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7
They are generally occupied by the Irish, who choose
them because they are cheap, and by widows and
orphans, who are compelled by necessity to live in them;
but the result is to engender bad health, and increase
poor rates by forcing their inmates to seek an asylum in
the workhouse. In some instances underground places
are occupied for the purpose of having a mangle, but
there is no good reason why families of children should
also sleep in them. Strong and healthy children cannot
be brought up under such disadvantages. It is
too much the custom for all classes to be careless in
regard to the places where people sleep, as under the
counters of shops, rendered unwholesome by the combustion
of gas,; and it is not uncommon, even in the
houses of the wealthy, to see places used for servants'
bed-rooms which must endanger the health of those
who sleep in them.
Among nuisances complained of are the effluvia
arising from the cookery carried on on a large scale in
eating houses. Mr. Josiffe, in the Strand, has a hot
plate, from which vapours escape through a skylight
into an area open to the windows of the Albion Chambers,
in the Adelphi. This is one of those trades which
must be more or less a nuisance to neighbours from
heat, steam, and the escape of the very offensive
smells connected with some of the processes of cookery.
We are justified in calling upon those who carry on
such businesses to adopt all the means for ventilation
that modern science affords. This is as necessary for
the health of the parties themselves and their servants,
as well as their neighbours; for nothing can be more
fatal to health than breathing the atmosphere of a
kitchen where extensive cooking is carried on. Mr.
Josiffe has a large ventilating shaft from his kitchen to
the top of his house, and with some modification it may
be made to carry off all the effluvia now complained of.