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13
for a supply being brought from an indefinite distance,
so there need be no fear on the ground of the Metropolitan
supply of air becoming exhausted. We are
most solicitous to avoid the consumption of unsound
or adulterated food, which is consumed only at intervals,
but the air we are incessantly breathing, is
permitted to be consumed impure and poisoned in
quality, and restricted and utterly deficient in quantity,
although a pure and inexhaustible supply is provided for
all. The effect of respiring this poisonous air is to produce
prostration of the vital energies and want of power to
resist the attacks of disease. A labouring man sleeping, or
rather narcoticizing, with his wife and family in a room
allowing from 50 to 150 cubic feet of air to each person,
and without the most ordinary provision for ventilation,
becomes totally unfitted for his work, and unable, however
willing, to bring to his aid sufficient vigour and
spirit to attempt to raise himself and family from their
condition of poverty, misery and dependence. In this
way the statistics of pauperism are increased, several
instances of which, through the deaths of heads of
families, I have already seen in this Hamlet. These
questions of overcrowding, and consequent deficient
and impure air supply, are therefore the most important
subjects which I can urge, and it is my duty to
do so, upon your consideration, as the legitimate and
responsible guardians of the public health. Mile End is
not an exception to all other large communities, in having
densely packed populations and squalid poverty in
certain localities, existence in which only proves the
tenacity of human life under the most adverse and
pernicious influences.
The supply of air according to the space is often insufficient
to sustain life for a single day, and but for