Part 21

_M. Patissier._ “As they are almost constantly in a sitting posture, the body bent, with the head stooping forward, the blood is unequally distributed, and too large a quantity accumulates in the lungs, either because the bowels of the abdomen, compressed by the position of the body, admit of less blood, and which is therefore forced back into the vessels situated above, or because the short respirations of those who are sedentary, prevents the blood which enters the lungs from passing out with sufficient rapidity, by which local plethora in the heart and lungs is produced. In short, tailors are very liable to pulmonary phthisis, hydro-thorax, and hæmoptysis, which often accompanies them to a very advanced age. M. Corvisart has observed that diseases of the heart and of the larger vessels are not less frequent amongst this class of artisans. As the posture of the tailor causes the blood to flow into the upper part of the body, the circulation in the lower members is consequently much less active, which explains the emaciation and feebleness of the legs and thighs of this class of artisans, and the peculiar walk which distinguishes them.”

_Witness._ “As to the circulation of the blood, I should say that it was more free than amongst persons sitting at a desk; as soon as the journeyman tailor begins to feel warm and swell, he loosens everything that he has on; his coat is off, and his shirt neck is open; if he wears a handkerchief it is very loose; a tailor wears no garters, nothing that can stop the circulation of the blood: the only confinement that arises is from the position, which is certainly sedentary, but he frequently changes it, and puts one leg over the other when they are tired; they also stretch their legs out. Their breathing even in the close shops is not noticed as short.”

_M. Patissier._ “Ramazzini says they are very subject to numbness of the thighs, neuralgic sciatica, and lameness.”

_Witness._ “The tailors are frequently subject to rheumatism, but that is from going from a hot to the cold open air in the way described. Men who are generally emaciated will have their legs emaciated too: the whole frame goes together, but I have never heard young men or tailors in the middle of life being remarked as deficient in that part of bodily capability. Those whom I have known to be emaciated have been spirit drinkers; the emaciation has been more from spirit-drinking than from the heat of the shop, though one brings on the other. Some years ago there used to be much racing at about five o’clock in the morning in the parks, sometimes amongst the tailors themselves, and sometimes with other runners who had celebrity. The tailors were generally good competitors and more active than other workmen in London. There was one of the country tailors at Faversham who some years ago was considered the first runner in England for a hundred yards. The tailors have certainly a peculiar walk, but all whom I have known to be lame were lame originally. When a lad has anything the matter with him, which occasions him not to be strong enough for anything working on his feet, it is a common thing to say, ‘Then we must make him a tailor.’ It is a very frequent thing to send weakly children to be tailors, though it is a bad choice, for the lad has little chance of recovering himself in the town shops, and a more open trade would be better for him. Many tailors go for sailors and soldiers, and they are always thought to be good men. I should think there are many tailors in the guards.”

_M. Patissier._ “There is sometimes to be observed on the surface of their skin a psoriform eruption, which by some writers is ascribed to the irritation of the woollen cloth which these artisans are continually handling. Guldner, however, considers that this eruption is produced by their mode of living.”

_Witness._ “I never saw or heard of any peculiar eruption on the skin of the tailors, though they perhaps do not attend sufficiently to personal cleanliness. The dye of cloth is sometimes bad, but I never observed any effects from it.”

_M. Patissier._ “Tailors are apt to prick themselves with their needles, and these wounds often bring on festerings.”

_Witness._ “That is certainly the case; the needle may carry with it some of the dye, and the festering may also be occasioned by the bad state of the body.”

_M. Patissier._ “They almost all have decayed teeth, which are destroyed by the habit of biting their thread with them. It is very rare to see a tailor of advanced age with any front teeth.”

_Witness._ “That is certainly so: they have many of them bad teeth, but I have not noticed any deficiency of the front teeth.”

_M. Patissier._ “Their sight is soon enfeebled by the fine work which they have to execute, often at night by the light of candles. When they work in the evening at open windows, they are liable to be affected by earache, tooth-ache, cold in the head, and sore eyes.”

_Witness._ “That is very correct with respect to the tailors in town, but it is not noticed so much with tailors in the country.”

_M. Patissier._ “The sedentary life which they lead produces heavy, soft flesh, that has no firmness; they generally are thin in body, legs are spare and feeble, and their complexion rather jaundiced.”

_Witness._ “Almost all this will be found to be the effect of habits that have nothing to do with the trade.”

