Chapter XXVII: Appendix (17)

Every detail, however, of the materials with which the cottage is constructed, and the mode of its construction, deserve, and there is little doubt will obtain, most careful attention, for it is only by considering their comforts in detail that they can be improved, or the aggregate effect on the immense masses of the community can be analyzed and estimated. For example, it has been mentioned that a decided difference is perceptible in the health and condition of workmen of the same class who live in houses made of brick as compared with those living in houses made of stone.

A gentleman who has attentively observed the condition of the working classes in the north of Lancashire, and the north of Cheshire, states that the general health of the labourers in the north of Lancashire is decidedly inferior. This inferiority he ascribes to several causes, and, amongst others, to damp cottages, and—

“Wood and wattled houses, such as our forefathers built, are the
driest and warmest of all; brick is inferior in both these requisites
of a comfortable house; but stone, especially the unhewn stone as it
is necessarily employed for cottages, is the very worst material
possible for the purpose. I prefer the Irish mud cottages. The evil
arises from two causes. The stone is not impervious to water,
especially when the rain is accompanied by high winds; and it sucks up
the moisture of the ground, and gives it out into the rooms; but
principally, stone is a good conductor of heat and cold, so that the
walls cooled down by the outer air are continually condensing the
moisture contained in the warmer air of the cottage, just as the
windows steam on a frosty morning; besides, the abstraction of heat in
stone houses must be a serious inconvenience. The effect of this
condensation must be, and is, to make clothes, bedding, &c., damp,
whenever they are placed near the wall, and therefore extremely
prejudicial to those who wear the clothes or sleep in the beds. Of
course I do not attribute all the damp of our cottages in this
neighbourhood to the stone; much of it is due to the wet climate, wet
soil, and building so near the ground; but the stone, as a material of
building, must bear a considerable share of the blame. I believe, too,
it is partly the cause of the very great difference of cleanliness of
the Cheshire farming people and ours of the same class.

“Indeed the Cheshire people were brought up to wooden cottages: brick
was of later introduction. The greater facilities and inducements to
cleanliness in a dry house would, in the course of time, form a more
cleanly people, and superior healthiness would follow.”

_Mr. Parker_ observes, that the construction of the cottages in Buckinghamshire is frequently unwholsome:—

“The improper materials of which cottages are built, and their
defective construction, are also the frequent cause of the serious
indisposition of the inmates. The cottages at Waddesdon, and some of
the surrounding parishes in the Vale of Aylesbury, are constructed of
mud, with earth floors and thatched roofs. The vegetable substances
mixed with the mud to make it bind, rapidly decompose, leaving the
walls porous. The earth of the floor is full of vegetable matter, and
from there being nothing to cut off its contact with the surrounding
mould, it is peculiarly liable to damp. The floor is frequently
charged with animal matter thrown upon it by the inmates, and this
rapidly decomposes by the alternate action of heat and moisture.
Thatch placed in contact with such walls speedily decays, yielding a
gas of the most deleterious quality. Fever of every type and diarrhœa
are endemic diseases in the parish and neighbourhood. Next to good
drainage and thorough ventilation, the foundation of a cottage is the
most important consideration. A foundation, to be good, must not only
be sufficiently strong to bear the superstructure, and of sufficient
depth to cut off all connexion with the surrounding vegetable mould
and that beneath the floor, but also be constructed of materials
calculated to resist moisture. The best materials for this purpose are
concrete and sound bricks, partially vitrified in the kiln or clamp.
If such bricks be well laid with mortar composed of sharp sand,
containing no vegetable substances, and the concrete be free from
earthy particles, well mixed and firmly thrown together, the admission
of damp will be entirely avoided. Stone, chalk, bricks which are not
thoroughly burnt, impure mortar, and wood, have all a tendency to
absorb moisture, which, if once received by such materials, ascends,
or ‘creeps up,’ as it is technically called by builders, and thus
affects the whole building. To avoid this “creeping up,” builders are
in the habit of placing a tire of slate in foundations above the
surface mould, a remedy of a temporary character only, for the action
of damp entirely destroys slate. Roman cement has also been used for
this purpose, but the sand mixed with this material renders it in some
degree porous. It has lately been suggested that a course of
well-burnt bricks set in asphalte would effectually prevent this
absorption of surface-water, and a favourable opinion of this plan has
been expressed by two intelligent architects.”

He adds that—

“In Berkshire the floors of the cottages are laid with red tiles,
called ‘flats,’ or with bricks of a remarkable porous quality, and as
each of these tiles or bricks will absorb half a pint of water, so do
they become the means by which vapour is generated. The cleanly
housewife, who prides herself upon the neat and fresh appearance of
her cottage, pours several pails of water upon the floor, and when she
has completed her task with the besom, she proceeds to remove with a
mop or flannel so much of the water as the bricks have not absorbed.

“After having cleansed the cottage, the fire is usually made up to
prepare the evening meal, and vapour is created by the action of the
heat upon the saturated floor. Thus the means adopted to purify the
apartment are equally as injurious to the health of the inmates as the
filth and dirt frequently too abundant in the cottages of labouring
persons.

