SECTION III.-DWELLINGS FOR THE POORER CLASSES.

In constructing buildings for the poorer classes, the great difficulty, encountered at the very outset, consists in providing the necessary accommodation with the requisite sanitary arrangements at a cost which will allow of a sufficiently low rental. In towns the original cost is greatly increased by the high price of land, but even in country places, where a site can be procured at a cheap rate, the cost for the erection of a cottage of the humblest pretensions will entail a rental which many a labouring man can barely meet. Where the ground rental is low, the cheapest and most commodious form of labourer's cottage is one without any upper storey. Thus, according to Mr. Allen, in his Manual on Cottage Building, a cottage consisting of a living-room for general every-day uses, a bedroom for the labourer and his wife, a bedroom for boys, a bedroom for girls, a small wash-house, a store room, and closet, could be built for £100, provided all the rooms are on the ground-floor, and that two such cottages be ranged side by side, so as to be spanned by the same roof, and contained within four walls, forming a simple parallelogram. The row of cottages proposed by Dr. Hunter in the Seventh Report of the Medical Officer to the Privy Council, provided for a front and back kitchen in each cottage, and two bedrooms over head. The kitchens were to be paved with brick or tile, " the front about 11 feet by 11, by 6 feet 8 high; the back about 11 by 8 feet 6. Ceiling would be unnecessary. There should be five doors. only, the closet under the stairs one, each bedroom one, and two house-doors. There should be four sliding windows, a grate with an oven, a boiler in the back

kitchen, a little fireplace in one bedroom, and a Welsh slate roof, the bedrooms being ceiled.

"Such houses might be supplied for £50, or £1500 for the thirty."

In this plan, and in fact in almost all plans for cottage construction, the cubic space allowance is very limited, so that overcrowding, to a greater or less extent, is sure to prevail at times. Cottages which are scarcely roomy enough for a married couple and two or three children become occupied by much larger families, or the family increases in number year after year, while the bedroom accommodation remains the same. The initial space, therefore, should be ample enough to meet the requirements of, at any rate, moderate family increase; and when a number of such cottages are built in the same locality, they should be of different sizes, to suit small and large families alike.

In large towns the house-accommodation for the labouring classes must necessarily be supplied in a great measure by what are called tenements. The following is a copy of the bye-laws sanctioned by the Treasury in 1867 for this class of dwellings, built from loans under the Labouring Classes Dwellings Act 1866

"Separate water-closet accommodation to be provided for each tenement, or else, where water-closet accommodation is to be used in common by the occupants of two or more tenements, separate accommodation must be provided for each sex. Such accommodation may be either water-closet, earth-closet, or privy.

"Each tenement to have a dust-bin, or the use of a dust-bin commno to several buildings.

“Each tenement to be well lighted by external windows made to open.

"Each tenement to have ready access to water.

"Where several tenements in one building, proper ventilation to be provided for the passages, staircases,

etc.

"The drains to be well constructed.

Parties to whom moneys to be advanced to enter into covenants with the Public Works Loan Commissioners, That where there are several tenements in one building, they

(a) Will cause the passages, staircases, etc., to be kept clean.

(b) Will cause the water-closets, etc., to be kept in good order.

(c) Will cause the dust-bins to be emptied at intervals of seven days.

(d) Will take precautions against any interruptions in the supply of water.

(e) Will keep the windows in good order and repair, and the chimneys swept.

(f) Will keep the drains in proper order.

"(g) Will allow inspection by Commissioners of Works, to see that the above covenants are observed.

"Number of cubic feet in each room of the several classes of tenements for which money has been authorised to be advanced:"

Of equal importance with the construction of dwellings for the labouring classes is the far more difficult problem of repairing and improving the unhealthy abodes which, in town and country village alike, increase the annual rate of mortality to an extent that can hardly be estimated. It is true that the law already prohibits the inhabitation of the worst class of dwellings, such as damp, dark, underground cellars; but there are other dwellings, so numerous that their immediate demolition would deprive a large proportion of the lower classes of shelter, which no alterations or improvements can render healthy. They are either situated in narrow, dingy alleys, or huddled together in close courts, so as to be practically unventilable, or their internal condition and constructural faults are so grave as to be beyond remedy. Nor are these the only sanitary defects connected with them which have to be condemned. It is in these very dwellings that the filth and poisonous effluvium due to overcrowding are constantly accumulating, and where the germs of disease find a fitting soil for their development. The departmental reports of the Privy Council afford numerous instances of such a state of things, and notably those of Drs. Hunter, Stephens, and Buchannan.

In country districts, where there is far less excuse for the existence of these evils, it has been found that in reality they are almost as glaring and wide-spread as in towns. The elaborate report of Dr. Hunter on the State of the Dwellings of Rural Labourers (see Seventh Report of Medical Officer of Privy Council) may be quoted in proof of this statement. In all, 5375 cottages were reported upon. Of these, 2195 contained only one bedroom; 2930 contained two; and only 250

more than two. The number of persons resident in them, including adults and children, was 24,770, giving an average of 46 persons to a house, or 2.8 to a bedroom. In the single-bedroomed houses, the average number sleeping in the bedroom was 4, 2.2 of whom were adults and 18 children. The average cubic space for sleeping accommodation was estimated at 156 feet per head. The rickety state of the great majority of the hovels permitted a freer interchange of air than in the new cottages, so that, although the cubic space per head in the latter was somewhat larger, the contained air was generally more impure. Indeed, many of the bedrooms were so much exposed to the weather, that cases of sickness, when they did occur, had to be treated in the kitchen. But the wretched sanitary condition of the dwellings was even a less evil than their numerical insufficiency. It was found that many landlords pulled down the cots on their estates when they fell into decay, without providing others, and thus forced the labourers to find house-room in already overcrowded hamlets. As a consequence, this huddling together of human beings not only presented numerous foci for the development of disease, but rendered the limitation of any contagious diseases which were introduced an almost hopeless task. That such a state of things continues to exist in most rural districts, the late revelations connected with the strike of agricultural labourers shows but too clearly. The same sacrifice of life from overcrowding, the same absence of even the barest essentials of comfort, and the same outrages to common decency, appear to be as rife now as they were at the time of Dr. Hunter's inquiry.