_M. Patissier._ “Tailors ought to walk in the open air every evening when their work will admit of it, rub their limbs well with flannel, abstain from all food difficult of digestion, avoid all excesses, and generally every kind of debauchery.”

_Witness._ “The men when they leave their shop-boards do not begin rubbing their legs, and do not appear to feel the least want of it. The appetites of men working in shops being bad, they do commonly take food that is easy of digestion, as they cannot do with the coarser food. When a tailor comes from the country he will eat a twopenny loaf and take a pint of coffee for breakfast; but after three or four months working in the close shop getting exhausted, then taking beer and then spirits, his appetite fails him, and I have seen him eat only a small slice of bread and butter, and take half a pint of coffee for breakfast, and his appetite generally fails him. The young men on going back to their work in the country, generally recover their appetites unless disease has taken such root that they cannot recover.”

The evidence of Mr. Brownlow was read to Dr. Weber, who has had under his care between 200 and 300 cases of journeymen tailors who were treated by him, as physician to the St. George’s Dispensary, which is much resorted to by those of that class of workmen who reside at the west end of the metropolis. Dr. Weber confirms the general tenor of the evidence as to the medical facts, and especially the general conclusion that the greatest proportion of the diseases to which they are subject arise from circumstances separable from their occupation. The evidence as to the personal condition and habits of the workmen is generally corroborated by several master tailors, who state that the journeyman tailor in the rural district who works singly, or in a well-ventilated apartment, is in person commonly the opposite of the one described by M. Patissier; he is described as being a hard worker, but at times a man who is in most village foot races, and not unfrequently the foremost runner, and in games of foot-ball not the last. The journeymen tailors are found amongst the best men in the life guards. In consequence of a strike of tailors, one dragoon regiment had a troop chiefly enlisted from them, and military men state that they greatly distinguished themselves.

If we thus find the crowding of unventilated places of work injurious—in which persons rarely pass more than 12 out of the 24 hours, being free during the remaining time to breathe what air they please—how much worse should we expect the consequences to be of the same fault in workhouses, hospitals, schools, and prisons, in which individuals often pass both day and night in the same apartments, or if in different apartments, still in the same crowd. Accordingly, since the attention of medical men has been sufficiently directed to the subject, the explanation has become complete of many deplorable cases of general ill health and mortality in such places, attributed at first to deficiency or bad quality of food, or to any cause but the true one,—want of ventilation. A striking illustration of this was afforded in the case of a large school for children during the years 1836 and 1837, as recorded in the second volume of the Poor Law Reports. Such general failure of health and such mortality had occurred among the children as to attract public notice and the animadversions of many medical men and others who visited the schools; but by most the evil was attributed chiefly to faulty nourishment; and it was only after the more complete examination, made by direction of the board, and of which the report is published, as above stated, that the diet was found to be unusually good, but the ventilation very imperfect. Suitable changes were then made; and now, in the same space where 700 children were by illness awakening extensive sympathy, 1100 now enjoy excellent health. The defective state of information on the subject of ventilation is frequently shown in reports which assume that apartments containing given cubic feet of space are all that is requisite for life and health, whereas if a spacious drawing-room be completely closed against the admission of air, an inhabitant confined to it would in time be stifled, whilst, by active ventilation or change of air, men working in connexion with diving-machines live in the space of a helmet, which merely confines the head.

In the majority of instances of the defective ventilation of schools, the pallid countenance and delicate health of the schoolboy, which is commonly laid to the account of over-application to his book, is due simply to the defective construction of the school-room. In the dame schools, and the schools for the labouring classes, the defective ventilation is the most frequent and mischievous.

_Mr. Riddall Wood_, an agent of the Manchester Statistical Society, thus describes some of the crowded schools found in the course of examinations, from house to house, of the condition of the town population in Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Hull, and York:—

“I may mention that in one school where the average attendance was, I think, 36, not above eight children were present. Upon my inquiring of the mistress as to the reason, she stated that the remainder of her scholars had been taken with the measles. I perceived a bed in the school-room, upon which lay a child much disfigured by that complaint. Another child of the mistress had died of the measles. I had reason to believe that the contagion had been communicated originally from that child, because the cases of the scholars all occurred subsequently. In a school in Liverpool, having above 40 scholars in average attendance, I found the number diminished to somewhere about 10. On inquiring into this case, I ascertained that it arose from the prevalence of scarlet fever, and the master made this remark: ‘It is a very strange thing how this fever should have attacked almost all the children coming to my school, whilst none of my neighbours have got it.’ I attributed that to the very crowded state of the school. The room was very low. When the whole of his scholars were in attendance, it must have been excessively crowded. There was no thorough ventilation.