“It is usual to insert in local Acts for the regulation of towns a
clause prohibiting the use of straw and similar vegetable substances
for roofing; and it appears to me to be desirable that some provision
should be made for the rural districts, by which the thatch of
cottages, when in a decomposed state, might be required to be removed.
In the parishes of Binton, Dorsington, and Long Marston, in the
neighbourhood of Stratford-on-Avon, simple continued fever, described
to be similar in character to the form of fever which frequently
occurs in the autumn and beginning of winter throughout England,
prevailed very extensively in the winter of 1839. Of 31 patients
attacked by it, seven died. Dr. Thompson of Stratford-on-Avon, the
physician who visited all the cases by the desire of the Board of
Guardians of the Stratford-on-Avon union, observes:—‘As almost all the
cottages in which there has been fever are thatched, and the thatch in
many of them is in a very rotten and insufficient condition, it is not
improbable that slow decomposition in the thatch, from the unusual
quantities of rain which has fallen, may have been going on, and
contributed to the production and continuance of fever. It has been
observed by others, I believe, that it is more difficult to get rid of
fever in thatched than in slated cottages.’ Dr. Thompson also remarks,
that in thatched cottages it is not usual to ceil or plaster the
inside of the roof; and he recommends that this should be done, and
that the plaster should be lime-washed once a-year.”

In the course of some observations made on the construction of the cottages of the labouring classes in France, it is observed that—

“It is in vain that the workman breathes a pure air out of doors, if
on his return to his home he finds an infected atmosphere. Air, which
is so necessary to life and health, and which it is of the last
importance to renew often, especially in small rooms, remains thick
and loaded in the abode of the workman, because no currents can exist
in consequence of the window being almost always placed alongside the
door. The form of the chimney is another great evil in the
construction of country cottages. With a shaft very short and very
large, it is impossible for the room to get warm, and the heat
produced is almost entirely lost. This form of the chimneys is only
explicable by the ignorance of the constructors. However large a fire
may be required by the diverse needs of the family, it does not
involve the necessity to make the chimney shaft of a corresponding
size; on the contrary, the facility with which the smoke ascends is
altogether proportioned to the smallness of the latter, as may be seen
in the chimneys of stoves, which are always extremely narrow.”

The _Rev. C. Walkey_, of Collumpton, gives instances of the want of provision for ventilation in the cottages of the labouring classes:—

“Cottages for the most part are without sufficient ventilation,
particularly in the up-stairs apartment, this being almost invariably
without a chimney, with a low window, commonly about two feet from the
floor, and having no ceiling, therefore the thatched roof, lofty in
itself, and full of cobwebs, contains the foul air; and in several
instances I have been the means of restoring health apparently by
blowing gunpowder in cases where fever has raged for months, the
ground-floors being often damp—very seldom above the level of the
land.”

The proceedings of the Highland Society for the improvement of the material condition of the labourer, especially on the subject of cottage economy, appear to be extremely well directed. They have sought to make improvements in detail, which are thus described in one of the reports of a committee appointed to inquire into the subject:—

“Medals have been offered by the society to proprietors for building
cottages of a good construction; and these medals are already in
demand. The subject was again brought forward by the Marquis of
Tweeddale, who filled the chair at the last general meeting; and
throughout the whole of Scotland it is attracting increasing
attention. The style of such buildings is everywhere improving, and
the measures of the society will make the country acquainted with the
best models. Still, without a considerable diminution of the expense,
the rapid introduction of a better system is hardly to be expected. To
that point, accordingly, the directors have turned their serious
attention.

“Their first object has been the improvement of the windows, which
always form one of the principal items of charge, and have been
generally one of the worst constructed parts of the building. In many
districts of the Highlands the huts of the peasantry have nothing of
the kind, nor are there tradesmen within reach from whom they can be
obtained; and even in many of the more improved parts of the country
the cottage windows are seldom large enough to admit a sufficiency of
light; they are almost never provided with the means of ventilation;
and in a few instances can they be repaired without applying to a
tradesman. This is always attended with considerable expense; and, in
remote situations, skilful workmen are hardly to be obtained on any
terms. Accordingly, when glass is broken, recourse is had to the most
unseemly substitutes. These may annoy the inmate at first, but he soon
becomes habituated to them; one eyesore prepares him for another, and
in a short time the same slovenliness and disorder spread over the
whole establishment.

“It appeared to the directors that much of this would be avoided if
the public could be made acquainted with the best description of a
cottage window. The demand would necessarily lead to their being
extensively manufactured, and consequently supplied at a moderate
price; and, what is of still more consequence, the general adoption of
such windows would lead to glass of the proper size being kept in
every village, and labourers would then be enabled to repair their own
windows. A premium was accordingly offered last year for the best
cottage window, not so much in the expectation of bringing forward
anything altogether new, as of enabling the directors to select the
best of the forms now in use.

