VOLUMES I. TO VII., BOUND IN GREEN CLOTH, PRICE 4s. 6D. EACH. VOLUMES I., II., AND III., CONTAIN NUMEROUS SHORT STORIES WRITTEN EXPRESSLY FOR CHILDREN. TWO NEW SONGS, THE WORDS AND MUSIC BY ELIZA COOK. Now publishing, price Two Shillings each, sent postage free, "THE RING AND THE KIRK," and "THE WEDDING BELLS." Also a Second Edition of "DEAD LEAVES," A BALLAD. Published at the Office of ELIZA COOK'S JOURNAL. May be ordered of any Musicseller. IMPROVEMENT OF HOMES. BY DR. SMILES. THE "Health of Towns question" has, for some years past, excited much attention; and sanitary improvement has now taken its place among the great social movements of the day. When sanitary inquiries reveal to us the appalling fact that, in many of the richest districts of our country, the mortality among the working population is double what it ought to be, that, to use the emphatic words of Mr. Lee (one of the Sanitary Inspectors under the Public Health Act), in the towns of this country, generally, "half the attainable period of human life is lost to all who are born," and that this premature mortality is almost entirely caused by the defective sanitary arrangements observed in the habitations of the people, it is clear enough that it is high time to be up and doing, if we would escape the charge of heartless indifference to the physical and moral wellbeing of the community. Mere improvement of towns, however,-as respects drainage, sewerage, paving, water supply, and abolition of cellar dwellings,-will effect comparatively little, unless we can succeed in carrying the improvement further, namely, into the Homes of the people themselves. A well-devised system of sanitary measures may ensure external cleanliness, - may provide that the soil on which the streets of houses are built, shall be relieved of all superfluous moisture, and that all animal and vegetable refuse shall be promptly removed, so that the air circulating through those streets, and floating from them into the houses of the inhabitants, shall not be laden with poisonous miasmata as now, the source of so much disease, suffering, and untimely death. Cellar dwellings may also be prohibited, and certain regulations as to the buildings hereafter to be erected, may also be enforced. But here municipal or parochial authority stops: it can go no further; it cannot penetrate into the Home, and it is not necessary that it should do so. - The individual efforts of the community themselves are therefore needed; and any legislative enactments which dispensed with these would be an evil. The Government does not build the houses in which the people dwell. These are provided by employers and by capitalists, small and large. It is [PRICE 14d. necessary, therefore, to enlist these interests in the cause of sanitary improvement, in order to insure success. They can build houses in such a manner as to provide for health, decency, and comfort; and it is, we believe, well ascertained, that wholesome dwellings cost no more than unwholesome ones, and through the greater demand for them by the working-classes, they secure, on the whole, higher rents, and therefore pay better. And there is no necessity for letting houses for less than will afford a fair remuneration for the cost incurred in erecting them. To do this, would be injurious to other owners, and, besides, would seem like conferring charity, to accept which it is not desirable to encourage on the part of any class of the community. We know of many individual capitalists who have already done much to provide wholesome houses for their working people, and have found their account in so doing, by the increased health, and, consequently, wealth of the labourers (whose health is their chief capital), as well as in their moral improvement in all ways, which has grown up under the improved physical conditions. In this way, capitalists imbued with a benevolent and philanthropic spirit, can spread blessings about them on every side. And were a few enterprising builders in every town to take up this question practically, and provide a class of houses for work-people, with suitable accommodation, and provided with arrangements for ventilation, separation of the sexes, cleanliness, &c., such as health and comfort require, they would really be conferring an amount of benefit on the community at large, and, at the same time, we believe, on themselves, which it would not be easy to over-estimate. But there also needs the active co-operation of the dwellers in poor men's homes themselves. They, too, must join cordially in the sanitary movement; otherwise comparatively little can be effected. You may provide an efficient water supply, yet, if the housewife will not use the water as it ought to be used,-if she be lazy and dirty, the house will be foul and comfortless still. You may provide for ventilation, yet, if offensive matters be not removed, and doors and windows are kept closed, the pure outer air will be excluded, and the house will smell fusty and unwholesome. In any case, there must be a cleanly woman to superintend the affairs of the house; and she cannot be made so by Act of Parliament! The 2 "NotificaSanitary Commissioners cannot, by any tion," convert the clatternly shrew into a tidy housewife, nor the disorderly drunkard into an industrious, There must, therefore, be home-loving husband. individual effort on the part of the housewife in the As a recent writer on Home poor man's Home. Reform well observes : "We must begin by insisting that, however much of the physical and moral evils of the workingclasses may be justly attributable to their dwellings, it is too often the case that more ought, in truth, to be attributed to themselves. For, surely, the inmate depends less on the house, than the house on the inmate; as mind has more power over matter, than matter over mind. Let a dwelling be ever so poor and incommodious, yet a family with decent and cleanly habits will contrive to make the best of it, and will take care that there shall be nothing