“I found that in many of the schools there were from 20 to (in some cases) nearly 100 scholars crammed into a dirty house or cellar, without air or ventilation, the effluvia from whose breath and clothes was exceedingly offensive, and must, I am sure, be very injurious to the children’s health. In most of these places, too, I have found that the ordinary household occupations have been carried on by the old women.”

Another inquirer states, that in the neighbourhood of Bolton he saw 70 scholars cooped up in a badly ventilated room not 12 feet square.

_Bad ventilation and overcrowding of private houses._

The reports from the great majority of the new unions present evidence of the severe overcrowding of the cottages in the rural districts, and the tenements occupied by the working classes in towns.

From the returns as laid before the public from the commissioners appointed to take the last census, it would appear, however, that the number of houses has more than kept pace with the increase of the population.

From these returns it would appear that the increase of houses even in Scotland has more than kept pace with the increase of population. But this result was so much at variance with the reports and communications from all parts of the country relating to the dwellings of the labouring classes, that if any increase of the proportions of houses to the population had taken place, it must have been in the houses of the middle and higher classes of the community. I learn, however, the fact to be, that whilst in obtaining the previous census, merely the heading was given without any instruction for the officer to fill up the “number of houses” on the occasion of taking the last census, the commissioners ordered each separate occupation under the same roof to be returned as a house. In the Scotch towns, and in many of the English towns where it is the custom to let off as separate tenements the flats or floors under the same roof, there will, unless it be explained, appear to have been, as compared with the numbers in the last census, when the buildings and not its subdivisions were returned, an increase of accommodation, when, in reality, there may only have been an increased subdivision of tenements in consequence of an increased pressure of population. The evidence received from every part of the country, from rural districts as well as from towns, attest that the dwellings of large numbers of the labouring population are overcrowded, and from many districts that the overcrowding has increased.

For example, the report of _Dr. Laurie_ from Greenock states, that such is the crowding of the population in the town that—

“Toward the east or old part of the town the amount of population crowded into a small space can hardly be credited, the rapid increase of the population has so far overstepped the means of accommodation that not the meanest outhouse remains without its tenants.”

_Dr. Walker_, one of the senior surgeons to the Greenock Infirmary, also states that,—

“The rooms are in most instances small, and frequently far too much crowded. It is not unusual to see ten or twelve human beings occupying a room not as many feet square. The lower classes in these districts are grossly filthy in their persons and dwellings; and even many of our operatives who receive good wages are extremely inattentive to cleanliness, both in person and dwelling.”

In a paper on the causes of destitution in Scotland, by _Professor Alison_, read before the Statistical Society of London, it is stated that—

“From a report on the late census, made to the Lord Provost of Glasgow by Mr. Strang, Chamberlain, (19th July, 1841,) it appears that in the most densely peopled part of the town, (Blackfriars’ parish,) the population since 1831 has increased 40 per cent., while the number of inhabited houses has not increased at all; and again, in the Gorbals, ‘there is an increase in the population of 20 per cent, since 1831,’ though no new buildings have been erected, and where the great majority of the houses are of the smallest class.”—(Watt’s Report, p. 11.)

_Dr. Scott Alison_ in his report on Tranent, states,—

“In many houses in and around Tranent, fowls roost on the rafters and on the tops of the bedsteads. The effluvia in these houses are offensive, and must prove very unwholesome. It is scarcely necessary to say that these houses are very filthy. They swarm likewise with fleas. Dogs live in the interior of the lowest houses, and must, of course, be opposed to cleanliness. I have seen horses in two houses in Tranent inhabiting the same apartment with numerous families. One was in Dow’s Bounds. Several of the family were ill of typhus fever, and I remember the horse stood at the back of the bed. In this case the stench was dreadful. In addition to the horse there were fowls, and I think the family was not under ten souls. The father died of typhus on this occasion. The families of most of the labouring people are crowded, in consequence of the smallness of the apartment. Where there are many children, it is common for 10 or 12 people to inhabit one apartment, and for four children to lie in one bed, both in health and sickness. When a collier has few or no children, he sometimes takes single men and women as lodgers.”