“Various specimens were sent in. Some were made of zinc; but these
were rejected, on the advice of tradesmen, as being too weak to admit
of repair by an unpractised hand. Wood and lead are, for the same
reason, equally unsuitable. One was constructed with astragals of
malleable iron, so thin as very little to impede the light, and
consequently admitting of glass of a very small size; but the
astragals not being provided with flanges for the glass to rest upon,
the repair must necessarily be a work of some difficulty; and these
also were consequently deemed unfit for the purpose. Cast-iron appears
to be the material least liable to objection; but astragals of
cast-metal must be of considerable thickness; and such frames,
therefore, could not be adapted to a very small size of glass without
materially obscuring the light. It was made by Messrs. Moses M’Culloch
and Co., Gallowgate, Glasgow; and, without the wooden frame, it costs
5_s._ Glass for such a window may be purchased at 2¾_d._ per square.
These windows would appear adapted for farm-houses and workshops as
well as for cottages. They admit of being made of every variety of
size, and, in most cases, they may thus be fitted with ease to houses
already built. In many situations, it will thus deserve consideration
whether it may be better to repair the glass of old frames, or to
adopt windows of this construction, which may be purchased and kept up
at so very moderate an expense. It is understood that Messrs.
M’Cullock intend to establish agencies in all parts of the country,
and light and pure air will thus be supplied to the humbler classes
everywhere at a much cheaper rate than they have hitherto been
obtained.”

The directors have next turned their attention to the means of
economizing fuel; and a premium for the best mode of accomplishing
this will be found in the list of this year. It will be observed, that
the object of the premium is not to obtain plans merely from Scottish
tradesmen, but to ascertain the devices which are practised in foreign
countries. In America, and several of the continental states, it is
understood that stoves are generally used for this purpose, and some
of these are said to be so perfect that no one who has been accustomed
to them would tolerate the fire-places of the Scottish cottages. There
may be a difficulty in introducing a novelty of this kind here; but if
it should promise to be beneficial, it would be at least deserving of
a trial; and if it should be generally adopted, this also would become
the subject of an extensive manufacture, and be obtained at a cheap
rate.

“It appears to the committee, that still further facilities would be
afforded, both for the construction of new cottages and the
improvement of those already built, were doors, shelving, and the
other wooden work of the building manufactured in the same way as the
windows. The committee do not at present see any means of contributing
to the establishment of such works by the offer of premiums; but it
occurs to them that extensive proprietors might find it worth their
while to try the experiment, as an addition to the work of saw-mills.
If it should succeed with them, it could not fail in the hands of
tradesmen devoting their whole attention to the subject; and there
would be no want of men ready to embark in such undertakings. Should
an experiment of this kind be made, the committee hope that the
directors will be made acquainted with the result.

“Such a supply of the leading materials would not only greatly
facilitate the work of proprietors both in the erection of new
cottages and the improvement of old ones, but labourers who have the
prospect of being permanent tenants would likewise be induced, at
their own expense, to make improvements, which they would at present
find quite impracticable. As the reduction of the price of every
article of dress now enables the humblest labourer to appear
respectably clothed, so the reduction of the expense of so many of the
essentials in the construction of a house would bring comfortable
lodging equally within his reach.”

To the above-recited measures of the Highland Society, which are so well directed to the improvement of the structure of cottages in the important points of economy as well as of efficiency, they have added prizes for the best-kept cottages and the best cottage gardens, which have everywhere excited competition, and have been attended with beneficial results.

I have as yet met with no similar instance of attention given by large and influential public bodies, to the improvement of the residences of the working-classes in towns. I have, however, been favoured with one communication from _Mr. Sydney Smirke_, the architect, who has had experience in planning and superintending the erection of residences for the men of the coast-guard service, and who, in some suggestions for the improvement of the metropolis, has endeavoured to direct public attention to the improvement of the structure of the residences of the labouring classes. He states that—

“The course that has been adopted by great manufacturers and others in
some rural districts, of erecting ranges of distinct cottages for
their labourers, is plainly inapplicable to large towns. If there were
no other obstacle to this arrangement, the value of land would alone
be fatal to it in such places; but my belief is that, without ultimate
pecuniary loss, and with the utmost direct and indirect benefit,
buildings, placed under some public control, might be erected for the
joint occupation of many families or individuals, and so arranged that
each tenant might feel that he had the exclusive enjoyment of a home
in the room or rooms which he occupied, and yet might partake, in
common with his neighbours, of many important comforts and advantages
now utterly unknown to him.

“I propose that there should be erected buildings, in various parts of
the suburbs, consisting of perhaps 50 or 60 rooms, high, airy, dry,
well ventilated, light and warm, comfortably filled up, fire-proof,
abundantly supplied with water and thoroughly drained; such
regulations might be laid down for the conduct of the inmates as may
be necessary for the common good, without undue rigour or interference
with natural and proper feelings of independence.