offensive in Whereas a it which they have power to remove. model house, fitted up with every convenience and comfort which modern science can supply, will, if occupied by persons of intemperate and uncleanly habits, speedily become a disgrace and a nuisance. A sober, industrious, and cleanly couple will impart an air of decency and respectability to the poorest dwelling; while the spendthrift, the drunkard, or the gambler, will convert a palace into a scene of dismuch comfort and disgust. Since, therefore, so the character and conduct of the depends on parties themselves, it is right that they should feel their responsibility in this matter, and that they should know and attend to the various points connected with the improvement of their own Homes." While this important truth should be kept steadily in view, and constantly impressed on the minds of the people, every possible exertion ought, at the same time, to be made to provide a greater abundance of comfortable, decent, and comely dwellings for the workingclasses; for it is to be lamented that, in many districts, they are, as it were, forced by the necessities of their condition to gravitate into localities, and to inhabit dwellings, where decency is rendered almost impossible, where life becomes a slow dying, and where the influences operating on the entire human energies, physical and moral, are of the most deleterious character. Place even the highest minded philosopher in such situations, and you will, at length, find him grovelling towards brutality. Homes are the manufactories of men, and as are the Homes so generally are the men. Mind will be degraded by the physical influences around it,-decency will be destroyed by constant contact with impurity and defilement,-and coarseness of manners, habits, and tastes will become inevitable. You cannot rear a kindly nature, sensitive against evil, careful of proprieties, and desirous of moral and intellectual improvement, amidst the darkness, dampness, disorder, and discomfort which unhappily characterize so large a portion of the dwellings of the poor in our large towns; and, until we can, by some means or other, improve their domestic accommodation, this low moral and social condition must be regarded as inevitable. People at large have little idea of the enormous such times," says Mr. Lee,* "are carefully concealed from the public eye and knowledge, but the subsequent life of struggling and embarrassment is not the less real because the world is unacquainted with it. The straitened circumstances, from the premature breaking-up of family and social ties, the gradual descent from the respectability of independent industry down to poverty, is only seen and felt by the community where it ends in pauperism. The total money loss connected with the words, widowhood and orphanage,' is not to be appreciated by the increase of public rates." But It is true, a very large number of the workingpeople are entered as members of benefit societies, from which they obtain a modicum of relief, together with medical attendance, in time of sickness. this is not always to be depended upon, and in seasons of more than ordinary sickness among the working-people, many of the lodge boxes become closed for want of funds. Ill-health soon drains them, and, when the funds are exhausted, and the old members come to their lodges for help in their time of trouble, there is nothing for them, and they have to go without, soon sinking into beggary or the workhouse. It is not saying too much to aver that at least one half of the inoney now expended by benefit societies, ought to be set down as pecuniary loss resulting from the want of proper sanitary arrangements in and about the dwellings of the workingpeople. In nearly all the populous districts of this country, the average sickness is about double what it is in country places. But it is quite practicable, by proper sanitary arrangements, to make towns as healthy as villages; and, therefore, it appears to us that, were the drainage and sewerage of streets efficiently carried out, and an adequate supply of water and pure air furnished to the people, even the existing rates of contribution of working-class Benefit Societies would be found amply sufficient. Whereas, at present, the causes of disease are so prolific, that the sick and friendly societies in most of the large towns are hopelessly insolvent. Another enormous moral and physical evil to the inhabitants of unwholesome localities, is the extent to which the passion for intoxicating drinks, opium, &c., is developed and increased by defective sanitary arrangements. Thus, you almost invariably find unhealthy localities the seats of drunkenness. Where dampness prevails, mingled with emanations from town refuse, stupefaction is usually sought in opium. In drier, but equally tainted atmospheres, beer is used to produce the same effect. In manufacturing towns, gin and beer are the ordinary drinks. Mr. Lee says, on this head :-"I would not be understood that habits of intoxication are wholly due to a defective sanitary condition; but no person can have the experience I have had without coming to the conclusion,-that unhealthy and unhappy homes, -loss of vital, and consequently of industrial energy, --and a consciousness of inability to control external circumstances, induce thousands to escape from miserable depression in the temporary excitement of noxious drugs and intoxicating liquors. They are like the seamen who struggle awhile against the evils by which they are surrounded, but, at last, seeing no hope, stupify themselves with drink, and perish. The process is only, in the former case, more gradual than in the latter; the results are the same. And if the enormous cost of drunkenness and opiumeating could be estimated in figures, a greater sum would have to be put down, under this head, as * Summary of Experience of Disease, and Comparative Rates of Mortality. By W. Lee, Esq., Superintending Inspector (Board of Health Report, 1851). Clowes and Son. |