_Dr. Keith_ says the—

“Crowding is fearful. I have seen six or eight sleeping in one apartment, with every crevice stopped, and have more than once been nearly suffocated by entering the apartment even after several of them were up and out.”

As the information sought from the medical officers and witnesses in the course of this inquiry was chiefly as to the sanitary condition of the population, they might, naturally be expected only to notice the overcrowding as one of the causes of ill health; and they do frequently notice the fact in that sense; but the overcrowding is also frequently noticed as a cause of extreme demoralization and recklessness, and recklessness, again, as a cause of disease. The following may be given as examples of the statements in respect to overcrowding in the rural districts in England.

_Mr. T. P. J. Grantham_, medical officer of the Sleaford union, in reference to the typhus fever in the family of an agricultural labourer, gives the following instance of the overcrowding which is frequent in the rural districts:—

“The domestic economy in this house was deplorable; eight persons slept in one small ill-ventilated apartment, with scarcely any bed-clothing; the smell arising from want of cleanliness, and the dirty clothes of the children being allowed to accumulate, was most intolerable. Considering the situation of the house, its filthy state, and the vitiated air which must have been respired over and over again, by eight individuals sleeping in one confined apartment, it is not surprising that this family should have been afflicted with fever, and that of a very malignant type; the mother and one child fell victims to it in a very short time.”

_The want of separate apartments, and overcrowding of private dwellings._

The following extract from a communication from the clerk to the Ampthill union, pourtrays the effects of this overcrowding on the morals of the population.

“A large proportion of the cottages in the Union are very miserable places, small and inconvenient, in which it is impossible to keep up even the common decencies of life. I will refer to one instance with which I am well acquainted:—A man, his wife, and family, consisting in all of 11 individuals, resided in a cottage containing only two rooms. The man, his wife, and four children, sometimes five, slept in one of the rooms, and in one bed, some at the foot, others at the top, one a girl above 14, another a boy above 12, the rest younger. The other part of the family slept in one bed in the keeping-room, that is, the room in which their cooking, washing, and eating were performed. How could it be otherwise with this family than that they should be sunk into a most deplorable state of degradation and depravity? This, it may be said, is an extreme case, but there are many similar, and a very great number that make near approaches to it. To pursue a further account of this family: the man is reported to be a good labourer, the cottage he held was recently pulled down, and being unable to procure another, he was forced to come into the workhouse. After being in a short time, they left to try again to get a home, but again failed. The man then absconded, and the family returned to the workhouse. The eldest, a female, has had a bastard child, and another, younger, also a female but grown up, has recently been sentenced to transportation for stealing in a dwelling house. The family, when they came in, were observed to be of grossly filthy habits and of disgusting behaviour; I am glad to say, however, that their general conduct and appearance is very much improved since they have become inmates of the workhouse. I without scruple express my opinion that their degraded moral state is mainly attributable to the wretched way in which they have lived and herded together as previously described. I have been thus particular in my account of this family, knowing it to be a type of many others, and intending it to apply to that part of your letter inquiring respecting the comparative character of the female inmates and children of the two descriptions of cottages in question.”

The _relieving officer_ of the Leighton Buzzard union states that, in Leighton,—

“There are a number of cottages without sleeping-rooms separate from the day-rooms, and frequently three or four families are found occupying the same bed-room, and young men and women promiscuously sleeping in the same apartment.”

_Mr. Blick_, the medical officer of the Bicester union, states that:—

“The residences of the poor in that part of the district are most wretched, the majority consisting of only one room below and one above, in which a family of eight or ten (upon an average, I should say five), live and sleep. In one of these rooms I have witnessed a father, mother, three grown-up sons, a daughter, and a child, lying at the same time with typhus fever: but few of the adjacent residents escaped the infection.”

Mr. _L. O. Fox_, the medical officer of the Romsey union, states:—

“There is not only a great want of cottages, but also of room in those which now stand. In the parish of Mottisfont I have known 14 individuals of one family together in a small room, the mother being in labour at the time, and in the adjoining room seven other persons sleeping, making 21 persons, in a space which should be occupied by six persons only at most. Here are the young woman and young man of 18 or 20 years of age lying alongside of the father and mother, and the latter actually in labour. It will be asked what is the condition of the inmates?—Just such as might be expected.”

_Dr. Gilly_, the canon of Durham, whose appeal on behalf of the border peasantry, and description of the sheds into which they are placed have been cited, observes, upon the crowding of these small places, 24 feet by 16, with 8, 10, or even 12 persons:—