“Another class of structures should be raised, perhaps rather as
dormitories than for permanent residence, from which families would be
excluded; these should be arranged like some of the wards of Chelsea
Hospital, with separate compartments appropriated to each tenant.
Unlike the frail and worthless tenements that rise in great profusion
around London, these buildings should be studiously planned and
strongly constructed; all that the builder’s art can contribute
towards the safety, health, and comfort of each individual, should
here be found. In the former class of buildings, a room or rooms
should be let at a low weekly rent to any decent family that should
apply: in the latter, each compartment should be let by the night.

“The exterior of these locanda, or public lodging-houses, should have
a cheerful, inviting appearance, not entirely without architectural
character, although free, of course, from the mere ornament and
frippery of architecture.

“In throwing out these suggestions for such consideration as they may
deserve, it seems superfluous at present to trouble you with
explanatory plans and other details; it may be enough for me to assure
you that buildings can be erected, affording all the accommodations
above described, and offering to their inmates the luxury of a decent,
cleanly, and healthy abode, at a cost less than is usually required by
them for the purchase of the squalid resting-places they now resort
to, and yet enough to repay a fair interest on the original expense of
the new building.

“It may be said that in providing these commodious dwellings for their
needy inmates, we shall be furnishing them with that which they do not
desire; that habitual and long acquaintance with privation has taught
them to regard and to endure, without any lively distaste, much of
that misery from which others, more delicately educated, would shrink
with disgust; but I consider this objection quite unfounded. A tainted
atmosphere cannot be less injurious because by long habit it is
breathed without nausea. If these deplorable habits have really
acquired so much force, it should be our part to make corresponding
efforts to teach the victims of them to become more sensible of their
misery, not indeed by inculcating lessons of discontent, but by
affording to them facilities for providing themselves with healthier
and happier abodes.

“It is the true saying of an eloquent writer, that ‘les esclaves
perdent tout dans leur esclavage, jusqu’au désir d’en sortir;’ yet
surely no benevolent person would think himself idly or unprofitably
employed in loosing from bondage those whom long endurance has caused
to forget the blessings of freedom. I am, however, unwilling to
believe, even now, that the classes of whom I am speaking are
insensible to the comforts of cleanliness, or unable to appreciate the
benefit to be derived from improved habitations.

“I confess I cannot discover any objection to the adoption of such a
plan for ameliorating the dwellings of the poorest classes of our
fellow creatures that would not be counter-balanced by many direct and
indirect advantages.”

I beg leave to submit this communication and the plans with which Mr. Smirke has favoured me, that it may be made known and considered. Much importance will be attached to the testimony received from him as well as from other professional men, that it is possible to afford to the labouring classes the luxury of “a decent, cleanly, and healthy abode at a cost less than is usually required from them for the squalid resting-places they now resort to, and yet enough to repay a fair interest on the original expense of the new building.”

I see no reason to doubt the applicability of Mr. Smirke’s plan to such places as those where ranges of buildings are now required as lodgings for workmen, and, without questioning the applicability of the proposition last cited, to all classes of residences. It is proper to mention, that in the course of this inquiry frequent instances have arisen of much social disorder arising from the too close contiguity of residences, or from the want of some control over the inmates. In the instances noticed of lodging-houses, or of one building, inhabited by different families, living as in the apartments of the same dwelling, the conclusion afforded by experience seems to be, that a power and discipline almost as strong as that of a man-of-war, is requisite to preserve order in such communities; and that until a degree of education of the lower classes is attained, which is hopeless for the present, generation at least, it is desirable to avoid any arrangement which brings _families_ into close contact with each other. A large proportion of the cases of assault and brawls which occupy the attention of the petty sessions and sessions in towns, arise from contentions amongst the inhabitants of courts and alleys, which are clearly ascribable to too close contiguity; and these effects have frequently given rise to the suggestion that if a city were rebuilt, the preservation of peace would be much easier if such places were entirely removed and the inhabitants separated. A common pump has gone far to furnish practice to a petty attorney. All the females wanted to use it at the same time, and perpetual quarrels and frequent assaults arose to get the first supplies. Several attempts have been made by benevolent landlords to get their labourers to make use of common bakehouses, common wash-houses, to join for one common brewing, and have offered them the use of utensils; but they never could be got to agree upon it, and I have met with no instance in which such plans have succeeded. Unless the walls of contiguous cottages are very thick, detached cottages have social comforts and moral advantages superior to those houses built in rows; and persons even of the middle class pay a higher rent for detached tenements for the sake of the comparative freedom which they allow from disturbance by their neighbours. The information I received in Scotland respecting the assemblages of single men, farm-servants, in houses called boothies, showed that the effect was also extremely unfavourable to their moral habits.

SKETCH OF A PLAN FOR A

PUBLIC LODGING HOUSE

In some of the new towns in Germany it is considered advantageous, for the sake of the circulation of air as well as for comfort and for security against fire, to have each house detached by a small space from its neighbours.

