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shops, in one of which he lives with his family, and sub-lots the rooms
of the other. It is in the latter class of houses that insanitary conditions
with want of cleansings have been found to exist.
The dwellings existing in old mews are frequently found to be
both overcrowded and insanitary; here the habit of taking in single
men lodgers (connected with horses or otherwise) is very frequent.
The rooms are mostly found to be small, deficient in cubic air space
and through ventilation. It must at the same time be remembered that
housing accommodation in Mows is the cheapest available and eagerly
taken up by people of small means: unfortunately being for the most
part tenanted by one family only, they cannot be put under the
Council's Bye-laws for "Houses let in Lodgings, or occupied by
Members of more than one Family."
House to house visitation is necessary for the discovery of overcrowding.
Even in good class roads it is not uncommon to find a
house let out in tenements, sandwiched, as it were, between two
houses let to single families. In one of these, the lower closet was
found to be converted into a coal cellar, the unsealed pan filled with
coals high above the seat, the water apparatus of course useless.
The question of cubical space in relation to the amount of rent the
very poor can afford to pay, is a subject which is too frequently overlooked.
The case of a working man with a family and a living wage
of 20s. to 24s. a week may be instanced. The rooms into which he
will most naturally sink, will be those which either from their
insanitary condition, their absence of light, air, or propect, such as
basements of houses, will furnish him with the necessary cubical
capacity, at a rate at which he can afford it.
One reason for the necessity of the multiplication of small rooms
in tenements is to be found in the question of the separation of the
sexes. Children accustomed to occupy the same bedroom as their
parents quietly grow up without the parents remarking that they have
become adults; hence the apparent indifference of the poorer classes
to questions which appear to have a direct bearing upon morals. One
large room with lofty ceilings will provide cubical space at a cheaper