cleanliness are of course foregone, to avoid the immediate and greater discomforts of having to fetch the water.'

In our manufacturing towns (as we all know), those members of a family who are old enough to fetch water are thought strong enough to work: the mere value therefore of the time they expend at the pump is almost always more than the charge made by the companies for a regular and constant supply of water. For instance, in Glasgow the charge of supplying a labourer's tenement is five shillings a-year; in Manchester, six shillings; in London, ten shillings-for a tenement containing two families; for which sum two tons and a half of water per week may be obtained. Thus, for less than one penny farthing per week 135 pailfuls of water are taken into the house without the labour of fetching, without spilling, without being in the way, and yet in constant readiness for use: whereas, on the other hand, the cost to a labourer, or to any member of his family whose time can be employed in work, is very serious. In the Bath Union, a poor fellow, who had to fetch water from one of the public wells about a quarter of a mile from his house, quaintly observed to the Rev. Whitwell Elwin, It's as valuable as strong beer!'

At Paris, the usual cost of the filtered water, which is carried into the houses, is two sous per pailful, being at the rate of nine shillings per ton: while in London, the highest charge of any of the companies for sending the same quantity of water to any place within the range of their pipes, and delivering it at an average level of 100 feet, is sixpence per ton.

The mode, however,' says Mr. Chadwick, 'of supplying water by private companies, for the sake of a profit, is not available for a population where the numbers are too small to defray the expense of obtaining a private Act of Parliament, or the expense of management by a board of directors, or to produce profits to shareholders....The Poor Law Commissioners have been urgently requested to allow the expense of procuring supplies for villages to be defrayed out of the poor's rates in England; but they could only express their regret that the law gave them no power to allow such a mode of obtaining the benefit sought.'

As regards the supply of water, we are clearly of opinion that a case for the necessity of legislative interference on the largest scale has been made out.

III. Circumstances chiefly in the internal economy and bad ventilation of places of work; workmen's lodging-houses, dwellings, and the domestic habits affecting the health of the labouring classes.

In explaining the evils which arise from bad ventilation in places of work, Mr. Chadwick adduces first the case of the jour

neymen

neymen tailors, whose habits of life he was led to investigate from the number of early deaths observed to occur among them.

Thomas Brownlow, aged fifty-two, who had worked for Messrs. Stultze, Messrs. Allen, and in others of the largest establishments in London, stated that at Messrs. Allen's, in a room sixteen or eighteen yards long, and seven or eight yards wide, eighty men worked close together, knee to knee: in summer time the heat of these tailors and of their geese, or irons, raised the temperature twenty or thirty degrees; after the candles were lighted, it became so insufferable that several of the young men from the country fainted; during the season he had seen from 40l. to 50%. worth of work spoiled by the perspiration of the men; in winter the atmosphere became still more unhealthy, with so depressing an effect that many could not stay out the hours; too many, losing their appetite, took to drink as a stimulant-accordingly, at seven in the morning, gin was brought in, sometimes again at eleven, at three, at five, and after seven, when the shop was closed; great numbers died of consumption. The average age of these workmen was about thirty-two, but in a hundred there were not ten men of fifty: lastly, when they died, no provision was made for their families, who, if they could not do for themselves, were obliged to go on the parish. Yet Messrs. Allen's wages at the time the witness refers to were 6d, an hour.

In a well-ventilated room, it is stated by different witnesses, journeymen tailors would be enabled to execute two hours more work per day; they would do their twelve hours, whereas the utmost in a close, ill-ventilated room, is ten hours of work. Moreover, a man who had worked in these hot rooms from the age of twenty would not be as good a man at forty as another would be at fifty who had worked in well-aired shops in the country. The latter, in other words, would have gained ten years' labour, besides saving the money spent in gin.

Mr. Chadwick, therefore, calculates that, taking the average loss to a London tailor to be two hours per day for twenty years, and twelve hours for ten years, his total loss would amount to 50,000 hours of productive labour, which, at 6d. per hour, would have produced him 12501.; and this, is 2501. less than was actually earned and saved by Philip Gray, who worked all his life as a journeyman tailor, and was remarkable for his cleanliness and

neatness.

It appears that, of the registered causes of death of 233 persons entered during the year 1839, in the eastern and western unions of the metropolis, under the head tailor,' no less than 123 were from disease of the respiratory organs: ninety-two died of consumption; in the whole number only twenty-nine died old.

The

The subscriptions,' says Mr. Chadwick, to the benevolent institution for the relief of the aged and infirm tailors by individual masters in the metropolis appear to be large and liberal, and amount to upwards of 11,000l.; yet it is to be observed, that if they or the men had been aware of the effects of vitiated atmospheres on the constitution and general strength, and of the means of ventilation, the practicable gain of money from the gain of labour by that sanitary measure could not have been less in one large shop, employing 200 men, than 100,000. Independently of subscriptions of the whole trade, it would, during their working period of life, have been sufficient, with the enjoyment of greater health and comfort by every workman during the time of work, to have purchased him an annuity of 1. per week for comfortable and respectable self-support during a period of superannuation, commencing soon after fifty years of age.