_Effects of Public Walks and Gardens on the Health and Morals of the
Lower Classes of the Population._

Whilst separation rather than aggregation, more especially for families, is the course of policy suggested by experience for the places of residence of the working-classes, accommodation is called for from every part of the country for public walks or places of recreation. The committee of physicians and surgeons of Birmingham state, in the course of their report on the sanitary condition of the population of that, town:—

“The want of some place of recreation for the mechanic is an evil
which presses very heavily upon these people, and to which many of
their bad habits may be traced. There are no public walks in or near
this town; no places where the working-people can resort for
recreation. The consequence is that they frequent the ale-houses and
skittle-alleys for amusement. Within the last half century the town
was surrounded by land which was divided into gardens, which were
rented by the mechanic at one guinea or half a guinea per annum. Here
the mechanic was generally seen after his day’s labour spending his
evening in a healthy and simple occupation, in which he took great
delight. This ground is now for the most part built over, and the
mechanics of the town are gradually losing this source of useful and
healthy recreation.”

_Mr. Mott_, in his report on the condition of the labouring population of his district, observes, in respect to that in Manchester—

“There are circumstances attending the local position of Manchester
which might be urged in palliation of some of the habits of the
working classes.

“There are no public walks or places of recreation by which the
thousands of labourers or families can relieve the tedium of their
monotonous employment. Pent up in a close, dusty atmosphere from
half-past five or six o’clock in the morning till seven or eight
o’clock at night, from week to week, without change, without
intermission, it is not to be wondered at that they fly to the spirit
and beer-shops, and the dancing-houses, on the Saturday nights to seek
those, to them, pleasures and comforts which their own destitute and
comfortless homes deny.

“Manchester is singularly destitute of those resources which conduce
at once to health and recreation. With a teeming population, literally
overflowing her boundaries, she has no public walks or resorts, either
for the youthful or the adult portion of the community to snatch an
hour’s enjoyment.

“The prospect of obtaining any wide area to be appropriated as a
public walk or otherwise for the use of the labouring classes, becomes
more remote each year, as the value of the land within and in the
neighbourhood of the town increases.”

Mr. Joseph Strutt, of Derby, has presented to that town a public garden of eleven acres, which has been so laid out by Mr. Loudon as to give the advantages of a walk of two miles, and the interest afforded by an arboretum, displaying the specimens of 1000 shrubs and plants. The plan of laying out this public ground so as to make the most of the space, appears to be one deserving of peculiar attention; and I have appended to this report a copy with which I have been favoured. I am informed that his Grace the Duke of Norfolk has expressed an intention, as soon as some leases are out, to bestow 50 acres for the use of Sheffield as a public garden.

Much evidence might be adduced from the experience of the effects of the parks and other places of public resort in the metropolis, to prove the importance of such provision for recreation, not less for the pleasure they afford in themselves, than for their rivalry to pleasures that are expensive, demoralizing, and injurious to the health. A benevolent gentleman near Cambridge, who wished to arrest the debauchery and demoralization promoted by a fair, and, if possible, to put an end to the fair itself, instituted on the days when it was held, and at a distance from it, a grand ploughing match, at which all persons of respectability were invited to attend. This brought from the fair all the young men whom it was desired to lead from it to a regulated and a rational and beneficial entertainment, and thus, without force and at a very trivial expense, the fair was suppressed by the quiet mode of drawing away its profit.

On the holiday given at Manchester in celebration of Her Majesty’s marriage, extensive arrangements were made for holding a chartist meeting, and for getting up what was called a demonstration of the working classes, which greatly alarmed the municipal magistrates. Sir Charles Shaw, the Chief Commissioner of Police, induced the mayor to get the Botanical Gardens, Zoological Gardens, and Museum of that town, and other institutions thrown open to the working classes at the hour they were urgently invited to attend the chartist meeting. The mayor undertook to be personally answerable for any damage that occurred from throwing open the gardens and institutions to the classes who had never before entered them. The effect, was that not more than 200 or 300 people attended the political meeting, which entirely failed, and scarcely 5_s._ worth of damage was done in the gardens or in the public institutions by the workpeople, who were highly pleased. A further effect produced was, that the charges before the police of drunkenness and riot were on that day less than the average of cases on ordinary days.

I have been informed of other instances of similar effects produced by the spread of temperate pleasures on ordinary occasions, and their rivalry to habits of drunkenness and gross excitement, whether mental or sensual.

But want of open spaces for recreation is not confined to the town population. In the rural districts the children and young persons of the villages have frequently no other places for recreation than the dusty road before their houses or the narrow and dirty lanes, and accidents frequently take place from the playing of children on the public highways. If they go into the fields they are trespassers, and injure the farmer. The want of proper spaces as play-grounds for children is detrimental to the morals as well as to the health in the towns, and it probably is so generally. The very scanty spaces which the children, both of the middle and the lower classes, the ill as well as the respectably educated, can obtain, force all into one company to the detriment of the better children, for it is the rude and boisterous who obtain predominance. In the course of some investigations which I had occasion to make into the causes of juvenile delinquency, there appeared several cases of children of honest and industrious parents, who had been entrapped by boys of bad character; I inquired how the more respectable children became acquainted with the depraved; when it was shown that in the present state of many crowded neighbourhoods all the children of a court or of a street were forced to play, if they had any play whatsoever, on such scraps of ground as they could get, and all were brought into acquaintanceship, and the range of influence of the depraved was extended. The condition of the children in large districts where there are no squares, no gardens attached to the houses, and no play-grounds even to their day-schools, and where they are of a condition in life to be withheld from playing in the streets, is pronounced to be a condition very injurious to their bodily development. The progress of the evil in the rural districts has been, to some extent, arrested by a beneficent standing order of the House of Commons, that all Enclosure Bills shall include provision for a reserve of land for the public use for recreation. For children, however, the most important reservations would be those which could be made for play-grounds in front of their homes, on plots where they may be under the eye of their mothers or their neighbours. Where the cottages are near a road, they should be some distance from it, with the gardens or play-ground in front. The separate or distant play-grounds have many inconveniences besides their being out of sight; and where they are far distant, they are comparatively useless. I have great pleasure in being enabled to testily that the instances are frequent where the regulated resort to private pleasure-grounds, and parks has been indulgently given for the recreation of the labouring population.

