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ventilation, more cubic space, and proper w.c. accommodation
than is at present found to exist. Many
cases have come under my notice where workpeople,
male and female, have become fatally attacked with
consumption through no other cause but from working
days in succession in close under-ground rooms,
with deficiency of light and fresh air, having scarcely
any change, either night or day. It was not very
uncommon to find dress makers, tailors, or shoe makers,
with their family, occupying but a single room, and
that containing the bedding and other furniture, with
cooking utensils and food; perhaps also a sewingmachine,
a shop-board, or a shoemaker's bench. Worse
than this, is the washing, drying and ironing in
a single living room, or in a front or small back kitchen.
It is only right to say that families so situated have
been frequently driven to this state of misfortune, by
improvident, or drinking habits.
The deterioration of health from living in this
" hugger mugger" way in a kitchen, or in a crowded
house, shows itself upon some of those whose constitutions
were originally the most robust, while the rate of
mortality in childhood often ranges up to 60 per cent.
of all that are born, before they reach the fifth year.
The tubercular or wasting forms of disease, and the
poisons of the contagious spreading diseases, make
shocking havoc in these insalubrious abodes; so
thoroughly vicious is this form of overcrowding in
solitary work-rooms of private houses, that in the
interest of humanity, and those who ultimately bear
the burden of sickness and pauperism, some method
of checking the dangers by sanitary supervision ought