionary, to see whether the newly-elected minister was “sound” in his doctrine. In this case no moral lapse was apparent, but the children were apparently brought up under great disadvantages.

There, however, as in most cases, the internal economy of the houses were primarily affected by the defective internal and surrounding drainage that produced the damp and wet, and thence the dirt against which the inmates had ceased to contend. On inquiry of the male labourers in the district, it appeared that almost every third man was subjected to rheumatism; and with them, it was evident that the prevalence of damp and marsh miasma from the want of drainage, if it did not necessitate, formed a strong temptation to, the use of ardent spirits. With them as with the females, the wretched condition of the tenement formed a strong barrier against personal cleanliness and the use of decent clothes.

In the rural districts the very defects of the cottages which let in the fresh air, in spite of all the efforts of the inmates to exclude it, often obviate the effects of the overcrowding and defective ventilation. It has been observed, that while the labouring population of several districts have had no shelter but huts, similar to those described by Dr. Gilly, as the habitations of the border peasantry, which afforded a free passage for currents of air, they were not subject to fevers, though they were to rheumatism; but when, through the good intentions of the proprietors, such habitations were provided as were deemed more comfortable from excluding the weather effectually, but which, from the neglect of ventilation afforded recesses for stagnating air, and impurities which they had not the means or had not a sufficient love of cleanliness to remove; though rheumatism was excluded, febrile infection was generated. In the towns the access of the wind is impeded by the closeness of the surrounding habitations, and the internal construction of the dwellings tends to exclude the air still more effectually. Were the closed windows opened, it would frequently be only to admit a worse compound, the air from neglected privies, and the miasma from the wet and undrained court or street.