Amongst the instances of practical attention to the improvement of the physical condition of labouring classes in the agricultural districts, I may notice the following statement made to me by the late _Mr. Monck_ of Coley House, Reading, who had bestowed much care upon the cottages on his own estate. It comprehends the provision adverted to:—

“The care taken of these cottages and gardens,” said he, “afford an
excellent criterion of the character of the labourers. I have paid
especial attention to those labourers who have displayed cleanliness
and order; and I pay the most respect to those who have achieved a
situation of the greatest comfort, and keep themselves and their
houses cleanly, and their children tidy. Formerly the cottages were in
bad order, their pavements and windows were broken; I had them all
paved, and their windows glazed. I told the cottagers that I did not
like to see shabby, broken windows, with patches of paper and things
stuffed in, or broken pavements which they could not clean; and that I
disliked Irish filth and all Irish habits of living. I engaged, after
the cottages were thoroughly repaired, to pay 1_l._ a year for
repairing them. I undertook to make the repairs myself, and deduct the
expense from this 1_l._; but if no repairs were wanted, they were to
have the whole 1_l._ themselves. This course has, I find, formed
habits of care; and their cottages are now so well taken care of that
very little deduction is made annually from the 1_l._ Formerly they
used to chop wood carelessly on their pavements, and break them; now
they abstain from the practice, or do it in a careful manner, to avoid
losing the money. In the winter, I give them two score of fagots
towards their fuel. I have found that by this means I save my hedges
and fences, and am pecuniarily no loser, whilst pilfering habits are
repressed. Since the enclosures have been made, I think some place
should be provided for the exercise and recreation of the
working-classes, and especially for their children. I have set out
four acres at Oldworth as a play-ground for the children, or whoever
likes to play. They have now their cricket-matches, their
quoit-playing, and their revels there. Sheep and cows feed on it; so
that it is no great loss to me. I let it for 4_l._ a-year to a man, on
condition that he cuts the hedges and keeps it neat. I have surrounded
it with a double avenue of trees. The sheep and cows do good to the
ground, as they keep the grass under, which allows the ball to run. I
give prizes to the boys at the school, which is maintained by the
cottagers themselves, and to which I contribute nothing but the prizes
for reading, writing, and knitting.

“Many persons accuse the poor of ingratitude, but I find them the most
grateful people alive for these little attentions; and what do they
all cost me? why not more altogether than the keep of one fat
coach-horse.”

VII.—RECOGNISED PRINCIPLES OF LEGISLATION AND STATE OF THE EXISTING LAW
FOR THE PROTECTION OF THE PUBLIC HEALTH.

The evidence already given will, to some extent, have furnished answers to the question—how far the physical evils by which the health, and strength, and morals of the labouring classes are depressed may be removed, or can reasonably be expected to be removed by private and voluntary exertions. I now submit for consideration the facts which serve to show how far the aid of the legislature, and of administrative arrangements are requisite for the attainment of the objects in question.

It will have been perceived, that the first great remedies, external arrangements, _i. e._ efficient drainage, sewerage and cleansing of towns, come within the acknowledged province of the legislature. Public opinion has of late required legislative interference for the regulation of some points of the internal economy of certain places of work, and the appointment of special agents to protect young children engaged in certain classes of manufactures from mental deterioration from the privation of the advantages of education, and from permanent bodily deterioration from an excess of labour beyond their strength. Claims are now before Parliament for an extension of the like remedies to other classes of children and to young persons, who are deemed to be in the same need of protection. The legislature has interfered to put an end to one description of employment which was deemed afflicting and degrading, i. e. that of climbing-boys for sweeping chimneys, and to force a better means of performing by machinery the same work. It will be seen that it has been the policy of the legislature to interfere for the public protection by regulating the structure of private dwellings to prevent the extension of fires; and the common law has also interposed to protect the public health by preventing overcrowding in private tenements. The legislature has recently interfered to direct the poorer description of tenements in the metropolis to be properly cleansed. On considering the evidence before given with relation to the effects of different, classes of buildings, the suggestion immediately arises as to the extent to which it is practicable to protect the health of the labouring classes by measures for the amendment of the existing buildings, and for the regulation of new buildings in towns in the great proportion of cases where neither private benevolence nor enlightened views can be expected to prevail extensively.