The effects of bad ventilation, it need not be pointed out, are chiefly manifested in consumption, the disease by which the greatest slaughter is committed. The causes of fever are comparatively few and prominent, but they appear to have a concurrent effect in producing consumption."

The results of good ventilation in the prevention or alleviation of disease are clearly manifested in our hospitals. In a badlyventilated house-the lying-in hospital in Dublin-there died in four years 2944 children out of 7650; whereas, after this establishment was properly ventilated, the deaths in the same period, and out of a like number of children, amounted only to 279.

Glasgow supplies a striking example of the beneficial effects of ventilating a factory. In a range of buildings, called the Barracks,' 500 persons were collected. All attempts to induce them to ventilate their rooms failing, the consequence was that fever was scarcely ever absent. There were sometimes seven cases in a day; and in the last two months of 1831 there were fifty-seven. On the recommendation of Mr. Fleming, a surgeon, a tube of two inches in diameter was fixed in the ceiling of each room: these tubes communicated with a large pipe, the end of which was inserted in the chimney of the factory furnace, which, by producing a strong draught, forced the inmates to breathe fresh air. The result of this simple contrivance was, that, during the ensuing eight years, fever was scarcely known in the place!

It would be a task infinitely more easy than pleasing to show the havoc annually created among the manufacturing masses by defective ventilation and overcrowding. We will, therefore, only observe that in the case of milliners and dressmakers in the metropolitan unions during the year 1839, as shown by the mor

*Mr. Stultze, for instance, has subscribed 7951. in money; is a yearly subscriber of twenty-five guineas; has made a present to the Benevolent Institution for the Relief of Infirm Tailors' of ground worth about 10001.; and has besides undertaken to build thereon six houses for the reception of twenty poor pensioners.

tuary

tuary register, out of 52 deceased, 41 only had attained the age of 25; and the average age of 33, who had died of disease of the lungs, was 28. In short, there is too much reason to believe that among these poor workwomen, as in the case of the journeymen tailors, one-third at least of the healthful duration of adult life is sacrificed to our ignorance or neglect of ventilation. Alas, how little do the upper classes, who fancy that the cheque completely liquidates the account, reflect on the real cost of the beautiful dresses they wear!

As to the want of separate apartments and the overcrowding of the private dwellings of the poor '-a very small portion only of the evidence adduced will suffice. The clerk of the Ampthill Union states that a large proportion of the cottages in his district are so small, that it is impossible to keep up even the common decencies of life in one cottage, containing only two rooms, there existed eleven individuals: the man, his wife, and four children (one a girl above fourteen, another a boy above twelve) slept in one of the rooms and in one bed-the rest slept all together in the room in which their cooking, working, and eating were performed. The medical officer of the Bicester Union has witnessed a father, a mother, three grown-up sons, a daughter, and a child, all lying at the same time with typhus fever in one small room. The medical officer of the Romsey Union states that he has known fourteen individuals of one family (among whom were a young man and young woman of eighteen and twenty years of age) together in a small room, the mother being in labour at the time. The Rev. Dr. Gilly, whose able Appeal on behalf of the Border Peasantry' is cited in the report, describes a fine, tall Northum brian peasant of about forty-five years of age, whose family, eleven in number, were disposed of as follows. In one bed he, his wife, a daughter of six, and a boy of four years had to sleep-a daughter of eighteen, a son of twelve, a son of ten, and a daughter of eight had a second bed-and in the third were three sons, aged twenty, sixteen, and fourteen.

6

The greatest instances of overcrowding appear, however, as may naturally be expected, at Glasgow, Manchester, Liverpool, &c. In Hull, a mother about fifty had to sleep with a son above twenty-one, a lodger being in the same room. In Manchester more than half-a-dozen instances were given of a man, his wife, and his wife's grown-up sister habitually occupying one bed! Mr. Baker, in his report on Leeds, states-'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.'

Our readers will probably by this time have arrived with us at

the

the conclusion, that there exists no savage nation on earth in which more uncivilized or more brutalizing scenes could be witnessed than in the heart of this great country. Should, however, any doubts remain, we subjoin one short extract from the evidence of Dr. Scott Alison :-

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. The father died of typhus on this occasion.'

Here is another very important piece of evidence :

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.'

One consequence of the unwholesome workshops and houses in which the labouring classes are too often confined, is the disposition it creates among them to dispel by drink that depressing effect on their nervous energies which is invariably the result of breathing impure air. In Dumfries, for example, where the cholera swept away one-eleventh of the population, Mr. Chadwick inquired of the chief magistrate how many bakers' shops there were? Twelve,' was the answer. And how many whiskey-shops may your town possess?' The honest provost frankly replied, Seventy-nine!" Another consequence is the rapid corruption, in such unwholesome places, of meat, bread, and other food, which, by preventing the poor from laying in any store, forces them to purchase their provisions on the most disadvantageous terms.

6

'Here, then,' says Mr. Chadwick,' we have from the one agent, a close and polluted atmosphere, two different sets of effects :-one set here noticed engendering improvidence, expense, and waste--the other, the depressing effects of external and internal miasma on the nervous

system,