It will have been perceived how much of the existing evils originate from the defects of the external arrangements for drainage, and for cleansing, and for obtaining supplies of water. Until these are completed, therefore, the force of the evils arising from the construction of the houses could scarcely be ascertained.

The experience of legislation available for England for the regulation of buildings is chiefly confined to the Metropolitan Building Act. The provisions of that Act were directed simply to the prevention of the spread of fires by requiring that party-walls should be built so as to prevent the spread of fires, by confining them to the houses where the fires occur. In this object it is in most instances successful. Wherever a fire spreads beyond the single dwelling in the metropolis, it is usually found either that the provisions of the Act have been evaded, the walls being of the required thickness but rotten in substance, or that omissions have occurred from default of notice, or from neglect of the district surveyor. Out of the jurisdiction of the Act, the instances are frequent where fires spread from the want of party-walls. The erection of party-walls is good economy as a matter of insurance, for each house is thereby confined to its own risks, instead of having the additional risks of each of the contiguous houses, and perhaps of two or three houses beyond them. If there were any point on which _à priori_ legislative interference might be thought unnecessary it would be this, on which the self-interest of the parties, for their own protection, would ensure attention. Yet the immediate interest of the builder in getting buildings erected at the lowest cost, or the want of foresight on the part of the owner himself, has caused extensive masses of buildings to be run up in the suburbs of the metropolis, and in provincial towns, without any such protection. Whilst this Report was in preparation I was informed of the destruction by fire of several contiguous houses at Oxford that were without party-walls. But party-walls are only one provision against fire; the omissions of other necessary precautions are fearfully extensive, especially in warehouses and buildings of a magnitude too great for the fire to be restrained by party-walls, or to prevent fire catching the adjacent buildings whenever it occurs.

One, however, I may advert to, as connected with the provisions necessary for the improvement of the sanitary condition of a town population. It has been shown that the cheapest mode of street cleansing is by supplies of water, which it would be necessary to use from standing pipes. By the Street Act, the parish officers are directed to provide standing pipes for the supply of engines in case of fire. This regulation is declared to be almost a dead letter. The only means to obtain supplies of water in the case of fire are from the plugs provided by the water companies themselves for cleansing the pipes by occasionally allowing the water to flow into the streets. It has been proved to be practicable without any considerable cost to keep up, at all times, such a pressure of water as on putting on a hose on any standing pipe connected with the service, to enable the water to be thrown over the highest houses. The fronts of houses in London have, in some instances, been washed by this means, and in one instance it was immediately and successfully applied to extinguish a fire. A large proportion of houses are destroyed or seriously injured before engines can be brought to the spot or water obtained. During the last four years the fires in London have been more than 600 per annum. If each fire on the average incurred a loss of 500_l._, the total loss annually would exceed the total cost of the supplies of water for the whole of the metropolis to the inhabitants, which, according to returns made to Parliament in the year 1834, amounted to 276,200_l._ The superintendent of the police at Liverpool estimated the average loss by fires in that town during eight years at a much greater amount before a better system of prevention was established. The cost of keeping the water always on in the mains is so inconsiderable that it was voluntarily proferred by a competing company in the metropolis, as an advantageous arrangement to save the expense of water-tanks in private houses. I have high practical authority for stating that the arrangement for keeping the water on the mains for street cleansing, for washing the footways as well as the carriage-ways, and, when necessary, for washing the fronts of the houses, would also serve, at an inconsiderable expense, as the most efficient means of extinguishing fires. Instead of the general loss of a considerable part of an hour’s time before intelligence can be dispatched and the distant fire-engines be got to the spot, in a few minutes, or as soon as the flexible pipe in daily use could be screwed on the main, a supply of water as powerful as that from any engine might be brought to bear upon the fire. An extensive saving of life and property, and of well-grounded alarm, might thus be added to the train of benefits derivable from systematised arrangements for the cleansing of towns and the prevention of epidemics.

The provisions of the old Building Acts afford no sanitary securities, but in connexion with the provisions respecting sewerage they afford examples of what would be the effect of any measure which shall be either unequally applied as to the jurisdiction, or unequally administered.

The attention of the Board has several times been directed to the sickness prevalent amongst the working classes in various parts of the Kensington union. Having had occasion to inquire into the subject, I found that nearly all the illness occurred in premises run up by inferior speculating builders out of the jurisdiction of the commissions of sewers, or of the district surveyors; that they were built on undrained spots, with walls not more than one brick thick; and that the immediate expenditure for protective or sanitary purposes had thus been extensively evaded. On carrying the inquiry further, it became apparent that the limits of the jurisdiction of the commissioners of sewers, and the limits of the jurisdiction of the district surveyors around the metropolis, mark the commencement of buildings of an inferior character, built without drains, without the security from party-walls, and without proper means of cleansing. (_Vide_ Appendix, the evidence of Mr. Gutch, district surveyor.) Under the peculiar circumstances of the country, towns may arise and the old evils may be implanted before any old district would probably be taken to include them. For example, the town of Old Kingston is tolerably well drained and healthy; on the completion of the railway a new town was suddenly run up by building speculators, called New Kingston, built out of the jurisdiction of Old Kingston, but without any adequate under-drainage, on a soil retentive of moisture, and with streets unpaved and covered with mud; it is reported as a consequence that fever has been rife in New Kingston, whilst Old Kingston is comparatively free from it.

If any one had to erect forty or fifty fourth-rate tenements near the metropolis, by shifting them beyond the limits of the jurisdiction of the district surveyor, he would nearly gain one house by the saving of fees alone in the ordinary mode of remunerating such officers.

All the information as to the actual condition of the most crowded districts is corroborative of the apprehensions entertained by witnesses of practical experience, such as Mr. Thomas Cubitt and other builders, who are favourable to measures for the improvement of the condition of the labouring classes, that anything of the nature of a Building Act that is not equally and skillfully administered will aggravate the evils intended to be remedied. To whatever districts regulations are confined, the effect proved to be likely to follow will be, that the builder of tenements which stand most in need of regulation will be driven over the boundary, and will run up his habitations before measures can be taken to include them. The condition of the workman will be aggravated by the increased fatigue and exposure to weather in traversing greater distances to sleep in a badly-built, thin, and damp house. An increase of distance from his place of work will have the more serious effect upon his habits by rendering it impracticable to take his dinner with his family, compelling him either to take it in some shed or at the beer shop. It is also apprehended that anything that may be done to increase unnecessarily or seriously the cost of new buildings, or discourage their erection, will aggravate the horrors of the overcrowding of the older tenements; at the same time, the certain effect of an immediate and unprepared dislodgement of a cellar population, would be to overcrowd the upper portions of the houses where they reside. It would indeed often be practicable to make those cellars as habitable as are the cellars inhabited by servants in the houses of the middle and higher classes of society. The difficulties which beset such regulations do not arise from the want of means to pay any necessary increase of rents for increased accommodation, but in the very habits which afford evidence of the existence of the sufficiency of the means of payment.

For practical legislation on the subject of increased charges on tenements, the labourers must be considered to be in a state of penury, and ready to shift from bad to worse for the avoidance of the slightest charges, and therefore to be approached with the greatest caution.

But there are other elements which it is proper to note as increasing the tendency to evade immediate charges even for benefits.

The increasing tendency to carry on manufacturing as well as commercial operations for small profits on large outlays will probably occasion the subject of the rents of labourers’ tenements in manufacturing districts to be more closely considered as part of the cost of production than it has hitherto been. The whole of the consequences cannot distinctly be foreseen, further than that it will probably occasion a reduction of high ground-rents, or the abandonment of particular districts which are now the seats of some descriptions of manufacture. In the course of an examination of the condition of the working population of Macclesfield, which I was requested to aid, it was complained that much work was put out to a rural district at a few miles distance from the town. On inquiring as to the cause, it was answered, that the weavers in the rural district were enabled to do the work at a reduced price, but at the same real wages in consequence of reduced rents. The following examination, however, displays the element indicated:—

_Mr. Shatwell_, relieving officer, examined—

“What is the common amount of rent paid by weavers in Macclesfield and
the adjacent districts?—A weaver cannot get, in Macclesfield, a proper
house for his loom, with due lights, for less than 10_l._ a-year. In
Hazel Grove and other places, he may get them for 2_l._ or 3_l._
less—for about 7_l._—with a small garden attached, worth at least
20_s._ a-year more.

“What difference in price do you think would induce a manufacturer to
send goods to Hazel Grove in preference to Macclesfield?—A farthing a
yard, as that difference might make the difference in his profit.

“How many yards will a weaver weave in the week?—They calculate that a
good weaver will weave 12 yards a-day, or an average of 60 yards
a-week.

“Since 1_s._ 3_d._ a-week, or a farthing a yard, will make the
difference in profit, will not the difference in rent enable the
weaver to make that difference in price and yet obtain the same net
amount of wages?—Precisely so.

“So that a manufacturer who employs 1000 hands at a low-rented place,
3_l._ or 4_l._ a-year cheaper, such as Hazel Grove, if he obtain the
difference of rent as profit, will obtain a profit of 3,000_l._ or
4,000_l._ per annum?—Certainly.

“The cost of building and building materials being nearly the same in
Macclesfield and such a place as Hazel Grove, does not the difference
in rent consist chiefly in the difference of ground-rent?—Yes.”

If in all instances, as in the last, better as well as cheaper residences, with gardens attached, were likely to be the result of the commercial operation to the workmen, the change were, of course, to be desired. But it is to be feared that it may often be otherwise than a competition of comforts, unless timely security be taken against its being otherwise by appropriate legislative measures, which indeed were necessary for the due protection of the ratepayers against the pecuniary consequences of the disease and destitution undoubtedly occasioned by such tenements as are thus described by _Mr. Mott_:—